Host Walking Tennis

“ Henleaze Tennis Club first heard about Walking Tennis at a Bristol Tennis Clubs network meeting in the summer of 2019. The membership secretary attended a session run by Peter Coniglio at Coombe Dingle and recognised that this programme could be of interest to members and former members of Henleaze and especially to those who had been forced to discontinue membership because of injury.  

The programme runs in the morning as this is the most popular time for those interested and at Henleaze this needed to be on a Wednesday as the other weekday mornings were already busy with daytime club sessions. Peter agreed to run the coached sessions at 9.15 for one hour and assisted in the production of 1000 leaflets which the club distributed through members and friends. These were put in libraries, doctors' surgeries, physiotherapist clinics and other local notice boards.  

By the end of September, the group had grown to a regular size of 8-10 and players were asking to be allowed to play for longer so we created a new trial Walking Tennis Membership at £15 for 6 months which entitles the members to play on Wednesday mornings after the coached session. Within the month the club had 10 new members!  
This has been a real success for the club. Walking Tennis adds considerably to our ‘offer’. We are proud now to have a programme that enables those who have had injuries or operations to take a slow approach to return to the full game. Amongst the Walking Tennis members, there are some who we expect to gain in confidence and begin to think about playing the full game. Similarly, in the regular club, there are those who, like me, are delighted to see that we won’t have to hang up our racquets as early as we previously expected. I now expect to play into my 90s!  

Walking Tennis is a great version of the game and has been a very positive addition to the programme at the Henleaze Tennis club. ”