Unique all-abilities tennis program set to be a smash hit in Gerringong

Jones Co Tennis director and coach Daniel Jones is bringing Adaptive Tennis to the South Coast. Developed by City Community Tennis, the program aims to get players of all ages and levels of ability to learn and play tennis.

This includes catering for people in a wheelchair, with blind and low vision, who are deaf/hard of hearing and who have an intellectual disability. Specialised equipment - including unique tennis balls and a mini net - are used during the sessions.

"I used to coach tennis up in Sydney a lot and this Adaptive Tennis program has been championed by my old tennis club, City Community Tennis. We were doing a lot of these sessions and what we noticed is that a lot people from the Illawarra - and even further down south - would come up for these programs," Jones told the Mercury.

"When I moved down here and started coaching, I though that 'we need to start doing this because, one, people shouldn't have to travel all the way to Sydney just to get on a tennis court. And I also noticed a lot of the surfaces - like the hard courts for example - were getting resurfaced with synthetic grass.

"For anyone trying to get into wheelchair tennis, a synthetic court won't do it for them, because the grip on the wheels is a bit too much, plus they get sand on their hands. So we wanted to make sure that we kept some of these hard-court surfaces in play (like at Gerringong)."

Jones added that tennis was a great sport for inclusivity.

"We want to be able to get everyone on court, and to have the facilities and the knowledge to give them the access to sports that we take for granted sometimes," he said.

"I've always been a supporter of community spaces and being equal for everyone. I do often find with community centres that one group of people get a hold of it and it becomes almost like an exclusive feeling club.

"So my big push is that community spaces for everyone in the community. Everyone should have equal services that we'd all expect every day."

As part of the Adaptive Tennis program coming to the South Coast, Gerringong Tennis Club will host an open day this Saturday from 11am.

The whole community is invited to attend the event.

"People can drop in at any time through it, we'll be there for three hours," Jones said.

"We'll be running (session) examples of wheelchair, blind and low vision, hard of hearing, intellectual ability and adaptive stand-up. We'll have some members from City Community Tennis, Tennis Australia and Tennis NSW down there supporting this."