Tennis in the park

Britain does not have a history in recent years ofproducing top tennis players. One person who would like tosee a change in this is Robby Sudhkeo who runs a tennisclub in a park in the north London area of Haringey. Theother day I made a trip out to the park to meet Robby, Iasked him what he does.
　　ROBBYI'm a tennis manager. I've hired some tennis courts and apavilion from Haringey Council which I'm hoping to turninto a tennis centre and my job is to facilitate tennis andsport in the park.
　　Callum: His job, he says is to facilitate sport in thepark. To facilitate. This means to help to make somethingpossible. His main focus is tennis. Approximately how manypeople come to his courts each week?
　　ROBBYI arrange tennis for children aging from 3 and 4 which wecall toddlers up to adults, intermediate and advanced,private coaching. We have lots of children, 250 childrencome in a week, 100 adults.
　　Callum: In total there are about 350 people come each week,250 children and 100 adults for different levels ofcoaching. I was surprised at how young some of the childrenwere, only three or fours years old – as Robbie said –toddlers. I asked him what sort of training they got.
　　ROBBYWe teach them, rather than tennis strokes we teach them torun, balance, socialise, hand eye coordination exercises,basically that's it for toddlers.
　　Callum: So the toddlers don't get training in playingtennis strokes, but they get to do different activitiesthat involve developing basic skills like running andbalancing, socialising or getting on with other children,and importantly hand- eye coordination. Hand eyecoordination is an important skill in many sports and itmeans your eyes and hand working together, being able tomove your hands in line with what you see, for example tohit a ball in tennis you have to be able to follow the ballwith your eyes then move your hand with the racquet to hitthe ball.
　　After talking to Robby, the coach I then went to talk toone of the parents who regularly brings her children to thetennis in the park.
　　PARENTWell I've got three children doing tennis here, one's fourand a half, one's seven and one's nine and a half.
　　And what do the children, what do they get out of thetennis here? Do they enjoy it or do you have to drag themalong.
　　No they all really look forward to coming every Thursday.
　　It's sort of a team effort with their friends, obviouslyall the ball skills, you know the healthy outdoor activity.
　　Callum: The tennis is a healthy outdoor activity which, shesaid, they really enjoy. And from what I saw they certainlydo. I watched a group of youngsters having a lot of fun onthe courts. I asked one of them why she liked tennis.