12 November 2020 | Tennis West

The Busselton Tennis Club was a hive of activity on Tuesday when more than 190 students hit the courts for the highly anticipated 2020 Red Ball Gala.

Nineteen teams made up of eight of more players from years 3 and 4 students from Vasse PS, Geographe PS, Dunsborough PS and Busselton PS came together for the interschool round robin event, with the match play format aimed at ensuring the delivery of a fun and social team tennis event.

With students proudly hitting the courts as school representatives, the day encouraged participation for all abilities with a focus on skill acquisition and sportsmanship, which aims to establish the foundations for continued participation and enjoyment.

The Red Ball Gala event was offered to all schools in the region and was coordinated by Tennis West Regional South Schools Development Coordinator Carina McMillen, who works closely with schools and teachers from a number of Tennis Australia Partner Schools across the South West to deliver tennis programs in line with the schools curriculum.

“The Red Ball Gala is a great way to get kids from a number of schools all together on court for a mass participation event,”

“It’s a fantastic opportunity for the kids to put the skills they’ve learnt at school into match play situations whilst competing against kids of similar ability,’

“The kids love the opportunity to represent their school and it’s available to all students irrespective of their ability,”

“The Red Ball Gala is a fantastic culmination event for the students who have been doing tennis during school PE lessons,” said McMillen. 

Understanding the health and wellbeing benefits afforded by physical activity and in particular those from tennis, local Busselton coach Ben McLaughlin (Tennis Central) was involved in the day’s activities with the aim of helping to transition players to participate at club level. Given the 2018 Mayo Clinic report* findings that tennis players live some 9.7 years longer than participants of other sports and activities, the key driver is in helping to transition junior players along the tennis pathway with the overarching goal of long term enjoyment and participation.

Benefits of Tennis Australia’s Partner School Program includes a host of
resources and including; access to National Curriculum aligned tennis programs, tennis equipment packs, professional learning for teachers and free racquets for pre-primary students.

The winner of the Busselton event now goes on to compete at the State Red Ball Championships to be held late in Term 4 at the State Tennis Centre in Perth.

Watch here to see all the action and fun on GWN 7 News https://bit.ly/35p2h0O

*Mayo
Clinic Study findings: https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/

Tennis Australia’s School Partnership Program aims to encourage more children to pick up a racquet and learn tennis as part of their health and physical education curriculum. Thanks to Tennis Australia’s partnership with ANZ, more than 170,000 tennis racquets have been delivered to
pre- primary school students since January 2015.

To find out more about Tennis Australia’s School Partnership Program, head to: https://www.tennis.com.au/schools