From Fun to Fitness: What Motivates People To Play Tennis?

So from a parent's point of view, tennis is a reasonably safe sport.

Okay, it's non-contact.

So if we compare that to sports like football, rugby, maybe the martial arts, things like this, parents are going to be pretty happy from from that side of things that their their their child is not going to hurt themselves or any sort of long-term concussion damage that can come from from from these activities um now i played footy loved footy great sport um but there is genuine risk of of hurting yourself all right whether that's and you know whether that's concussion whether that's doing a knee etc etc so you know these can be a concern so you've got the safety aspect with from the parents point of view for kids now the other thing is it's unique to tennis is it's really a male and female sport so a lot of times the participation can be around 50 50 so you can have half boys and half girls and that's very powerful if we look at a sport like netball It's obviously predominantly girls.

We can say footy is predominantly boys, although it's obviously grown a lot over the last few years, the girls' football.

But tennis is very much a 50-50 type participation sport.

There's social elements to playing sport.

So often kids are encouraged to sign up for an activity just because the parents want their kids to get involved and meet people, what might be outside of the school.

As a parent myself, I've got two now teenage daughters.

I understand, I guess, the complexities of friendships and the importance of having friends that are outside of their main group at school, to meet other people from, whether it's different backgrounds or just get outside of the circle.

So I think that social part's really important.

And if you're a coach at a local club, a community club, then Most likely you are coaching people in the area.

Okay, maybe they're within a 5K radius of where you coach.

That would be most of our clients at Scarborough Tennis Academy would be within 5Ks.

We do have people who travel probably 15Ks to come, but they are more invested in the sport.

And they are more dedicated playing tournaments and things like that.

So traveling for, I guess, high quality training to them is worth it.

But most kids, especially when they're just getting started, are going to be in that local, even three kilometer to five kilometer radius of where you coach.

So meeting local kids, you're actually meeting potential local friends.

Some kids, of course, go to private schools, not necessarily in the area.

So this gives a different opportunity to meet local kids.

So you've got the social element there.

I've got fitness written down here as a point.

Now, kids don't really think too much about fitness.

They think about getting out there and being active, having fun, but they're not necessarily counting their steps.

um but fitness is is certainly an aspect for let's say the young adults or you know older adults um they're gonna they're gonna take on playing tennis because of the fitness elements um maybe they see it as a as a much better alternative to going to the gym going on the treadmill boring boring and tennis is a bit more stimulating which it is and a good way to both get their steps and their workout but while they're enjoying it so i think kids in the in the fitness side but the parents wise they would like to see their kids active like all parents would want their kids um you know we've got kids obviously i iphones ipads uh i really dominate life these days so to get off of the ipad or iPhone and to get out for an hour or two to play some tennis, play games against other kids.