Last Friday was Sports Hive’s first DSActive tennis session at the Old Actonia Ground, Ealing. The aim of the session is to use tennis to inspire people with Down’s syndrome to play tennis, whatever their ability or background and to provide opportunities for all.

The Coach Dominic said:

“It was great to see the players learning new physical skills in a fun, relaxed and social environment with the Sports Hive and DSActive coaches.
There are many benefits to sports participation, especially in terms of health. Cardiovascular fitness can improve along with muscle strengthening and coordination.”

A parent of one of the players said:

“The coach Dominic was superb and my son really enjoyed the tennis sessions. Dominic adapted and tailored the sessions for all players. These tennis sessions give my son an opportunity to play tennis with new players and my son has started to form friendships with some of the players. Throughout the sessions, all the players had smiles on their faces.”

The coaches did a warm-up activity to get the players ready for exercise. The warm-up activity was called body parts where each player stretched different body parts such as legs, ankles, arms, wrist and etc. This activity lasted 6 minutes. Then, the coach gave each player a tennis racket and was asked to introduce themselves to the whole group.

Each player demonstrated a tennis move such as bouncing the ball with their hand, balancing the ball on their racket or running around the court with a racket. Then, the coach spilt the players up into pairs and started to play a floor tennis activity. The aim of the activity was to keep a tennis rally going with your partner.

If you would like to find out more about how to get involved in playing tennis, please click here.