Stay and Play Tennis

Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, Pete Sampras… these are the names I grew up with as Dad and Bro were playing tennis during those times these guys were popular. Jane and Dawn went to watch the ATP Malaysia Open last weekend. Lucky them! Well, Noel and I had a taste of ATP too! What a coincidence!


The Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association did a promotion in schools the last few months and invited children to their introductory Junior Program. The programme is called Stay and Play Tennis. Noel got this notice a couple of months back and it has been on our notice board (a.k.a. side of cupboard) since. Not too sure why he wanted to go, but being one who believes that one should never say no to a child's interest, I went along with his excitement.




2nd October rolled along and despite it being a super busy weekend, we still went ahead with the programme. I thought the placed looked a bit runned down.

A little warm up to start the day. One thing good about Noel is he doesn't think twice about going to the first row or going infront in any activity. You can see him here, right next to the coach (Noel is in blue cap).

Group photo (I think it was for the press). The Ang Mo in the middle is the Junior Programme Director who came from KL (he's actually from Finland). The guy in blue is from West - lead coach. The other 3 guys are full time coaches with STLA (from Philippines).

Holding on to his borrowed racket proudly. They had new rackets to play around with on that day. Fresh out from the box / plastic. Too bad they didn't give each person free! Yes, yes, asking too much for the RM10 fees I had to pay! HoHoHo!

More games to loosen up the muscles I reckon. Noel kept running and running, I was starting to get worried! Haha!

Giving a try on the racket / ball.

This is our fav - he looks (and feels) very pro doing this serve. He's doing the serve - something like what Mikhail Youzhny did in his game as mentioned by Jane. Jane's captured Youzhny's serve beautifully!

Can you spot Noel? Can you also notice the number of volunteers on the court? I thought this was very good as they could give a lot of attention to the kids.

The programme ended at 12 noon! 4 hours of sun created this happy, satisfied, sun-beaten Mr. Blackie.

So will I send him for tennis lesson in the steps of his grandfather and uncle? Hmm... I'm not too sure if I want the STLA slogan to be a reality....

I will bring him to the pool this Saturday instead! Let's see if he can catch the swimming bug!