Junior tennis programme

We have a friendly, expert team of coaches and coaching assistants who together have many years of experience coaching children of all ages.
 
There are around 250 young people in the junior programme at the moment, with room for plenty more.

To get started, contact the tennis office. But if you'd like to know more, please read on...

The beauty of coming here for your tennis is:

• All courses take place indoors (so you don’t have to rely on the weather – you can turn up each week knowing your tennis won’t be cancelled).
• ​There are age-appropriate courses for everyone from the age of two and a half to 17. 
• You can join at any age, and you get to play with others of a similar age and ability.
•  The emphasis initially is on fun and developing a range of skills.
• You play on small courts with shorter rackets and softer balls until you are old enough to cope with the standard game. You learn to play all the shots and rally in a way that simply wouldn’t be possible for a child on a full-size court with full-size rackets and standard yellow tennis balls.
• As you get older and better, you move onto larger courts and faster balls until, once you’re ready after the age of ten, you move onto full-size courts and normal yellow balls.
• If you are keen to start competing, we organise tournaments, both internal and open, at the centre, and you can also travel elsewhere. For those who want to make progress competitively, there is a proper junior circuit with age-group ratings from Mini Tennis Orange stage onwards and ranking systems from the age of 10.

In addition, all juniors get unlimited free use of the outdoor courts while paying for our courses by direct debit – so if you love tennis, this really is the place to come.

There is a Christmas party in the tennis hall in December with food, games, music, inflatables and so on. And in addition to the 10-week courses that take place during term time, there are also holiday courses. 

Graduates from our junior programme have gone on to become club and county players, coaches and even full-time players on the international circuit. A number have won tennis scholarships to American universities. Two of our current coaching staff learned their tennis here.

You move through the following stages in our programme, building on your skills all the time and playing competitively when you are ready:

​Tennis Tots (two and a half to school age)
Various daytime sessions are available. The emphasis is on fun activities that give children all the skills they need to enjoy tennis.

Mini Tennis Red (age 4 to 8)
Sessions are available every weekday at 4 pm, on Wednesday and Thursday at 5 pm and on Saturday/Sunday at 10 am. In addition to continuing to work on all the skills and shots, there are Mini Tennis Rally Awards, fun competitions and teams. Four courts can be laid out on a standard tennis court.

​Mini Tennis Orange (age 8 to 9)
​Sessions are available every weekday from 5 to 6. The game is played on a three-quarter size court.

​Mini Tennis Green (age 9 to 10)
Sessions are available at various times. The game is played on a full-size court with green balls that are 25% slower than the standard yellow balls.

12U, 14U, 16U, 18U Green and Yellow Ball (age 10 and over)
Sessions are available at various times. Players move onto the yellow ball when ready. Those who come to tennis later tend to start with the green ball to facilitate skill development and rallies and make competition more enjoyable initially.

Safeguarding
The coaching team take great care to provide a safe, encouraging environment. Nevertheless, if you should ever have any safeguarding concerns, you can report them to the LTA here.

Here is the timetable of activities:

Taunton Tennis Club
Blackbrook Pavilion, Blackbrook Way, Taunton TA1 2RW
[email protected]