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Hugo has plans to engage juniors at the Warkworth Tennis and Squash Club by getting them involved at a more competitive level.
New Warkworth Tennis and Squash Club coach Hugo Santos believes that providing competitive playing opportunities is the key to retaining juniors at the club.Hugo, who started coaching in Warkworth last month, says many young players around Warkworth begin training at North Harbour because of the limited opportunities locally.
To address this, he hopes to start a high performance squad that will compete in both inter-club and Tennis New Zealand tournaments. The squad will be limited to six players and training will be more intense.
“You can’t build the required muscle memory to get better with less than three hours practice a week,” Hugo says.
“Getting juniors to compete in tournaments is the secret to keeping them interested in the game and at the club. Those who just train socially will often not continue to play into adulthood.”
Hugo will apply the ‘six situations of the game’ method to all of his junior trainings at the club, which teaches players how to deal with attacking and defensive plays.
He has also introduced Hot Shots, a programme that uses different sized nets and balls with different compressions, depending on age and skill.
