It’s important that kids participate in sports and discover what they truly love. Thus, we thought we would give a beginner’s guide to tennis for kids in this article as we are now entering junior stage mini tennis.
Beginner’s Guide to Tennis for Kids
What is Mini Tennis?
Mini tennis is a tennis curriculum designed for children ages 6 to 10-11. It’s a method of introducing tennis to young children, who can then go to full-size courts using regular tennis equipment after starting out with smaller rackets, courts, and nets.
What Age Does Mini Tennis Start?
Children can play mini tennis from the age of 3 to 10. At 11, they can go to junior tennis with regular yellow balls.
As of right now, the age groups are determined by the calendar year, so your kids can be playing in a different age group for games than their school pals. Coaches, however, will place kids in age/ability groups if they are merely training and playing for enjoyment.
What Stages Are There in Mini Tennis?
Mini Red
Mini Red then continues up to the age of 6 or 8. A performance session is offered by certain clubs and academies to their more advanced students who might be playing on a team, while other clubs divide their classes into beginning and improver levels.
Mini Orange
For kids 8 to 9 years old, there is mini orange. Even now, they typically use 23–25-inch rackets when playing. Standard size tennis balls have a 50% slower weight than their counterparts. A complete tennis-sized court, or a somewhat smaller version of it, is used for play on mini orange courts. A small drop of 80 cm is made to the center of the full-size net. The focus of this level is mostly on skill development, improving scoring comprehension, and learning ball placement strategy.
Mini Green
Children ages 9 to 10 advance to full-sized courts with the standard height net and then to mini green level. The suggested racket size for them is 25–26 inches, and they use green balls, which are still 25% slower than regular balls.
After age 11, kids transition to junior tennis, which is played on a full-size court with a net, racket, ball, and racket just how it was when we were kids.
Playing in Tournaments
There are also local team tournaments all year round. Many children start off playing in these events to get them used to match play. They also take some of the pressure off because they play as a team rather than individually. For FLTA, our tournaments often take place at in Tay Ho area (Hanoi), but school tournaments are more official, so we accommodate our junior players if necessary.
If after reading this, you feel you need some assistance getting your training plan structured to suit your needs of tennis in Hanoi, then reach out to our team!
