CAIRO: The Palm Aroussy Tennis Academy held its third National Junior Tennis Tournament over the weekend at the Palm Hills Club as well as the Play and Stay Festival as part of the official launch of Tennis 10s. Play and Stay is a fairly new program that was introduced to Egypt last year by Hassan El-Aroussy, director of the Academy and Egypt Play and Stay project director. In the past decade, the global tennis community noticed that many people were entering the game, but did not stay long and moved on to other sports. Play and Stay was developed in an effort to attract more people to the sport as well as retain those players by starting them young and making it fun. The program, which is backed by the International Tennis Federation, centers on the concept of “serve, rally and score,” where beginners actually play the game from the first lesson to make their experience both positive and enjoyable. The program uses three balls with varying court sizes to help aide in the development of players, who can start as young as four years old. The red ball is a sponge and low compression ball used on an 11-meter court for young starters. The second is an orange ball, which is 50 percent slower than a normal ball and used on an 18-meter court. The final one before progressing to a normal tennis ball is green, 25 percent slower than normal and used on a full court. The program runs on the basis that using various balls and courts in conjunction with different racket sizes helps players with their skill and attitude towards the game. Also part of the Play and Stay program is Tennis 10s, which is the integration of the red, orange and green balls for all players under 10 years old in practice as well as competition. “As a former player, current coach and parent, I went looking for new programs in the tennis world and came across Play and Stay and after that I went to trainings and conferences,” said El-Aroussy. After being officially trained, El-Aroussy was determined to implement the program in Egypt as a way to help the players here. El-Aroussy has certified over 100 coaches in Egypt and hopes to certify all coaches in Egypt by 2012. “The program helps the players on a broad level and increases the number of players as well as helping them train and play better to their ability,” said Rashiqa Abu Shousha, board member of the Egyptian Tennis Federation (ETF). She explained that the program boosts the confidence of the kids and provides a sense of motivation to improve and stick with the game. “We want to upgrade our Egyptian players from the national level to the international level and this program will help do that,” Shousha added. Play and Stay has roughly 500 players, and is being introduced in many sporting clubs around the country. “Egypt currently has approximately 5,000 tennis players throughout the country but we hope to double that in the next five years,” said Aroussy. He also added that in the next 10 years, they hope to increase that number to 30,000 players. The number one factor to make the program successful, says El-Aroussy, is educating the coaches so that they can train the players correctly from the start. After the coaches, El-Aroussy sees educating the parents as well as the players as the next important issue. He continually holds lectures for parents to help them better understand the program and what they are involving their kids in. El-Aroussy has seen an improvement on the skill level of the players through the Play and Stay program as well as an increase in the retention rate. “The kids are happier in the sport now because it seems more fun and easier for them so we are no longer losing them to the other common sports such as soccer,” he added. As a result of the efforts to improve the tennis community in Egypt, the country has been chosen to host the 17th annual International Tennis Federation worldwide coaching conference in November 2011 in Port Ghalib.
