Second inclusive tennis camp at TSG 78

The second inclusive tennis camp took place at TSG 78 Heidelberg (https://www.tsg78-hd.de) from July 29 to August 2, 2024.

After the first inclusive tennis camp in 2023 met with a very positive response, a camp was also to take place in 2024. As the effort involved in 2023 was very considerable, the city of Heidelberg contributed to this year's event and thus made it possible to continue:

Thankfully, a tennis court was once again made available by the TSG 78 tennis department for the entire week from Monday, July 29 to Friday, August 2 from 9 am to 4 pm.

Five young people with disabilities and one child without a disability aged between 14 and 18 took part. The training was conducted by the experienced trainer duo Dr. Frank Kischkel and Evi Kischkel. At least one parent of each participant provided additional helping hands every day to ensure that all the youngsters had the best possible training conditions. We were very lucky with the weather again this year. The first three days were bathed in sunshine, so the somewhat rainy Thursday afternoon didn't really bother us. The youngsters proved to be rainproof. The weather was perfect again on Friday for the final tournament. As the automatic watering system for the courts was faulty this year, the youngsters had to get to work themselves and water our court 4 by hand, which also led to everyone involved, including coaches and parents, cooling off (mostly voluntarily).

As last year, the main aim was to get the youngsters interested in tennis as a sport. In addition, the focus this year was to be on exercise on the court.

The group was made up of participants from the last tennis camp as well as new participants with different sporting and motor skills.

The following learning content was practiced during the week:

the tennis court and the technical terms used in tennis
the grip types for forehand and backhand
the stroke from the lateral position with a focus on the point of impact in front of the body
the stroke movement from the starting position
moving sideways with side-steps from the starting position
running forward from the starting position with the focus on “standing and then hitting”
the serve
counting in tennis (points, games, sets, matches)

On Friday, the last day, the camp ended with a final tournament in which the aim was not to compete against each other. Instead, there were final tasks in which each young person had to successfully apply what they had learned at their own level. Stars could be collected for each successfully completed task, which could be stuck on the certificates at the end.

Finally, all participants played a match together against the coach. The youngsters were allowed to play a service game one after the other. A successful serve was a direct point. Unfortunately, the coach lost ... :-)

In summary, it was another great week this year with committed and great young people who integrated very well into the club life of the tennis department.

Many thanks again to the city of Heidelberg for the financial support and the board of the tennis department for the opportunity to use court 4. Thanks also to the participants: Cormac, Freya, Georg, Jule, Leni and Pauline.

(Created by Dr. Frank Kischkel)

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