Creating Women Leaders in Australian Tennis
Tennis Australia has won the silver award in the latest round of ITF commendations for efforts made by national associations under the Advantage All banner to make tennis truly gender-balanced. Chris Bowers looks at the association’s ‘Women Leaders in Tennis’ and ‘Learn 2 Lead’ programs.
Samantha is 15 and is passionate about tennis. She already coaches tennis classes and group matchplay sessions at her local tennis school. Yet it took the ‘Learn 2 Lead’ initiative from her national tennis association to convince her she had a role in the sport.
“I was concerned that, because I wasn’t a top junior, I wouldn’t be able to provide any meaningful insights,” she says. ‘I also feared my contributions would not be as valuable as those of girls who have played to a higher level.”
Fortunately, Samantha’s enthusiasm and leadership potential were spotted by a leader at her local tennis club in Queanbeyan, close to Australia’s capital Canberra, who made her aware of Tennis Australia’s Learn 2 Lead program, an initiative which aims to nurture the next generation of leaders by equipping young women aged 14-18 with essential life and leadership skills.
The program, launched last year, was co-designed with young women and is delivered over eight weeks by youth leadership experts. Topics covered during the face-to-face and online sessions include building connections with other participants in their state and local tennis community, confidence and resilience and public speaking. Participants see leadership in action through Q&A sessions with guest speakers from the tennis and broader community.
Samantha knew she was on the right track when, at the end of one of her coaching sessions, a girl she had coached approached her and said, “I want to be a coach like you when I’m older.”
“Learn 2 Lead helped me realise that I can still love, be passionate about, and stay involved in tennis even if I may not have a career as a player at a competitive level,” she adds. “I hope to engage more girls in our community to play the sport I love by getting them to pick up a racquet and experience tennis in a judgement-free environment.”
Leigh Tour-Mills for Tennis Australia's Women Leaders in Tennis Initiative
The Learn 2 Lead scheme is one of two that form part of TA’s community leadership strategy, which has been recognised by the ITF Advantage All awards scheme. The other is ‘Women Leaders in Tennis’, from which Leigh Tour-Mills from Newcastle, a coastal city north of Sydney, has benefited. She used what she learned on WLIT to stage a series of ‘tennis nights’ for women and girls at her club, and has seen over 280 come to them, from which at least 35% have become members.
The tennis nights cater for women and girls (12 years +) of all standards with a variety of ways to play tennis on offer, including Cardio Tennis, Hot Shots Tennis and other complementary formats. In groups of 10, players rotate between courts and formats, with different activities offered at each event. Food boxes and small gift bags are provided at the end of the evening with players staying to socialise. Local sponsors are also encouraged to support the events.
“To hear the positive feedback from players after these events has been fantastic and very rewarding,” Leigh says. “The biggest impact has been the connections formed between players, which has strengthened our local community.”
“Volunteers at our local tennis clubs and venues are the heartbeat of the sport in Australia,” says Andrea Buckeridge, TA’s Head of Women and Girls. “We have an ageing population and ageing volunteers, so it’s crucial we have a stream of people stepping up to lead local tennis communities. And in doing so, it’s important women of all ages take up these roles and have an equal voice, so that what’s on offer meets the needs of women and girls. That way, our two programs don’t just develop current and prospective leaders, they retain them.”
By the time 15-year-old Samantha reaches the peak of her adult career, the need for efforts to redress imbalances between men and women in tennis will hopefully be long past, and the idea of a female chief executive of Tennis Australia will be nothing unusual. Samantha may even be the first woman to lead the southern hemisphere’s most prominent national tennis association – it’s an idea she admits she’s entertaining, and it would be a neat twist if the first woman CEO of TA were to be someone who discovered her confidence under a programme designed to address gender imbalances in the 2020s.