[New] Maleny Tennis Club serves up some aces for the new year

A NEW junior hinterland competition, club championships, free public court use, improved member registrations and even Pickleball are some of the new initiatives the Maleny Tennis Club aims to introduce to rejuvenate the game across the hinterland.

Committee member Neil Doherty said a new coach and a new energy in the club is helping focus the committee on getting proactive with the MTC’s development following two years of Covid disruptions and encouraging more people to play tennis.

“We’ve created a schedule of events for 2023 starting with our open day on January 29 which is a Queensland wide initiative coinciding with the Australian Open Final … to get more people to come and play tennis.

“Moving forward we are going to do some things we haven’t done in a while, partly due to Covid… having “The clubs we are planning on speaking with are Montville, Witta, Landsborough isolation to create something,” he said. The MTC is also planning to overhaul registrations and encourage more people, particularly those aged 20-50 years old, to play tennis.

“We are doing a new member people can have a full membership and not have to pay for court hire,” charge, though members will still have sole access to half of the courts. opened to the general public

A Sunshine Coast Council grant has recently allowed the club to refurbish their show courts and improve other facilities.

While pickleball is taking the United States and the world by storm, the MTC have been considering how to introduce the sport to locals.

“The other thing we are going to look at potentially introduce down here is pickleball, which is taking the world by storm,” Doherty said.

“I think right now its got the highest increase of participation than any sport in the world, which is insane... we are in the process of looking if we can transform one of the tennis courts to a pickleball court.

“It’s a shorter version of tennis, it’s quicker to play for time poor people, a bit easier and less tiring on the body to play and is a very social game.”