Stepping onto the clay courts of Royal Avenue Tennis Centre in Victoria's bayside suburb of Sandringham, it finally hit me: I was going into a Cardio Tennis session. And I had never played tennis before.
Zilch, zippo, nada… nothing.
And no, I didn’t count the chaotic rallies during PE class at primary school.
I didn’t have time to be nervous, as Tim McKimm, Master Coach and Director of the facility, greeted me quickly on arrival and handed me a racquet that felt foreign in my hands.
“Have fun,” were his parting words as he sent me off to Court 6, where Jimi the coach waited, along with three other participants.
After making introductions and determining our levels of tennis experience (there was a man in his 30s who also had no prior experience, an older woman who played tennis in her youth, and another woman who’d been partaking in Cardio Tennis for two months), Jimi handed us all a tennis ball and instructed us to bounce the ball in the air. He said it was a good way to practice control and coordination.
Next up, we were divided into pairs for a casual rally. There was zero pressure to maintain the rallies – this was more of a warm-up.
Our goal was only to try and hit over the net and aim for the box our partner was standing in. During this time, Jimi came over to show me how best to hold my racquet to hit a forehand, demonstrating the ideal stance to generate enough power to hit the ball.
I was shown how to hit a double-handed backhand, which I preferred over a forehand. Between shots, Jimi called out to me to face forward with feet pointing towards the net, rather than side on, so that I could easily change between forehand and backhands, depending on which way the ball barrelled towards me.
Once we’d all sufficiently warmed up and shucked off our jumpers, it was time to up the ante.
Jimi cranked up the music from the courtside portable speaker and swapped partners around to equally disperse the experience shared across the four of us. Then, the real rallies began.
READ: How Cardio Tennis is bringing people together
The cardio element came in the form of short runs to touch the fence behind us and return to the court whenever we missed a shot. Which, for me, meant a lot of short runs back and forth. While we ran to the fence, our partner covered the court.
I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face each time I connected my racquet with the ball and watched it ping across the court, clearing the net.
Even when I missed the shot, a quick laugh and dash to the fence and back was enough to mentally reset and hit the next one.
Tennis balls were flying in all directions, as were Jimi’s words of encouragement and quickfire adjustments to improve our game – both of which were incredibly welcome.
In what felt like no time at all, we finished up our rally to reconvene at the baseline to practise our serves. While the two more experienced participants promptly began firing overhand serves, Jimi came over to myself and my fellow novice to demonstrate step-by-step instructions on how to execute a successful serve.
From the proper grip (a continental grip) to swing movement (“you should finish with your wrist in front of you almost like you’re checking the time”), breaking down the technique resulted in at least three serves from me that cleared the net. A huge success in my books!
Between the tennis technique tweaks and cardio, a sense of camaraderie was steadily building. “What’s your favourite food?” or “What team sports have you played?” were pleasant icebreakers that fuelled conversation between the group, so that by the end we were all laughing together as we missed flying balls or applauded each other when one of us made a particularly lethal shot.
What felt all too soon, our hour was up and my first Cardio Tennis session as at an end.
The verdict
As someone who’s never picked up a racquet before, I found Cardio Tennis was a fantastic gateway to the sport and very beginner friendly. Between learning new skills, meeting new people and enjoying the music, the fitness element feels almost effortless. You're too busy having so much fun that it’s easy to forget you’re exercising at all.
The way the program is set up means it’s not about point scoring or even perfect technique; it’s about movement, learning and – of course – having fun.