{"id":15692,"date":"2016-05-24T17:15:47","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T07:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/?p=15692"},"modified":"2016-05-24T17:15:47","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T07:15:47","slug":"making-a-racquet-thirty-thousand-smiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/news\/2016\/05\/24\/making-a-racquet-thirty-thousand-smiles","title":{"rendered":"Making a racquet: Thirty thousand smiles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty thousand prep school students are now the proud owners of brand new tennis racquets, thanks to Tennis Australia\u2019s <strong>ANZ Tennis Hot Shots<\/strong> program.<\/p>\n<p>ANZ\u2019s support of the program has ensured prep school students registered as part of the School Partnership Program receive a brand new tennis racquet, with an astonishing 30,000 taking up the opportunity over the past 18 months.<\/p>\n<p>ANZ Tennis Hot Shots ambassador and Australian Fed Cup captain <strong>Alicia Molik<\/strong> was joined by ANZ General Manager Greater Melbourne <strong>Belinda McKay<\/strong> to mark the occasion at Mount Waverley Primary School in Victoria today.<\/p>\n<p>Molik is delighted to see the opportunities the program offers to young children around Australia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cANZ has helped us deliver 30,000 racquets to children around the country and you can\u2019t wipe the smiles off the kids\u2019 faces,\u201d Molik said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic to see so many tennis racquets in the hands of young children, which really encourages them to jump on the tennis court for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe School Partnership Program is accessible to any primary school in Australia and gives kids the opportunity to play tennis as part of their curriculum. Tennis is a fantastic sport for kids \u2013 and their families \u2013 to play as part of an active and healthy lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>ANZ Head of Marketing Australia <strong>Carolyn Bendall<\/strong> said: &#8220;ANZ is committed to supporting the growth of tennis at all levels &#8211; from our association with ANZ Tennis Hot Shots through to our sponsorship of the Australian Open.\u00a0 It is great to see how this is playing out in local communities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>ANZ Tennis Hot Shots fast facts: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ANZ Tennis Hot Shots is one of Australia\u2019s most popular sports participation programs for the five to 12 year old age group<\/li>\n<li>A record <strong>196,834<\/strong> children played ANZ Tennis Hot Shots nationwide in 2014\/2015. This is a <strong>41 per cent<\/strong> increase on 2013\/2014<\/li>\n<li>ANZ Tennis Hot Shots is popular with both genders &#8211; <strong>46% girls <\/strong>and<strong> 54% boys <\/strong>participated in the program in 2014\/2015<\/li>\n<li>Currently more than <strong>80,700<\/strong> primary students play ANZ Tennis Hot Shots as part of their health and physical education curriculum<\/li>\n<li>There are <strong>1400 <\/strong>Tennis Australia partner schools in Australia<\/li>\n<li>There are <strong>481<\/strong> Tennis Australia partner schools in <strong>Victoria<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>784<\/strong> students from Mount Waverley Primary School are registered to the ANZ Tennis Hot Shots program.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For further information on the ANZ Tennis Hot Shots Program please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/hotshots.tennis.com.au\">hotshots.tennis.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty thousand prep school students are now the proud owners of brand new tennis racquets, thanks to Tennis Australia\u2019s ANZ Tennis Hot Shots program. ANZ\u2019s support of the program has ensured prep school students registered as part of the School Partnership Program receive a brand new tennis racquet, with an astonishing 30,000 taking up the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5914,"featured_media":15694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}