{"id":11271,"date":"2016-05-31T09:40:48","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T01:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=11271"},"modified":"2016-05-31T09:40:48","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T01:40:48","slug":"making-a-racquet-thirty-thousand-smiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2016\/05\/31\/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>&nbsp;<\/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>&nbsp;<\/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.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Molik is delighted to see the opportunities the program offers to young children around Australia.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/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>&nbsp;<\/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>&nbsp;<\/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>&nbsp;<\/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>&nbsp;<\/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>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For further information on the ANZ Tennis Hot Shots Program please visit hotshots.tennis.com.au.<\/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. &nbsp; 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5812,"featured_media":11272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}