NETS celebrates five years of developing children through tennis

The Nadal Education and Tennis School, working in collaboration with the Rural Development Trust, is now five years old, during which time it has been continually working towards reaching out to underprivileged and rural youth, through the sport of tennis, to aid in their holistic development.

Five years have passed since the inception of the Nadal Education & Tennis School (NETS) in 2010, supported by the Rafa Nadal Foundation in partnership with the Rural Development Trust (RDT). In these five years, NETS has played a pivotal role to dispel the popular belief that tennis is a sport reserved for the well-to-do sections of society, taking the sport to underprivileged, rural youth, while ensuring that tennis is utilised to further their overall growth and development.

The idea behind establishing NETS has been to develop the sport of tennis in Anantapur, a district in rural Andhra Pradesh in India. NETS continues to bring tennis to the underprivileged youth of Anantapur, while ensuring their holistic development through their computer education and English classes, along with a focus on overall health and well-being.

A total of 170 children participated in the five year anniversary celebrations of NETS, which began a week earlier on 10 October 2015 with a tennis coaching camp for RDT employees and volunteers, conducted by the senior tennis students themselves. On 14 October, all the NETS children participated in a poster presentation competition, where they worked on creating posters dedicated to the sport of tennis and their favourite tennis stars, which for most, not surprisingly, turned out to be Rafael Nadal, a constant source of inspiration to these children.

The end of the celebrations’ week culminated in an evening of fun and excitement with entertaining games involving the entire support crew of NETS, along with 10 RDT volunteers, to celebrate a sense of achievement with the children. This was followed by a prize draw for the winners of the poster presentation competition and the fun games.

The week has been very exciting for NETS, coupled with lot of hard work. Xisco Mercadal, the NETS coordinator, was a happy figure, commenting: “We used the celebrations as a means to give the children a much needed break from the regular routine of school and tennis, which has helped renew their commitment and energy towards the programme. But most importantly, it has brought everyone together to celebrate the various achievements of NETS, by students and coaches, over the past five years.”