Tennis

This tradition remains today and hundreds of our pupils enjoy playing, whether it be during afternoon games lessons, school clubs, inter-school fixtures or tournaments. A range of school tennis competitions is organised annually to allow boys and girls from P6 to Senior 6 an opportunity to challenge for a trophy and earn points for their House in the process.

Tennis is an activity our pupils are exposed to in PE from Kindergarten. Basic ball and racquet skills are taught and this progresses to short tennis before moving onto full-court. We ensure our pupils have the correct equipment to play with, which includes suitably sized racquets and appropriate balls (red, orange, green or yellow) to match their experience and ability.

After-school tennis clubs are offered to our pupils from P6 and pupils have the opportunity to come along for coaching to develop their skills or simply to play games with their friends. We often offer a Saturday morning club for Prep and Senior School pupils when fixtures are not taking place. Girls begin playing tennis at afternoon Games lessons from P6 and boys from S2. All these opportunities mean that our tennis programme at TGA is a vibrant one that grows each year.

Substantial investment has been made in our tennis programme recently. We have a newly-laid, multi-purpose astroturf pitch at school which is transformed into three tennis courts during the summer term. In addition, we have a further 21 superb courts at our Top and Lower Windyedge sites.

In 2012, we celebrated the centenary of the J W Hardy Trophy which is presented to the winner of the Senior Boys’ Tennis Championship. This trophy was donated by J W Hardy ‘in remembrance of the connection of his five sons with the School’. This was quite a feat over 100 years ago as the family emigrated from Scotland to Valparaiso, Chile and the boys were sent back to Glasgow for their education.