Dungog's tennis courts have gotten a workout over the school holidays as tennis camps start up again.
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This comes with a push to get younger people back into the sport, Dungog Tennis Club's secretary Lisa Stewart said.
"The aim is to encourage juniors to play tennis which hopefully will flow along and then we get young adults playing tennis and people coming into the club," she said.
Dungog Tennis Club helped facilitate the camps with private coach Chris Herden running them.
Mr Herden was ranked in the top ten players in NSW as a junior tennis player before playing for universities in America, rubbing shoulders with players who would continue to play on the professional circuit.
He hopes to give children who are interested in playing at a more competitive level the opportunity to take their skills to that level.
"There's been a lull in coaching and a system where kids can learn how to play and then progress through to competitions and matches and play tournaments if they want to and then play high performance tennis," Mr Herden said.
"There hasn't been that here for a long time so the courts have been a little bit idle. We approached the club about starting up programs and they were happy to do that."
Taking place across Wednesday, April 17 and Thursday, April 18, he said that the camp drew in people of all ages and abilities.
"We had a cross section of ages and abilities. I think there was about 18 children so it's a start," Mr Herden said.
"It's such a good facility, you've got six courts, an open space, it's fantastic."
The camp was sponsored by Weet-Bix and was a part of the Australian Open, meaning that the kids got a number of medals and prizes as well as a more specialised program for the younger kids called Tennis Hot Shots.
However the highlight for Mr Herden was seeing the kids who had only just begun their journey with tennis.
"Seeing a lot of the beginners hit the ball over the net and have fun mixing with the other kids, they all got on really well," he said.
"There's also some kids here who can rally and play very well so we're hoping to take them to the next level."
With a successful launch of his camps, Mr Herden hopes to hold them every school holiday.
"We would like to use this centre as a regional hub for recreational tennis for people of all ages and abilities as well as for kids who have a high performance pathway, who want to pursue high performance tennis," he said
"The next thing is a lot of these kids want to join after school programs."
