SJ Racket Sports (SJRS) are delighted with the continued growth in racket sports in our community and are proud to share with you some of our recent highlights. Weekly SJRS sessions take place on 5 days of every week with over 150 Gentlemen and Boys participating each week. These weekly sessions are supplemented by SJRS Camps, SJRS Festival of Rackets, SJRS club matches and socials all taking place at excellent racket sport facilities.
Coaching and Development
Since the beginning of 2019, every SJRS session is now coach led. This has helped develop both our adults and youth players and resulted in significantly greater engagement from our Rackets members. As a direct result of this coaching, a number of our Boys have progressed to participating in regional tournaments and representing their school teams particularly in table tennis.
Squash camp and Summer Camps
The inaugural Squash Camp took place in February half term with 39 boys taking part. Almost every single boy played squash for the first time at this camp and really enjoyed the experience and coaching. Squash England attended the camp and we now have a strong relationship with them. Squash for boys has been introduced as a new event at this year’s SJRS Festival of Rackets.
Following the success of previous years, SJRS Tennis camp and Table Tennis will be held again this summer. Tennis camp will be held from 22-26 July and Table Tennis on 5-6 August. Registration details will follow after Ramadhan.
SJRS Festival of Rackets 2019
Following last year’s phenomenal success, SJRS are proud to present the SJRS Championships 2019, a Festival of Rackets on 6-7 July 2019 at the Royal Masonic School, the same venue as last year. Registration for this event will be launched this coming Easter Weekend. Please register promptly as places are limited.
The festival is more than just a tournament, it’s a family event with a picnic in the park, fanzone, exhibition matches and taster events. Players of all ages and abilities are encouraged to participate. We have introduced a special seniors category for each racket sport.
SJRS Boys Night
We launched SJRS Boys night at the beginning of 2019. An evening dedicated for our boys to participate in all four racket sports. Following a great start at Aldenham, where the boys enjoyed badminton and table tennis coaching, we have now moved to the impressive facilities of David Lloyd in Northwood for Boys tennis and will aim to introduce some squash sessions too prior to the festival. Each SJRS Boys session is fully subscribed within minutes of the registration form being released.
SJRS Gentlemen sports
SJRS Gentlemen sessions continue to grow in strength and benefitting from excellent facilities and coaching. Badminton twice a week is fully subscribed, Tennis at David Lloyd has attracted a number of new and returning players to the sport and table tennis has enjoyed a resurgence following the move to Harefield and the introduction of the Robot machine.
Seniors
SJRS are delighted to be collaborating with SJ seniors and were proud to donate a table tennis table to SJ Seniors who held their first table tennis tournament today. The Festival of Rackets has dedicated categories for our community seniors to fit in with our vision to accommodate entire families of all ages and abilities.
Team matches
As SJRS gets more established and players develop, we are starting to play matches as a club against other teams in all four racket sports for Gentlemen and Boys giving our members the opportunity and pride to represent SJRS. A number of matches are being organised for the next few months.
Our first team match took place on Monday 15 April where SJRS Tennis competed against an outstanding Middlesex league side David Lloyd Northwood in what was a landmark match for SJRS.
Padel Tennis
As we continue to grow racket sports in our community, we are looking to further expand our offering. Padel Tennis is the fastest growing racket sport in the world, a mixture of tennis and squash, an incredibly social doubles game suitable for all ages. We are going to trial this offering to our members.
SJRS Ladies
We continue to collaborate with the SJRS Ladies team who offer all rackets sports to our Ladies and Girls and are working on joined up affiliation with national bodies in badminton and squash. Following last year’s successful joint event, The SJRS Marhaba Festival of Rackets 2019 takes place on 20-21 July at the Aldenham School. Registration for this will be launched at the same time as the Gentlemen and Boys events.
Team
None of this would be possible without the excellent and dedicated SJRS team and all the other volunteers behind the scenes who are responsible for making this happen. Their passion to develop racket sports in our community and commitment throughout the year will Inshallah be rewarded and I am grateful for all their efforts.
We are also grateful to the SJ Board for all their continued support and the essential infrastructure provided.
Abbasali Merali
SJRS Chairman
