Jack Hartnett a future tennis leader in NSW

The future of tennis in Australia’s sportiest town is looking bright, with great things emerging on and off the court.

Narrabri Tennis’ head coach and director, Shane Murphy, is currently quite encouraged with the young team of coaches that he has currently working with him.

One of those young coaches is Jack Hartnett, who earlier this year in May travelled to Toowoomba to complete his ‘Community Coaching Certificate’, which allows him to be able to assist Murphy with coaching within the Hot Shots program, which is specifically designed to teach and develop tennis skills and matchplay for children of all abilities between the ages of 3 to 12 years.

The 15-year-old Narrabri boy took another significant step on his tennis journey last month when he applied for and was accepted into the Tennis NSW ‘Future Leaders’ Program.

That program is designed for 14-16-year-old athletes to investigate and learn about developing participation, volunteering and the administration and/or marketing within their chosen sport, and with the goal of helping the youngsters make a difference in learning and progressing outside of the game, particularly encouraging retention of youth within the game.

The program is designed to promote ‘giving back’ to the game, whether it be within coaching, administration/committee participation or simply volunteering within hosting local events/promotions.

Jack is one of 25 young people in NSW who have been selected to take part in the program, and he will now complete six months of both on-line webinars and on-site theory and practical sessions.

Jack will travel to Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre next month to attend a workshop with Tennis NSW officials, to further his studies within the Future Leaders Program.

Murphy said he was very keen to mentor and encourage Jack within this selected program, and is excited to see local kids achieve great things, while at the same time giving back to the local community.

Not only is Jack excelling off the court, he is also impressing on it.

He recently qualified for and took part at North West Tennis’ Regional Matchplay Series 2023 Champion of Champions event, which was held in Narrabri, where he placed third in the 16-years boys division.