Re­cent­ly, the sport­ing world put a spin on ten­nis ball tech­nol­o­gy, re­plac­ing it with new balls to make the game more user-friend­ly. Na­tion­al Co­or­di­na­tor Ju­nior De­vel­op­ment and Lev­el II coach at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion, Cur­tis Gon­za­les chats with our re­porter Kae­lanne Jor­dan on the re­cent im­prove­ments in ten­nis and dis­cuss­es the health and fit­ness ben­e­fits of this sport.

Q. What ex­act­ly is the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy re­gard­ing the balls and how does this im­prove the game it­self?

A.The ITF's Ten­nis Play and Stay cam­paign cen­tres on the slo­gan "serve, ral­ly and score" and the rec­om­men­da­tion that starter play­ers play the game from the first les­son. The cam­paign is sup­port­ed by the top ITF na­tions, pro­fes­sion­al play­ers in­clud­ing Roger Fed­er­er, Rafael Nadal and Jus­tine Henin, as well as the equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers. The cam­paign aims to re­tain more starter chil­dren and adults in the sport by im­prov­ing the way adults in which coach­es world­wide in­tro­duce ten­nis to starter play­ers, en­sur­ing their first ex­pe­ri­ence is both pos­i­tive and en­joy­able. By us­ing the slow­er balls, it is much eas­i­er for kids to adapt to the game, than us­ing that of a reg­u­lar ten­nis ball i.e.

The RED BALL is 75% slow­er than the reg­u­lar ten­nis ball giv­ing the be­gin­ner ten­nis play­er more time and a bounce that is suit­able at their age and is rec­om­mend for kids 5 to 8 years old. The OR­ANGE BALL is 50% slow­er than a reg­u­lar ten­nis ball and it's the next stage of de­vel­op­ment and is rec­om­mend­ed for kids 8 to 10 years old and starter adults The GREEN BALL is 25% slow­er than a reg­u­lar ten­nis ball and it's the last stage of de­vel­op­ment be­fore us­ing the reg­u­lar ten­nis balls and is rec­om­mend­ed for kids 9 to 10 years old and starter adults. The size of the court is ad­just­ed to suite the size of the type of the ball be­ing used. That is the red ball is played on a 11m court, the or­ange ball on a 18m court and the green on the full size court.The rac­quets are al­so short­er in length from 19" to 27". The use of the Play and Stay red, or­ange and green balls def­i­nite­ly make it a lot lots eas­i­er for kids to serve, ral­ly and score rather than us­ing the reg­u­lar balls on a full size court as was the case pre­vi­ous­ly. It helps kids de­vel­op tech­nique, tech­ni­cal and tac­ti­cal vari­a­tions much soon­er with these balls.

Q. What are some of the fit­ness ben­e­fits of ten­nis?

A.Ten­nis is easy, fun and healthy. Ten­nis can re­duce the risk of heart dis­ease and oth­er car­dio­vas­cu­lar risk fac­tors, such as hy­per­ten­sion. Re­search shows that ten­nis play­ers are more fit than ac­tive non-ten­nis play­ers. Play­ing ten­nis can al­so help you lose weight. Phys­i­cal­ly, play­ing ten­nis de­vel­ops your: aer­o­bic fit­ness, speed, leg strength, gross and fine mo­tor con­trol, agili­ty, dy­nam­ic bal­ance, co­or­di­na­tion and flex­i­bil­i­ty. Psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, play­ing ten­nis de­vel­ops your abil­i­ties to:man­age mis­takes and ad­ver­si­ty, solve prob­lems, plan strate­gi­cal­ly, work as part of a team, win and lose gra­cious­ly, ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Ten­nis re­quires the flex­i­bil­i­ty, en­durance, mus­cle strength and quick re­flex­es of squash, but it can be played at a wider range of fit­ness lev­els and tem­pos. Ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion, 30 min­utes of ten­nis burns more calo­ries than a sta­tion­ary bike, a row­ing ma­chine or time on the golf course. The run­ning, sprint­ing, serv­ing and vol­leys low­er the risk of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease. The stren­u­ous and con­stant move­ment builds mus­cle and keeps you flex­i­ble.

Q. What is car­dio ten­nis?

A.Car­dio Ten­nis is a new, fun group ac­tiv­i­ty fea­tur­ing drills to give play­ers of all abil­i­ties an ul­ti­mate, high-en­er­gy work­out. Taught by a teach­ing pro­fes­sion­al, Car­dio Ten­nis in­cludes a warm-up, car­dio work­out, and cool down phas­es. If you are look­ing for a great new way to get in shape and to burn calo­ries, you must try Car­dio Ten­nis. There are pro­grams and drills geared for ex­ist­ing play­ers to get a great car­dio work­out while im­prov­ing skill.

Q. From a coach's per­spec­tive, ex­plain the game of ten­nis and what it en­tails.

A.Ten­nis is both and team and in­di­vid­ual sport be­tween two (sin­gles) or four (dou­bles) play­ers. It can be played on dif­fer­ent sur­faces (hard courts and clay courts are most com­mon in the Caribbean). It can be played by all ages and is a sport for life. It can be played by any­one who can hold a rac­quet in­clud­ing those who are phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged and those in wheel­chairs. The rules of the mod­ern game now called 'Ten­nis' (lawn ten­nis as it was pre­vi­ous­ly called) have not changed much since the 1890s. Ten­nis is en­joyed by mil­lions of recre­ation­al play­ers is a huge­ly pop­u­lar spec­ta­tor sport. It is an Olympic sport and is gov­erned by the In­ter­na­tion­al Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion (ITF). For more in­for­ma­tion vis­it http://www.ten­nis­playand­stay.com/site/ Read more on oth­er net sports in this month's FREE in to­day's Guardian news­pa­pers