Jenny Frow, a passionate member of Bewdley Tennis Club who has dedicated the best part of 50 years to the club and its members, has won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the LTA Tennis Awards.
Jenny Frow has been playing tennis at Bewdley since moving to the area in the late 1970s, and has taken an active role in the running of the club ever since.
Frow has been a committee member, Chairman and Club President during her time at the club and still regularly spends time at the club and with its members despite stepping back from organisational roles.
The 79-year-old was announced as the winner by HRH The Duchess of Gloucester at a live-streamed awards ceremony presented by LTA President David Rawlinson and hosted by the LTA’s Head of Men’s Tennis Leon Smith.
“It is quite surreal, to be honest,” she said. “It's been a little bit of a roller coaster because I had no idea that they nominated me from the club in the first place.
“It's lovely to feel that they did it and I still am not quite believing that I actually won the thing.
“Nobody does it because they want recognition. We all do our bit because we want to support the club, but I did appreciate it very much.”
The LTA Tennis Awards are now in their seventh year and celebrate the achievements and contributions of outstanding tennis volunteers, coaches, officials, venues and players across the country.
Frow was hand-picked as one of 17 national winners recognised at the awards ceremony last Thursday, which honoured individuals involved in tennis at grassroots, county, regional and national level.
Nominations were drawn from over 25,000 volunteers, nearly 5,000 coaches and 1,000 officials, 22,000 schools, nearly 3,000 clubs and over 9,000 LTA approved tournaments, with Frow recognised for her constant work in transforming the club.
Among the projects she introduced was ‘Term Time Tennis’, which boosted the number of women who were members at the club by providing an opportunity for women to play together while their kids were at school, as well as securing more funding for the club.
For Frow, Term Time Tennis is her proudest achievement across her almost 50 years with the club as she revealed the idea came on a dog walk.
She added: “A friend and I came up with it one day when walking our dogs and realizing that the women's teams were getting a year older every year.
“We came up with this idea of easy access for mature women because it's very difficult for someone who's never played or hasn't played for a long time to walk into a club environment as an adult.
“It just took off, we did it with our coach, they would give an hour’s coaching on a Monday morning, they'd have a cup of tea and a chat and then they all go back on court for an hour with two of our good playing members who had previously been coaches.
“It was very much subsidised, we provided racquets, we leafleted everywhere we could think of, we did really go to town for those first couple of years and it worked.”
The quality and quantity of the nominations demonstrate outstanding work that has been done in tennis throughout the last year and David Rawlinson, LTA President, said: “The LTA Tennis Awards are a real celebration of the people that make our sport thrive.
“They acknowledge the achievements made by outstanding volunteers, coaches, officials, venues and players, who are all vital in helping us to grow the game.
“The outstanding contributions the nominees have made to the sport and to their communities has been tremendously uplifting and I would like to thank them for their fantastic work.”
To find out more information about the LTA Tennis Awards or for information on how to play, coach, volunteer or officiate in tennis, head to https://www.lta.org.uk/
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