Eastern’s first co-ed summer tennis camp of the year will conclude Thursday at 5 p.m. The camp began on June 25 at 1 p.m., and hosted 37 kids from grades five through 12.

Camp director and Eastern’s men’s and women’s head coach of tennis, John Blackburn, believes that the biggest focus of the camp is trying to improve the technique of the kids attending.

“Tennis is a game that is a lot of fun, there is definitely a pattern that good players use in the way they play. Fine tuning the mechanics of the game and trying to make it fun are the two things that we are trying to emphasize,” Blackburn said. “The game is always going to be fun, but if you learn to swing better and play with good mechanics, it’s going to be even more fun and you will be even more successful.”

Camp would begin in the mornings with breakfast at 8 a.m., and concluded with lights out at 10:30 p.m.

Some campers stayed on campus while others commuted from home. Campers spent time practicing on the tennis courts as well as time in the classroom studying films of themselves in order to critique and hone their skills.

The camp counselors included Blackburn and a few of his Eastern players.

“We are trying to help the kids out with their strokes. Their skill ability ranges from beginners to advanced players, but even the advanced players need some help with their strokes and some fine-tuning. The beginners started from scratch, we are teaching them some good strokes. We are just trying to help them all out,” camp counselor Anthony Puleo said.

The kids came to camp to have fun, make new friends and improve their game. Blackburn hopes that all of these things will have been accomplished by the end of camp.

“I wanted to get better and do better at high school tennis. I’m working on my backhands; it’s become a lot more solid,” camper David Armerus said. “The coaches helped me to get a little bit lower and get more spin on the ball.”

The campers come to Eastern’s camp in order to receive coaching and instruction that they are unable to receive at the high school level.

“I wanted to improve and I wanted to learn some strategies, I learned how to improve my shots and I learned a lot of techniques,” camper Allison Burnworth said.

Sajeel Qureshi, the assistant tennis coach, displays the proper grip for an overhead volley to a group of campers during Monday’s morning session of the coed tennis camp at Darling Courts.

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