Elena Baltacha was affectionately known as ‘Bally’.

When Bally was travelling around the world competing on the WTA Tennis Tour, she decided that she wanted to make a difference to children’s lives through tennis, and particularly those who were living in very challenging areas.

Bally, we believe was a trail blazer, showing that a professional tennis player competing internationally most of the year could lead a foundation from the front. Whenever she landed at Heathrow or Gatwick airport, she would ask Nino, “what schools are we visiting?”

Bally, with Nino, would load up their white van with rackets, nets and balls and arrive at a school ready to give as many children as possible the chance to play tennis. Bally wanted to work with the children herself, she would feed balls, teach technical skills, and of course, take time to talk to all the children, providing care, love and compassion.

These early days laid the foundation of what the charity is today, the Chairman Nino Severino ensures the whole team honours Bally’s wishes and delivers her legacy in the way she would have wanted.

We would like to share with you some of the comments of parents of children who have travelled through The Elena Baltacha Foundation.

JESSICA’S STORY:

It's difficult to put into words just what a difference joining Elena Baltacha’s Academy of Tennis has made to Jessica's life.

Jessica's journey with the academy began in November 2014, when members of the academy coaching team went into her school and offered a free coaching session for every class in the school.

Since then, Jessica's tennis has grown and grown, and she has made some incredible progress. Not only has she developed as a tennis player, but she has also developed as a person in ways we could not possibly of imagined.

Jessica has found a purpose; she has found fight, and she has certainly found a new level of determination. She no longer sits in the shadow of her elder sister, too afraid to speak her own opinion. She knows what she wants, and she knows how to go about getting it. She is no longer the child that comes home from school and puts herself in front of the telly, only moving when her dinner is ready. She is on that court at 4pm ready to train her hardest. Getting her out of bed in the morning is no longer a struggle. She only must be asked once, and she's up, dressed and on the court at 7.30am. The transformation in her personality in 18 months amazes me.

JOE’S STORY:

Joe was born in September 2006 with chronic asthma and had spent his first Christmas in hospital on a ventilator. For the first few years of Joe’s life, he had to take steroids for his asthma and life wasn’t always easy for him.

The foundation attended Joe’s school, Dale Hall, in May 2013 when Joe was almost 7. Joe attended 3 free sessions and enjoyed it so much that he started attending some tennis sessions on Saturday mornings.

In the early part of 2014, Joe had been taken off his asthma steroids and had lost a massive amount of weight. Now, in July 2016, Joe is no longer classed as asthmatic and has lost almost 3 stone. Playing tennis with EBAT and doing lots more exercise has helped Joe; I have no doubt that he would have been an obese child still on steroids if he hadn’t joined the foundation.

As well as Joe’s health and weight improving, his confidence has soared, and he has made some brilliant friends at the foundation. I recently received Joe’s school report which was excellent, and words like ‘attention to detail’, ‘discipline’, ‘gives 100% every lesson’ and ‘very popular student’ shone out of his school report.

Now, almost at the age of 10, Joe loves life, he loves going to school and his love for the tennis court grows every time he trains.

ELLA’S STORY:

Our daughter Ella aged 9, has been part of the foundation since Summer 2013. She was asked to attend some squad training sessions after the foundation came to their school.

Ella was a shy girl and struggled to maintain focus on specific tasks at school.

Ella attended these sessions, and little did we know at the time how much her and our life was going to change to revolve around Tennis!

She is now a confident, sociable, head strong, determined, and focussed girl and the foundation has been a huge contributor toward these life skills and is an integral part of her daily life. She absolutely adores tennis

From attending 3 training sessions a week and doing the odd competition here and there not caring if she won or lost, she is now training 8 times a week and playing in high level competitions almost every fortnight, including qualifying and competing in National competitions putting the top 16 girls countrywide against each other and is always proud to wear her foundation shirt in these tournaments.

She always enjoys attending tennis training sessions, and it's our opinion this has been due to Nino, Bally, Jamie, and the other foundation coaches along with the influence that Bally had with Ella. Bally is Ella’s sporting idol and has inspired her to want to play in the Olympics and Wimbledon just like Elena. (along with her other Tennis favourites such as Serena Williams, and Ana Ivanovic).

The training from the coaches is always enthusiastic, structured and organised, and they make it enjoyable, disciplined, focused and tailored for each child's ability level.

We have seen a rapid improvement in Ella's ability over the last 3 years, and look forward to many more years of training from the foundation coaches.

From a parent’s point of view the foundation has a huge impact on our daily life as usually every day we are doing something to do with tennis or traveling around the country to various competitions visiting new places.

From a social point of view, we have made some great friends through the foundation who regularly meet up for social events. In short, our lives would be empty without the foundation and Tennis

JASPER’S STORY:

It was Easter 2013 when my son, Jasper, came home with information from the foundation in his book bag. When I read that he had been invited to join the tennis sessions I burst out laughing! As much as I adore all racket sports, it had never occurred to me that there would be the facilities and coaching for Jasper to learn at 5 years old. Besides, we live in Ipswich – home of football, (and I had been trying for quite some time to get Jasper interested in football, but he really wasn’t having any of it).

I was so excited for him to grab this wonderful opportunity, and we were one of the privileged families to have got to know Bally in that last, tragic year of her life. 2013 was a great year for us at the foundation, despite what was to come in 2014.

Jasper had quite low self-esteem when he started at the foundation, and was really struggling to make a firm friendship group at school. As a result, he had an energy that he couldn’t seem to harness, and poor concentration skills, at times. Nino & Bally set the bar high in their expectations, and aspirations for the foundation kids. They trained them hard, but always with a sense that each child can achieve great things if they set their mind & bodies to it and are prepared to work for it. They didn’t just teach Jasper tennis; they gave him a strength in attitude which will always serve him well in life.

Jasper is a changed lad, thanks to the foundation family. He has made such wonderful friends. He has been able to harness the importance of focus and discipline, and his confidence and feeling of self-worth and pride has soared under the guidance of Jamie Friend and all of the wonderful coaches.

There aren’t many hours in a week when Jasper isn’t thinking about tennis. He is never happier than when on a court – whether training or competing, and he knows that if he does lose it is just another opportunity to learn from it and get better.