Linda Ferrando, former world number 36, has returned to live in Sardinia «At the Mino Piu Academy I’m like home. And we have a boom in registrations “
SASSARI. Linda Ferrando’s happy island passes through the sea of Castelsardo, where she has chosen to live, and the group of “her” children to whom she teaches the art of tennis in the fields of the Sassari Academy of maestro Mino Piu. A return to origins that, after four months, only gave her satisfactions and dragged the club to experience a doubling of 2021: first with the fields, which have become from two to four (one of which is covered), then with the numbers. “School enrollments, aged 6 to 16, have gone from 45 to 67, plus 70 adults who attend our club as students or users” says satisfied Carlo Piu, who runs the business with his father. a partnership that has now exceeded 30 years of activity.
Linda Ferrando, former number 1 in Italy in the nineties and number 36 in the world ranking, in the summer had made a heartfelt choice by returning to the city where she had taken her first tennis steps to work as the technical director of the club together with what had been his first teacher: “A choice that I am happy to have made and that is giving me so much satisfaction – he says in one of his rare moments of pause -: the club is beautiful and has a lot of potential, with four fields you work well and thanks to the one covered, the school’s activity continues apace. I also knew Sardinia, indeed I have never abandoned it and you live well ». With his arrival, the Academy has put the turbo not only at the level of members but also as an activity, for example tournaments and internships for adults, and there is no shortage of projects for the spring. “Our main activity, however, remains the tennis school and I am really very satisfied with how we are working with all the technical staff and how our little students are behaving – explains Linda Ferrando – I’m talking about those who have just started and after two months are already able to make exchanges, to others who were already “run in” and are improving quickly. The raw material is good and above all they listen to our advice, it may seem normal but instead it is not obvious. The interaction with the parents is also very good, I often stop and chat with them. Having a covered field is fundamental, we manage to organize training sessions well by dividing ourselves into groups even in bad days and in times of pandemic is fundamental ».
The immediate projects remain linked to the principles on which the club is founded: «creating a tennis school for children, introducing them to tennis – concludes Linda Ferrando -, organizing many activities for them. In perspective there may also be thinking about a competitive sector, trying to mix the two things, but it is still early and our little students have priority ».