While winning a premiership in her earlier years was a highlight, it has been working with the club’s junior members that has kept her involved with the sport.

A player turned coach has Exell mentoring Haven’s upcoming tennis superstars.

There was a risk at one point that the club would be without juniors for a season – but Exell was able to rebuild the momentum. 

After rounding up a coach, the junior player numbers grew to 30 and now the tennis club has 90 children on its books.

“We had the risk of not having any juniors one year but when it got moving, it started to build up bit by bit,” she said. 

Initially Exell worked with grassroots players to give them the basic skills they required to get started.

She said once the players skills had improved, she would send them to coaches to improve their game. 

However, the burst of popularity in the junior program meant Exell would need to coach the children correctly from the beginning. 

“We ended up with a lot of kids wanting to play and we needed to teach them correctly from the start,” she said. “So the club got a grant for me to do a level one coaching course.”

Exell said the course opened her eyes to how the game could be taught and helped introduce the Hotshots program at Haven.

“It was things like learning how to serve. To help them get that skill, we get them to throw a vortex because if they can do that then they can serve,” she said. 

“They broke it down to playing with toys, which opened my eyes to how to break the game down and have fun with it as well.” 

Exell said the program was about ensuring children had fun with tennis – rather than just standing in a line and doing drills. 

She said the Hotshots children had many opportunities available to them. 

“We are lucky that our Hotshots kids were able to go to Melbourne for the Australian Open and be involved,” she said. 

“It shows they don’t have to be superstars to play tennis.” 

But Exell says all players are superstars in her eyes. 

“I was asked how many champions I coached, but to me I think they’re all champions,” she said. 

“They do not have to be a good tennis player to play. You can play from as early as seven years old if you have the skills or up to 80 years old if you have good knees.” 

Exell said tennis was “such a good game” and she loved igniting a passion for the sport among young people.

“I am a sport fanatic and I love children playing sport – especially grassroots children who aren’t affiliated with tennis,” she said.