Ellise Perks on court at Twin Towns Tennis Centre

The 28-year-old recently took over from the long-serving Darren Nash as coach at Twin Towns Tennis Centre at Tuncurry.

She also runs the coaching at the Old Bar club and this will continue as Ellise ensures she can manage the two. In fact, she's looking forward to the challenge.

"I love working with kids and adults...I love working in sport,'' she said.

"If you're passionate about it, the job grows. Coaching tennis is very rewarding.''

Ellise is originally from Taree but moved to Old Bar with her family when she was young. She now lives in Forster.

Tennis, like all sport, is gradually recovering from the pandemic.

"But currently there's not much tennis going on so it is my job to build it again,'' she said.

Ellise will run Enhanced Tennis at the two centres.

"I coach children and adults from as young as two right through to retirees,'' she said.

"I run group programs, cardio tennis, which is a fitness class for adults, social and competition groups, high performance juniors, adult introduction to tennis programs as well as conducting private lessons.''

She also works with home school groups and conducts tennis in schools as part of the sports curriculum.

"I also run some adaptive or inclusive tennis.''

Ellise finds time to coach the multi-talented Courtney Webeck from Gloucester. Courtney is visually impaired.

"She's the number one in Australia and I coach her twice a week,'' Ellise said.

Courtney will be off to the world championships in Italy in September.

"I'm hoping to get to Italy with her,'' Ellise said.

Ellise will work from Tuncurry two days a week.

"On those days I have other coaches who work for me in Old Bar, which operates six days a week,'' she explained.

"I'm the only coach at Tuncurry at the moment. I'm starting with two-and-a-half days and as I get more numbers and the demand grows I'll open up more days.''

Ellise started playing tennis as a young girl and competed in state-level tournaments as a junior.

"I competed in Forster and Tuncurry all the time as a junior,'' she said.

"I was playing tennis every day, I just loved it and now I've been coaching for 11 years.''

She started coaching as a teenager, helping out at Old Bar. That nurtured the prospect of making a career out of sport. She studied for a Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science, specialising in sports management at Southern Cross and then Charles Sturt universities. In her first year at uni Ellise had to complete a work placement in a sport she was familiar with - naturally she chose tennis.

"I ended up working at Ballina Tennis Club for three years while I was at uni and then worked at various other local clubs in the Mid North Coast,''

When she finished her degree the coaching job became available at Old Bar, although only for six hours a week.

"I was able to build that up to a fulltime business,'' she said.

However, tennis isn't the only sport she has an interest in. Her partner is Blake Polson, captain-coach of the Forster Tuncurry Dolphins rugby union side.

"I spend some time volunteering at the rugby club and Blake helps here with working bees and so on, so that's quite nice,'' Ellise smiled.

Her first major project will be a state tournament hosted by Twin Towns on the June long weekend. It's the first event in a six tournament series.

"We're starting to prepare for that now,'' she said.