The Opening serve of the Championship

Every year, in the week before Wimbledon, Nottingham stages the Nottingham Samsung Mens Tennis Open - and big name stars arrive to battle their way to the final.

This year Greg Rusedski was competing and hoping to win the title.

After a short coach trip to the Nottingham Tennis Centre, the children stopped at Court Number One to watch the opening game of the Championship. Silence all round was the order of the day, and so the children sat with mouths sealed to watch the action.

They saw the players warm up and practice, before the match began proper.

Once the 5th game of the first set finsihed, we moved onto the first activity - Schools Challenge.

Watch a highlight from the first few games of the Samsung Nottingham Open Championship 2002 :

Selecting children to take part in the events proved tricky, but we sent our team off to have a good time. Our mascot this year was Dennis the Menace, and he helped the children in all the events.

Mr. Widdowson took part in the teachers Vs Mascots football match and played a great game of football, amazing the children.

It's all about balance and control

Lunch was spent sat on the grass with the sun shining down on us, and then we headed for the mini tennis training.

Balancing, control and coordination were all needed for the events (and even the teachers had a go at it - see the picture !)

It was fun, but hard work. The last event was the hardest - Aerobics on the hottest day of the year !!! What a scorcher, and it tired out the children ready for the coach journey back to school.