Totton & Eling Tennis Centre is celebrating after chemical company INEOS pledged over £5,000 to support their schools tennis outreach programme for 2006.

The programme, which currently provides curriculum-time coaching opportunities to around 2,000 local children each year, encompasses ten infant schools, ten junior schools, three secondary schools and a tertiary college.

Although the Totton & Eling Tennis Centre has only been open for just over a year, the schools' programme has been in development for around a decade.

Delighted development director Christine Wheeler-Osman said: "For many years we persevered delivering a programme to local children at a significant personal cost to ourselves and without a sustainable facility to feed them into.

"We now manage a brand new eight-court floodlit tennis centre in Totton, allowing us to offer local children a fantastic facility."

"You never know where the next Tim Henman will come from," said Peter Clarkson of INEOS.

"I am very pleased that INEOS is able to provide necessary funding to help support the Totton & Eling Centre."