Tennis star Lorraine Ristic has been serving aces all her life but she might just have another one up her sleeve.

That’s because her 15-year-old daughter Regi is starting to make a big racket in a sport that her mum has enjoyed for close on 50 years.

“She’s got my determination but she’s got better skills than I had at that age,” said Lorraine. “She’s got the mental skills and fighting qualities, and she’s quick and got good hands.

“I think the young players of today are better than they were in my day because there is much more opportunity.

“Her game is much better developed than mine was at her age.”

That is high praise indeed from someone who played in qualifiers for Wimbledon, has won pretty much every national senior over-35 title going and is still a high profile coach producing quality players at Painswick Tennis Club.

Regi is one of a group of young players thriving under Lorraine’s tutelage at Painswick and if dedication counts for anything the Bournside School pupil has every chance of making a living out of tennis, just like her mum.

“She loves the sport,” says Lorraine. “She plays for the county under-18 team and recently competed in a Tennis Europe event in Serbia which was a great experience.

“She saw what the standard was like and now knows what she has to do to compete with these players.

“She competed in an under-14 event in Bulgaria a couple of years ago and that was a brilliant experience too.

“She was beaten by a solid clay courter in Bulgaria and in Serbia she lost to the number three seed, a girl who was much bigger physically than her.

“Regi is a fabulous fighter but she’s small and she’s struggling with some of these big hitters. But it’s all a learning curve. The downside is that she might get tired of tennis but she isn’t showing any signs of that yet.”

So how far does mum think Regi can go in tennis?

“Her ambition is to be the best she can,” said Lorraine. “She hopes to be a professional player in her 20s but I want her to enjoy it. She’s got a chance of getting a sports scholarship to go to college in America which would be a great opportunity.

“She’d come back at 21-22 and then if all goes to plan she could turn professional then.”

Not that it’s all tennis and nothing else for Regi. She plays hockey at school – “Bournside is very supportive of Regi,” said Lorraine – and she is also a keen dancer.

“She’s a member of Danceworks in Cheltenham,” said Lorraine. “She’s very good at ballet and it’s good for her, it helps her flexibility.”

Speaking to Lorraine, it’s soon obvious that she’d far rather talk about Regi than her own achievements.

When pressed, the 54-year-old said that she “still loves playing and competing”. Last year she was part of the Great Britain team which finished seventh in the over-50 world championships in Helsinki and the year before the team came even closer to a medal when they finished fourth in France.

They lost out to Italy in the play-off after losing to the US in the semi-final.

This year she may not play so much “so she can concentrate on Regi”. If that is the case there will be a lot of tennis players up and down the country breathing a sigh of relief as Lorraine has collected trophies on the senior over-35 and veterans’ circuit as regularly as John McEnroe used to incur the wrath of match officials back in the 70s and 80s.

“I’ve done better as a senior and a veteran,” said Lorraine. “I remember playing Jana Novotna in an ITF event in Croatia when I was 23. She was so good and could do anything she wanted with the ball – so talented. I knew it was time to give up trying to play at that level.”

Lorraine is a member of the East Gloucestershire Club in Cheltenham but Painswick Tennis Club, which has eight hard courts, is where she spends most of her time these days.

“It’s a small, beautiful club,” she said. “It’s a very relaxed club and it has a history of producing good players and there is a nucleus of good players there now.

“Isabella Nunez, who is a great friend of Regi’s, has just moved to Spain where she is virtually full-time.

“Alicia Barnett has a world ranking and is off to Thailand having finished another training phase with Gary King at Painswick, who is doing excellent work with her. I taught her to play but now act as the technical consultant as and when necessary.

“And 10-year-old Hannah Watkins is ranked in the top 15-20 for her age group nationally.”

Throw in Regi and it makes for a very decent quartet of players who are, or have been, nurtured by Lorraine. Such has been Lorraine’s passion for tennis that it was always odds-on that Regi would take up the sport.

So at what age did Regi start showing an interest in tennis?

“She’d be about two-and-a-half,” chuckled Lorraine. “I’d be at East Glos and she’d be fighting me to get my racket.

“She’d be stood there in her pretty dress and she’d be dragging the racket on the ground and trying to hit the balls, she loved hitting balls.”

Lorraine doesn’t regret introducing Regi to tennis for one moment.

“I’m so proud she wanted to play my sport,” she said.