As Tim Henman continues his preparations for Wimbledon, people in his home county of Oxfordshire are playing tennis in ever increasing numbers.

This is highlighted by the vast number of people who have visited the recently opened White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre in Abingdon.

The centre was only opened in April but has already welcomed 180,000 visitors through its doors to enjoy the wide range of facilities available.

"It's staggering really," said the centre's contract manager, Paul Nangle. "We're getting almost 3,000 people a day coming through the doors and we've had 80,000 use the swimming pool in just two months.

"The number of people playing tennis here is around 8,000 a month and it's already attracting very good standard players from a wide area."

The centre, which contains an Olympic-sized 25m eight-lane swimming pool and children's pool, an extra large sports hall and state-of-the-art gym, cost £10m to build with Vale of White Horse District Council pumping more than £6m into the project, and other money coming from the National Lottery, Lawn Tennis Association and a variety of other organisations.

The Oxfordshire LTA, who now have their headquarters on the site, put in £200,000.

Oxfordshire LTA president John Harrop recently admitted: "I am staggered at the interest shown by everyone in such a small space of time."

In conjunction with the Oxfordshire LTA, the centre provides six indoor and ten outdoor courts for use by members, paying customers and the Oxfordshire LTA.

And since it opened eight weeks ago, the centre has witnessed more than 9,000 pay-and-play tennis players.

In addition to these impressive pay and play figures, the centre has developed an out-reach programme to attract talented youngsters from the surrounding area.

The programme currently features 750 children and runs in conjunction with the LTA Mini Tennis scheme directly from the centre.

"The courts are in almost constant use," Nangle said. "Sundays is busy during the day and the peak times in the evenings are quite busy. The ladies' recreational use, with our special ladies' coffee mornings, are very popular, we have after-school clubs and Saturday mornings are especially busy for children's tennis."

He added: "We're doing a lot of beginners' courses and work with schools, under the guidance of our tennis development officer and tennis coach.

"We provide clay, artificial grass and acrylic courts. The feedback from the players on all the surfaces has been very positive."

Almost everybody who plays at the White Horse centre comments positively about the lighting inside the indoor tennis hall and the floor because of its grip.

They also like the fact that, with its impressive modern design and decorative art work, it has much more the feel of a private club than a council-run sports centre.

The White Horse is the 50th indoor pay and play facility opened as part of the LTA's Indoor Tennis Initiative (ITI) programme - a registered charity which aims to provide publicly accessible indoor tennis facilities for players of all abilities - and funded with the help of the British Tennis Foundation.

LTA director of development Roger Draper said: "We are delighted that this new indoor centre has been such a resounding success and hope it will continue to encourage many more players in the Oxfordshire area to take up the sport.

"The ITI programme is an excellent example of the LTA working with local authorities to ensure there is accessibility for players of all abilities to play indoors.

"This is an important part of the LTA's policy goal of 'More Players Better Players' and, who knows, in years to come, some of the best players in the country might have played their tennis in Abingdon."

One young girl who plays regularly at the centre is about to break into the British deaf squad, and there are several highly promising kids coming through the ranks.

In addition to the interest from people locally, the Great Britain national deaf team, along with a number of promising wheelchair players, have used the centre as a training base. One of the wheelechair players travels down each time from Birmingham.

The centre will stage the finals of the National Wheelchair Tennis Championships in November and other big events confirmed are England v Sweden juniors in October and the English Schools Championships the same month.

Earlier this month more than 3,000 children aged between eight and 16 took part in ten different sports at the centre in the Thames Valley Youth Games.

As with previous events, this sorely tested the centre's car parking capacity.

"We have 250 car parking spaces and at peak times they do get filled," Nangle said. "We've been having talks with county planners to alleviate that."

The irony is that officials at the centre insisted before it opened that 250 would not be enough, but the council didn't listen.

But then everyone has been surprised by the interest shown in one of the best sports facilities in the country.

Its gym already has around 3,000 members, aerobics classes are over-subscribed and even the regular Saturday night youth session in the gym - and it's surely far better for kids to be doing something than sitting in front of the telly - have gone down a bomb.

Indeed, the centre is now looking to expand the building to cope with the numbers wanting to use the gym.