Tennis Participation Bounced Even Higher In 2021, Up 27.9% Since 2019

Final yr noticed yet one more “web” enhance in individuals taking part in tennis. The Physical Activity Council (PAC) has simply served up their 2021 report on sports, fitness, and recreation participation in the U.S. And for a second yr in a row, the outcomes had been smashing for tennis. Over 22.6 million individuals raised a racket final yr, which was an upward bounce of about 1,000,000 gamers or a 4.5% enhance from 2020. Talking of creating a racket, a report from the Tennis Industry Association additionally revealed one other optimistic swing in racket gross sales with 22.7% extra rackets being offered for a 46.2% enhance in gross sales {dollars} in 2021 in comparison with the yr earlier than. Assuming that one individual didn’t purchase 3.4 million rackets, this enhance in racket gross sales was one other signal that increasingly more individuals are actually taking part in tennis.

That, after all, is nice information if you’re within the tennis trade and unhealthy information in case you occur to be a tennis ball. However it additionally could also be very optimistic from a public well being standpoint. Tennis cannot solely be quite a lot of enjoyable (and quite a lot of pun), it could assist individuals of all ages keep extra bodily lively and socially and intellectually engaged as properly. This is able to be particularly vital for the youth of America as a result of didn’t Whitney Houston sing one thing in regards to the youngsters being our future? Dan Faber, Chief Govt of the US Tennis Affiliation (USTA) Basis, described how tennis can “maintain youngsters lively and engaged. Near 14 million youth stay in poverty. Near 75% of crimes are dedicated by highschool dropouts. There may be additionally the childhood weight problems problem. These are issues that the USTA Basis can concentrate on.”

Final July, I already reported for Forbes how tennis had efficiently courted round 4 million new gamers (for a 22% enhance) through the first yr of the pandemic. With social distancing in place in 2020, tennis provided everybody a solution to get train and social interplay whereas remaining not less than one Federer (as a result of Roger Federer is just a little over six toes tall) away from one another. Apparently, that’s how many individuals noticed 2020, so to talk. And such momentum appeared to hold into 2021. Over the 2 yr interval from 2019 by means of 2021, tennis has skilled a 27.9% increase in participation, including round 4.9 million gamers. That’s a powerful return for a sport that not too way back appeared to be on the downswing within the U.S.

Whereas the extreme acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its yucky spike proteins could have contributed to this current spike in tennis participation, don’t overlook the persevering with efforts of the USTA Basis and the tennis neighborhood basically to interrupt down obstacles to taking part in. Regardless of what the game can supply, through the years one stereotype has been weighing tennis down like a sweater vest made out of sandbags: the notion has been that tennis is by some means solely a sport for the elites, the rich. Certain, tennis tools and courtroom time can typically appear expensive, too expensive for individuals who don’t have extra sources. Nonetheless, it doesn’t must be that means. The USTA Basis has been making an attempt to vary that picture. Faber defined that his “cost is to ensure that underrepresented communities have extra entry to tennis.”

One the backbones of accelerating tennis participation has been the Nationwide Junior Tennis and Studying (NJTL) community. As described by the USTA Foundation website, this community “options greater than 250 nonprofit youth improvement organizations that supply free or low-cost tennis and training programming to over 160,000 under-resourced youth annually.” Regardless of the pandemic affecting many issues throughout society together with closing parks and recreation fields in some unspecified time in the future and making rest room paper at occasions ridiculously tough to search out, “no NJTL chapters closed their doorways because the starting of the pandemic and 35 new chapter associates had been added [in 2021],” based on Faber.

And one in all these new NJTL chapters added was the primary one to be utterly youth-led. William Solar, now a university scholar at Johns Hopkins College, based the Dublin Tennis Outreach Program (Dublin TOP) as a highschool scholar and has since handed the reins on to Isaac Frank, at present a senior in Excessive Faculty. Within the following Dublin TOP video, Solar described this system:

After seeing how one other highschool didn’t have the sources for present and would-be tennis gamers, Solar “needed to show tennis to youngsters and provides again,” in his phrases. “We received an preliminary donation of kit, tennis rackets and crimson foam balls. There have been 10 or so constant college students. I actually received to know quite a lot of the children.” That finally led him to forming Dublin TOP as a 501(c) group, all as a highschool scholar.

For those who assume that the NJTL chapters are merely about instructing tennis and discovering the following Serena Williams, you’d be flawed, flawed because the 2011 music “Friday.” The NJTIL chapters have included common instructional and preparation for all times applications into their tennis instruction as properly. Though this community has helped develop gamers corresponding to Washington, D.C. native Robin Montgomery, who in 2021 turned the primary participant in 17 years to win each the junior ladies’ singles and doubles titles on the U.S. Open, it’s been extra about getting ready youth for his or her subsequent steps in life.

Talking of subsequent steps, one other initiative of the USTA Basis is about connecting youngsters nearer to the world of upper training. Throughout 2021 by way of the USTA’s Collegiate Group Hub applications, the USTA Basis partnered numerous NJTL chapters with 12 totally different universities corresponding to Michigan State College, College of Arizona, College of South Carolina, College of Alabama, and St. Thomas College. This allowed the NJTL applications to make use of the colleges’ services for his or her programming. In flip, youth may get earlier publicity to collegiate settings and school college students, school, and coaches in order that they don’t assume that going to school is like what the film Previous Faculty portrayed. After all, going to school requires cash. So, in 2021, the USTA Basis awarded over $441,000 in school scholarships to 47 college students as properly. “The extra youngsters see success tales, the higher,” Faber defined. “These applications can present how tennis may be mixed with training.”

One other 2021 initiative has been serving to fundraise to construct the Carol Kimmelman Athletic and Academic Campus. This will likely be a 25,000 square-foot Studying Middle constructed on 87 acres of land in Carson, California, proper within the coronary heart of Los Angeles. The services will embrace almost 50 tennis courts, 5 full-size soccer fields, and numerous different multipurpose athletic services to offer tutorial and athletic applications for under-resourced youth and households. The campus will bear the title of Kimmelman, a former member of the College of Southern California (USC) tennis staff that received the NCAA championship in 1983 who tragically handed away from most cancers in 2017. “[Carol Kimmelman’s] household pledged an eight-digit donation to construct the campus,” Faber mentioned. Faber additionally talked about others corresponding to TGR Basis, which is Tiger Woods’ Basis, AEG, and the LA Galaxy who’re working with the USTA Basis to assist make the Campus a actuality.

This USTA Basis video describes Kimmelman’s legacy and plans for the Campus:

In response to Faber, “the ribbon reducing with happen in 2022 with groundbreaking in 2023.”

Might this yr, 2022, be a 2020-too for tennis in a great way? In different phrases, will the tennis neighborhood be capable to proceed the momentum generated through the first yr of the pandemic? Faber sees continued development, anticipating to “carry on one other 30 places” as NJTL chapters. “The USTA Basis Board has actually stepped up, opening doorways to speak to different individuals,” he added. “[tennis legend] Chris Evert, the board chair, has performed an enormous position.” Certainly, they’ve managed to string collectively fairly of few successes in recent times. Maybe 2022 will maintain shifting the saying “tennis, anybody” increasingly more in direction of “tennis everybody.”