On a sunlit afternoon, the steady thwack of a tennis ball echoes across the 14 HydroGrid courts at The Boca Raton, where more and more children are trading digital screens for racquets. Once seen primarily as a sport for adults or elite athletes, tennis is rapidly gaining popularity among kids of all ages—and for good reason. Between Racquet Club’s many after-school programs and weekend lessons, the game has captured the interest of young players, some as tiny as 3 years old. In a recent poll, more than 25 million Americans play the sport, with a steady annual increase over the past five years. The way the tennis pros and parents see it, as children learn to serve, rally and score, they’re not just developing athletic skills—they’re gaining confidence and habits that can last a lifetime. “With tennis, you teach kids life lessons,” says Shari Franco, one of Racquet Club’s lead pros and a favored instructor among youths. “I saw a kid on a court once, and he got so frustrated with himself because he was missing his shots.
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Budding racquet pros take to the courts at Racquet Club
I told him to keep working at it and never give up. Let’s think about the positive, I said. Then, he went back on that court and started improving.” Franco is one of the many instructors at Racquet Club who are dedicated to showing young players the beauty of the sport. The facility caters to players of all ages, with dedicated programming divided between age groups and skill levels. The Mini Red is for beginners ages 3 to 5, the Red group is for those 5 to 7, the Orange group is for 7 to 10, and the Green group is for 9 to 11. Each group plays with a different type of tennis ball with reduced compression to make the ball movement slower and lower-bouncing for the younger player to work on hand-eye coordination. Another racquet sport, pickleball, is also enjoying a meteoric surge among participants both young and senior. In a few short years, pickleball has gone from nearly no presence in the U.S. to more than 13 million Americans, with its participation figures growing more than 200% in that span. To respond to the demand of pickleball among all generations, The Boca Raton has added more specific courts to its Racquet Club in recent years, with a total of 12 newly transformed hard-surface pickleball courts.
For instructors like Franco, this love of racquet sports has allowed her to share her lifelong passion for the sport with others, especially the youth. As the club welcomes more younger families and travelers, Franco has seen more pint-sized children participate in the Mini Red and Red group and private lessons, kids who run up to Franco when they arrive at the courts. Choruses and greetings of “Coach Shari!” from little voices often can be heard around the mid-afternoon court sessions. “I fell in love with teaching children,” Franco says. “I get such pride and joy when you see them succeed. I worked with this one young girl, and her father told me that he’d never seen her this happy. As the club welcomes more younger families and travelers, Franco has seen more pint-sized children participate in the Mini Red and Red group and private lessons, kids who run up to Franco when they arrive at the courts. Choruses and greetings of “Coach Shari!” from little voices often can be heard around the mid-afternoon court sessions. “I fell in love with teaching children,” Franco says. “I get such pride and joy when you see them succeed. I worked with this one young girl, and her father told me that he’d never seen her this happy.