CityTennis
For those who play tennis in San Francisco
Advocacy for public and private tennis needs more voices and these organizations are grateful for any support in keeping our tennis community viable.
Tennis great Peanut Louie Harper on the joy of empowering kids
YOUTH TENNIS
There are three organizations providing free tennis instruction to local residents: San Francisco Junior Tennis League , Peanut Louie’s Harperforkids.org and Tennis for Kids provide instruction only to SF residents, and Youth Tennis Advantage, the largest provider of tennis in the Bay Area has one site in San Francisco. All three can use more volunteers and contributions.
TENNIS ADVOCACY GROUPS
There are a number of tennis advocacy groups. Friends Of Golden Gateway is fighting for keeping the tennis courts at Golden Gateway Swim and Racquet club. Members of San Francisco Tennis Club have started a city wide initiative to push for saving tennis in the city. San Francisco Tennis Coalition is attempting to advocate for all the public tennis facilities in the city.
COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS
This website will only be relevant if you make suggestions and comments on how to improve the tennis in San Francisco. We welcome any suggestions on improving the city. Since we posted the website we received a suggestion to start a website for juniors to address playing in the city and my SFJTL is considering expanding our mission to get more juniors playing through tournaments and free leagues by ability level. We are going to launch our website during the fall after surveying many juniors that play in the city.
If this is successful we will address adult tennis players by conducting another survey. Please send any suggestions,comments and ideas to John Cervantes and we will reply within a week.
Grass Roots Heroes
USTA names recipients of annual Community Tennis Development Workshop AwardsArlington, Virginia was the host site for this year’s CTDW where once again the highlight of the weekend was the awards banquet. The honorees were recognized in a variety of categories for their dedication to growing the game.
America’s Backyard – Make it Yours
Tennis is the sport for a lifetime—played and enjoyed by people of all ages in public parks across the country. If you want to help keep those public parks thriving, you can now serve up a gift to help restore your local park through America’s Backyard, a new initiative of the National Recreation and Park Association. Your contribution supports a legacy of advocacy, open space, and play for generations to come.
Go to www.americasbackyard.org.
2010 USTA Grants
Tennis is a sport that grows upward from its grass roots, and that is why the USTA is committed to continually investing in the game at the grass roots level. Every year, the USTA and its charitable foundation, USTA Serves, award hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to deserving individuals, organizations, and programs that not only help to grow the game, but help people to realize individual growth. These grants are helping tennis make a difference in countless communities and in thousands of lives all across this country.
For a list of USTA Serves grant recipients please click here.
For a list of organizations receiving Recreational Tennis grants please click here.
For a list of organizations receiving USTA Wheelchair Program grants please click here.
USTA Foundation Awards Grants and Scholarships
USTA Serves, the National Charitable Foundation of the United States Tennis Association, announced it has awarded 33 year-end grants totaling $420,650. The number of program grants awarded in 2010 was 59, totaling $855,150. Combined with scholarship awards, USTA Serves distributed more than $1 million in 2010.
The bi-annual granting process, a national initiative of USTA Serves, was developed to provide people with disabilities and disadvantaged, at-risk children in underserved communities the opportunity to learn to play tennis and improve their academic skills in a structured format, and also to help combat obesity by promoting healthy lifestyles. To date, USTA Serves has disbursed more than $10 million to a variety of programs that share those aims.
At funded program sites, children between the ages of 5-18 learn about healthy nutrition and lifestyles, responsible citizenship, study skills, and computer literacy. The grant recipients are chosen by a Grant Proposal Review Committee comprised of Foundation Board Members and USTA National staff, with important input from USTA Sections. They are awarded to programs that successfully combine tennis and education and help children pursue their goals and highest dreams by leading healthier lives, succeeding in school and becoming healthier citizens
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Former Tour Players Serve on USTA Board of Directors
Several former players will serve on the USTA Board of Directors for a two-year term, effective from January 1st. The 15-member board will be led by Jon Vegosen, of Chicago, the USTA Chairman of the Board and President. Lucy S. Garvin will remain on the USTA Board in her role as Immediate Past President.
The former players are:
Katrina M. Adams, of White Plains, NY, and the USTA Eastern Section, who previously served as an Elite Athlete and a Director at Large on the USTA Board of Directors will serve as Vice President. In the current term, Adams is serving on the Compensation Committee and as a Board Liaison to the sections, the USPTA and USTA Serves. She also serves on the board of directors of USTA Serves. A television analyst for Tennis Channel and Executive Director of the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program in New York, Adams played for 12 years on the WTA Tour.
Patrick J. Galbraith, of Bainbridge Island, WA, and the USTA Pacific Northwest, will serve his third term as a Director at Large on the USTA Board of Directors. He will serve as the Vice Chair of the Budget Committee and will continue to serve as the Vice Chair of the Investment Committee. Galbraith is one of three elite athletes on the USTA Board of Directors, and played professionally from 1989-2000.
Chanda Rubin, of Lafayette, LA, and the USTA Southern Section, will serve her first term as a Director at Large on the USTA Board of Directors. Rubin is one of three elite athletes on the USTA Board of Directors, and is a member of the Budget Committee and serves as Board Liaison to the Player Development Council. She played professionally for 16 years.
Jeffrey G. Tarango, of Manhattan Beach, CA, and the USTA Southern California Section, will serve his first term as a Director at Large on the USTA Board of Directors. He is one of three elite athletes on the USTA Board of Directors and is the Board Liaison to the Pro Tennis Council and a member of the Strategic and Creative Planning Committee and the Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Olympic and Paralympic Team Events Committee. He played professionally for 15 years.
USTA Launches Young Players Promotion
The USTA announced details of its “Give the Gift of Tennis” holiday campaign that will encourage fans to match young tennis players with properly-sized tennis racquets, and with proper compression balls. The campaign includes the USTA’s first promotional sweepstakes on Facebook where fans can win free equipment and the chance to play tennis with new U.S. Davis Cup Captain Jim Courier. The campaign begins December 1 and continues through the holiday season.
The objective of the “Give the Gift of Tennis” campaign is to promote playing tennis at home – no courts are necessary. With modified equipment, you can just as easily play at your local playground, driveway, cul-de-sac, or even in the back yard. The equipment is easy to set up and perfect for an entire family to enjoy together. 10 and Under Tennis is designed to get kids into the game immediately, so that within the first hour, they can actually be playing. Scaling the game down to their size helps make the learning process substantially easier and more fun.
In addition to the “Give the Gift of Tennis” campaign, the USTA is also launching a tennis equipment sweepstakes via the USTA’s Facebook page. Each day from December 1 through December 15, the USTA will give away 50 kids-friendly tennis packages that will include two 21-inch tennis racquets, two 23-inch tennis racquets and six red foam tennis balls, to highlight the USTA’s new approach to teaching the sport of tennis to younger players. In all, 3,000 racquets and 4,500 balls will be given away this holiday season. In addition, one lucky fan will also win a grand prize – the chance to play tennis for one hour with new U.S. Davis Cup Captain Jim Courier at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The total retail value of this promotion exceeds $50,000.
Braden Introduces Junior Tennis Ambassadors
Vic Braden, one of the world’s top coaches in a vast number of sports, including tennis, has a mind and imagination that goes at one speed---all out.
Now, after a couple years of development and testing, he is ready to launch Junior Tennis Ambassadors.
It is Braden’s contention that there are millions of young students who would love to play tennis if they had an easy entry point. It's rare that elementary and junior high schools have tennis courts, but there are tennis programs where students can learn the basics of tennis on asphalt playgrounds. Missing in schools are tennis coaches who are on duty five school days each week. The Junior Tennis Ambassador program teaches young elementary and junior high students to coach any student in their school at no cost. Experiments with young students have shown that they possess amazing abilities as athletic coaches, when properly trained.
The Junior Tennis Ambassador program provides free instruction for adult volunteers who will supervise young elementary and junior high school tennis coaches.
The young tennis coaches also receive free instruction that qualifies them as permanent tennis coaches for classmates throughout the school year.
There is every likelihood that the world will know and get involved with Junior Tennis Ambassadors, but going to www.juniortennisambassadors.com will get you in the know first.
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