What’s Missing From This Picture?

As the month of May, which is National Tennis Month, approaches we should expect to see the tennis courts full of tennis players.

Figures released this year from the Sports Manufacturers Associations, (an association made up of companies that manufacture equipment for all sports), shows tennis as the fastest growing traditional sport in America. It is currently growing faster than golf, baseball, soccer and many of the other sports that we associate with schools and summer leagues.

Tennis is also the second most widely played sport in the world, next to soccer. There are 137 countries that compete for the Davis Cup, which is an international tennis competition for male team tennis players; and there are 110 countries that complete for the Fed Cup, which is the women’s international competition. These competitive teams are sponsored by their national tennis organizations. Generally, they have the best tennis players from their country compete to bring the coveted trophies back to their country.

For the courts in Sweetwater this means that we should be seeing more activity and returning high level tennis to the community that it enjoyed. Sweetwater, in years past, has produced college tennis players and even some All American tennis players. The Browder brothers, members of the family for whom the courts were named, played college tennis at the University of Georgia, and Tommy Mozur, who was the University of Tennessee’s first All American Tennis player, learned to play here.

Sweetwater has a spectacular tennis history and, a return to that position of producing good tennis players is possible. The first step is to get on the court, and the Tellico Lake Tennis Association would like to make the tennis tradition live again in Sweetwater and Monroe county.

On May 5, tennis lessons for Junior Players will begin at 9 a.m. at the Sweetwater courts. This initial session will provide the equipment the players need. Parents are encouraged to attend and participate in this session. Not only will the children receive instruction, but those parents who are interested in helping their children improve more rapidly will be given some instruction in tennis teaching techniques. For parents the necessary equipment will also be available. Children and parents should wear comfortable clothing to fit the weather and tennis shoes.

Because this session will be a dual purpose session it will last longer than the normal one hour lesson. The objective is to have the beginners playing a form of tennis by the end of the session and the parents knowing how to conduct follow up practice session.

Let’s all get on the courts during National Tennis Month.

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