My very friendly and patient (with my rusty backhand) instructor greets me on the court
When you grow up in South Florida like I did, chances are you’re going to play some tennis. In my case, some was actually a lot — I started young and played competitively through high school, taught at a tennis camp during college, and joined a doubles league here for awhile. But since having kids, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even picked up a racket. Owen and I have hit around a bit, but since his interests lie in other sports, those few times haven’t been the kind of play I was once used to.
Tennis is one of those things I keep saying I want to get back into, but just haven’t taken the time to do. So, when PlayYourCourt asked if I wanted to take a lesson and share my experience with the KFDC community, I was in like Serena’s cross-court forehand.
PlayYourCourt is a mobile tennis instruction program, meaning they bring the instructors to you. If you want to take tennis lessons in DC, there’s no need to join a club or research pros in the area; PlayYourCourt does the work for you by matching up clients with the most suitable instructor possible and setting up lessons at courts that are convenient for you. Whether it’s your first time picking up a racket or you want to fine-tune your strokes, PlayYourCourt finds the right tennis pro to work with you and makes it easy to do so.
My PlayYourCourt experience began on their website, where I entered some basic info — zipcode, who would be taking the lesson (me, my child, etc.), age range, skill level, and lesson goals — then was shown a screen with a selection of five instructors in the area, all of them highly qualified coaches who are USPTA and/or PTR certified with at least 5 years of teaching experience, and some highlights about each of them and their hourly rates. The one labeled “best match” for me was Jennifer B., so I selected her and completed the sign-up process.
Shortly after, I received a confirmation email from PlayYourCourt with a greeting from owner, Scott Baxter. Included was Jennifer’s contact information, though she reached out to me just minutes later to set up our lesson. We easily confirmed a date, time, and location all by email, and just like that I was ready to dust off my racket and get back into the swing of it.
Jennifer and I met at public tennis courts about a mile from my house. She’d given lessons there several times before, so was familiar with them and knew they probably would not be busy at that time. She began by asking about my experience with tennis and what my goal was for the lesson. I gave her the rundown and told her I wanted to assess my skills after many years’ hiatus and get a bit of a workout while I was there.
Right away, she had me hitting some basic shots to evaluate my strokes, and made me not feel so bad about my very rusty backhand. (She said it was evident I had played — but also that I’d had some time off.) After warming up for a little while, she began to tackle the problems, letting me know where the errors were and some minor adjustments I could make to remedy them. I could tell she was really paying attention and giving me good advice.
To address the issues with my strokes and give me the workout I’d asked for, she had me do some running drills, first forehands and backhands at the baseline, then some that covered more of the court, moving on to volleys and overheads. Not only was it a good workout, it was a blast, making me remember how much I loved playing back in the day. Just the jump start I needed to get back into tennis.
Are you ready to get into the tennis game? Or maybe you want to get your kids on the court? PlayYourCourt is a great way to get started with tennis lessons in DC, especially if you want service that’s an ace. Even better, when you sign up, use the code KIDFRIENDLYDC to get $10 off!
