Tennis Industry News

When it comes to marketing and providing tennis to families, QuickStart Tennis may be exactly what your facility or CTA is looking for. Just ask Sammy Giammalva, who owns the Giammalva Racquet Club in Spring, Texas, near Houston.

Giammalva comes from a family steeped in tennis. His father, Sammy Sr., is a former U.S. Davis Cup player and longtime local pro who helped found Houston’s first downtown indoor club. His older brother Tony played at Rice University. And Sammy himself played the ATP Tour, winning his first tournament in 1981 when he was 18 years old.

“From the start, I wanted to market the club to young families,” he recently told the Houston Chronicle’s Dale Robertson. “That’s still my approach.”

For the GRC, the QuickStart Tennis format has played a huge role, with its shorter courts, shorter racquets, lower-pressure balls and modified scoring—all age-appropriate for 10-and-under players. Kids have fun and actually “play” tennis right from the start, experiencing the satisfaction of sustaining rallies. And by using the age-appropriate equipment, kids learn the proper technique early on.

But for GRC, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, there’s an additional benefit. “We've added 50 to 60 families in the last year, and QuickStart deserves much of the credit,” Giammalva told the newspaper.

“We're doing a lot of community outreach. We're going into schools and taking over the PE classes for a day. One child gets interested, then (the siblings) think it's a neat thing to do, and then the parents want to get involved, too. We're attracting beginners, and that was always my goal. But we've never seen the kind of growth like we've had lately.”

For more on QuickStart Tennis, click here.