Coach Janet Pinkett from Girls Rule the Court, a program where girls ages 7-13 are coached by all women, and come from all over to learn the game, stated that “There’s a social, emotional component and then there’s tennis, so they’re learning the basics of tennis and they’re having fun, The program is designed to inspire girls and to give them an opportunity to see role models in areas that they haven’t seen before, We have an infrastructure. Baltimore has a rich history. We have rich history of tennis. Some of the first tennis tournaments were played in this city in African American communities.”
One participant, Iman Blackston stated that, “I want to be an athlete and I’m practicing a lot, I like it because it’s fun, really fun.” At only six years of age, Blackston is the youngest in the group. The United States Tennis Association had picked Baltimore for this free pilot program. Lauren Hoffman, Director of Marketing and Communications at the USTA said that, “It’s important to bring programs to meet kids and families where they are. Baltimore has a really rich history with tennis, and we want to make sure kids in the Baltimore community can get active in positive ways.” Pinkett added that, “Some of them are interested in tennis and some of them are just interest in having fun. Their parents realized that this is a great opportunity for them to develop physically and we have some students who are cross training,”
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