Tennis is having a moment in Detroit.
The signs are showing up in different places: new tournaments and leagues, new courts, the return of professional tennis to the area, and a waitlist for the city’s youth lessons.
Nationally, tennis participation reached a new high last year, with an estimated 27.3 million people playing across the country, according to the US Tennis Association. And it’s specifically growing in popularity with people of color.
Nick Barnes, co-founder of the Seminole Tennis Club, an amateur club that plays at Palmer Park to provide an accessible, free space for people to play tennis and socialize, said he thinks it’s due to growing representation on social media and in professional tennis.
“Tennis has always been seen as a wealthier sport that a lot of people think of being played at country clubs,” he said. Each Wednesday, the Seminole Tennis Club brings together about 30 people and has extra rackets and balls for players. Barnes said he’s seen an increase in interest in tennis in the last two years
“I think due to it becoming more popular on social media and even players like Coco Gauff and just more Black players getting into it,” said Barnes.
Since 2020, tennis has grown in popularity the most with Black and Hispanic players, according to the United States Tennis Association’s annual report, exceeding general population growth rates. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of Black tennis players increased by 75%, Hispanic players 88%, and Asian players 46%, according to the USTA. The number of white players grew by just 1.38% in the same time period.
Chase Root, executive director of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Southeastern Michigan, said youth and adult programming in the area “continues to expand.” The regional association has 10,402 individual members, according to Root.
“We’ve seen some growth and new opportunities in and around Detroit,” said Root, with higher numbers of people participating in tournaments and leagues compared to 2024.
In early September, Palmer Park launched the inaugural Detroit City Championship, with 93 registrations. Nearby, Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills brought pro tennis back to the area for the first time in three decades with the Tennis Classic in 2023. Since then, the tournament has moved up to the second-highest level of men’s professional tennis, with $230,000 in prize money.
The growth isn’t limited to traditional tournaments. This summer, USTA launched a new league Downriver, where players are matched with others at their skill level and schedule matches at their convenience. In mid-September, Roar Brewing in Midtown Detroit launched a six-week “red ball tennis” league, a type of tennis made to get everyone on the court with a smaller court and racket and a slower ball. The popularity in Detroit resulted in a waitlist for the city’s recreation department.
City courts, free lessons
Starting in the late 1940s, tennis became a hit in Hamtramck, with star player Jean Hoxie and her husband Jerry establishing the first tennis camp in the US in Veterans Memorial Park in Hamtramck. Together they developed 16 state titleholders in singles tennis and 13 state titleholders in double tennis. Over the decades, the enclave community turned out local champions and professional players like Fred Kovaleski, Chuck Brainard and Jane “Peaches” Bartkowicz. Detroit also has its own tennis hero: Bob Ryland, the first Black tennis professional in the country, played at Wayne State University.
Since then, the sport’s popularity waxed and waned.
Michael Banks, owner of Professional Racquet Services on Livernois, has been supplying Detroiters with equipment for all sorts of racquet sports for more than 40 years. Banks said tennis took a hit during COVID but is back on the rise.
“We used to have a tournament almost every week during the summertime, but because of COVID, everything died down,” he said.
While the trendy new thing is really pickleball, tennis is “getting back up again,” said Banks. “Next summer it’s going to build up even more.”
Some of that renewed interest is showing up in demand for public tennis programs and courts.
Megan Woods, communications manager at the City of Detroit General Services Department, said there was a waitlist for their tennis program for ages 5-16, even after expanding the group size due to the demand, “an increase from previous years.”
In recent park improvement projects, Woods said that “residents have voiced that they wanted tennis courts improved.” As a result, most recently, the city added tennis courts this summer to Peterson Park in the Winship neighborhood near Outer Drive and Greenfield.
In 2024, Palmer Park got lights added, funded by the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation because those “courts are our most used tennis courts and heavily programmed,” according to Woods.
And over the summer, as it has for several years in a row, Rouge Park in partnership with Flat Out Tennis offered free tennis lessons on Fridays.
But public courts and free programs are also part of a bigger question about who gets to play tennis.
In Hamtramck, coaches at Hamtramck High School are expanding tennis options to a new generation of players who are primarily Bengali. After 20 years without a boys tennis program, Joey Patterson and another coach brought tennis back to the school in 2024. At first, there were four boys at practice, Patterson said. This year, there are 25 boys in the program. The coaches also offer free tennis programs for kids during the summer.
In recent years, they have advocated for tennis in the community, including pushing the city council to approve $113,343 last year to renovate the tennis courts at Veterans Park.
Patterson said it’s good to change the narrative about what a tennis player is and looks like.
“Tennis is for everyone,” Patterson said.
The coaches are also trying to reconnect Hamtramck’s current players with the city’s tennis history. On Sept. 19, they will host a free lecture at the Hamtramck Historical Museum featuring “tennis legends” Jane “Peaches” Bartkowicz and Chuck Brainard.
“I don’t think everybody really knows the great history of Hamtramck tennis,” Patterson said. “I’m trying to build the program back up to what it was.”
It’s a long way from the state championship program Hamtramck once had, Patterson said. But for a new generation of players, the goal is not only to bring tennis back — it’s to make sure they know they belong on the court, too.
