Class Recap: Week 17 & Lots of Photos

We had a great class this past Saturday! It was beautiful weather and the kids were excited to be back on the courts after a week off. We practiced rallying and brought forehand volleying into their toolkit. Many of the kids picked up the volley "punch" easily. A few kids were a little intimidated being at the net--something I completely sympathize with! Hopefully after a few more lessons, they'll feel more comfortable being aggressive at the net.

Mark your calendars, the end of season community jamboree and youth tennis tournaments will be September 28th. (Rain date: October 5th.) All four sites will come together at Marcy Playground to compete in a 10 & over and 9 & under tennis tournament.

Lots of new photos have been added to the Facebook page! Like our page and check them out! Photos by Sam Hasan II. Click an image below to view the full album.

Davis Cup #2

4th Annual Fundraiser

Arthur Ashe Kids Day

Class Recap: Week 15

Can you believe we're headed towards the end of the season already? July and August have just flown by! This past Saturday, things went back to our regularly scheduled programming after an amazing intra-league Davis Cup tournament last week.

Marcy played a lot of games and match play, and broke into serves. Lafayette Gardens had a 2:1 student to volunteer ratio, as did Sumner. A perfect opportunity for the volunteers to work with the students on the fundamentals. Tompkins Houses had Family Day, so there wasn't too much tennis happening there. Overall a really nice day.

This coming Saturday, we have one of our big events of the season: Arthur Ashe Kids Day. AAKD is an opportunity for parents and kids to experience tennis together on the main stage. Kids will go on the courts to play with the pros and participate in fun games. They will also get to watch the top pros practice. Buses leave at 9:00AM, we get back at 4:30PM.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who support KCTL during our annual fundraiser. It was a spectacular evening and we hope to have photos soon!

Class Recap: Davis Cup #2

Saturday was an excellent, extra special class! All four sites convened at Marcy site for our second Davis Cup of the season. We started the event by explaining the Davis Cup and talking about the four countries the players would represent: China (red), Ireland (green), Greece (blue) and Cameroon (yellow).

Each player was given a ribbon in the color of their country. After a few relay races, we got down to tennis. Each country defended for 15 minutes, while the other three countries had the opportunity to advance to the "championship" court. At the championship court, if the attacker beat the defender, he/she would score a point for his/her country. At the end of the hour, the country with the most points wins.

Our Davis Cup winner at the end of class was... Cameroon!

Follow KCTL on Vine for more awesome clips of our youth athletes!

(VIDEO) Class Recap: Special Surprise

Saturday's class was one of our best. The weather was perfect, sunny and the wind was calm. The kids and volunteers both came out in full force. At Tompkins we even laid down lines for two youth-sized courts, so the kids could play out points while getting some perspective on court dimensions and strategy. It's pretty amazing to take a plain old blacktop and turn it into a legitimate tennis court. And it paid off, the kids were eager to get on to it and see what they could do.

We had a special surprise at each of the four sites too, but we can't tell you about it yet! Don't worry though, I'll let you know all about it when the time is right. When will the time be right, you ask? Oh, you know... some time around... *drumroll* the U.S. Open! Yea, it's big, exciting news!

In the meantime, check out these vines (short video clips) from Tompkins site. You can find us on your mobile device using the Vine app: KCTL. The first video are a few kids going through some drills. The second vine video is the end of class cheer.

DON'T MISS IT: Our fundraiser is happening soon on August 15th! If you're in NYC, come celebrate with KCTL and learn more about this amazing program. If you're too far away to join, please consider making a donation to the program. Big or small, it helps. To buy tickets or make a donation, visit our EventBrite page.

Class Recap: Beat the Pro!

After record heat all week, we got a little break for Saturday's class. At Sumner site, volunteers worked one-on-one with the kids and started to show them how to serve. Marcy and Lafayette Gardens site continue to practice rallying and service.

Even though the heat was down, the kids at Tompkins site made the volunteers work up a sweat as we played "Beat the Pro" on all three courts, our youth athletes rotating to each court after each point (win or loss) to take on a different volunteer, the Pro. It was impressive to watch the older kids rally with the volunteers 14, 15, 16 times back and forth before an error or a winning shot. Even the younger kids were able to keep the ball in play for a few hits. It really made me realize the power of the fundamentals. Power, accuracy, trick shots like topspin and slicing will come with time, but having a solid forehand and backhand means that these kids can play real legitimate tennis and it's awesome! Not every player beat the pro or won ten points, but they all played excellent tennis.

Here are a few photos from Tompkins class. To view more, visit the KCTL Facebook page.

Don't forget: Our fundraiser is happening soon on August 15th! If you're in NYC, come celebrate with KCTL and learn more about and support this amazing program. If you're too far away to join, please consider making a donation to the program. To buy tickets or make a donation, visit our EventBrite page.

Class Recap: KCTL on Brooklyn News12!

Attendance was lower than usual at last Saturday's class as the previous night's rain kept many kids indoors. Those who did come out got a special treat as Brooklyn News12 were on the courts at Marcy and Tompkins sites to film a short news feature on the program. The news story played at 6:00pm and 10:00pm on Saturday!

During class, we did a quick review of the forehands and backhands since we had last week off for the July 4th holiday. Then we moved into the kids rallying "Against the Pro" and occasionally with each other. We urged the kids to maintain good strokes while they played our points.

Hoping for heave beautiful weather next Saturday!

Also, we just announced our 4th Annual Fundraiser! Tickets are on sale now at Eventbrite. Get your tickets now and support a really amazing program in BedStuy!

KCTL Davis Cup Recap

Last Saturday, we had a very special class as we put on our first ever, intraleague Davis Cup. All four teams gathered at Marcy site to play in a global competition. We let all the kids warm up and then had a brief introduction explaining what the Davis Cup is (a global competition where tennis players play as teams for their country to score points and win the tournament.) We pulled out a map to show the kids the different countries we had chosen for the site. Marcy and Lafayette Gardens were Japan and Russia, and Tompkins and Sumner were France and Spain.

We broke the kids up into different age brackets: 10 and over, 9 and under. Marcy played the defender since they were hosting the event at "their house" and didn't compete for points. The other teams took turns getting on to the court as the challenger in King-of-the-Court style play. France took home the win for the 10 and over bracket and Russia took home the win for 9 and under kids.

It's always a great day when we bring all the kids together and watch them compete and have fun playing tennis, so really, everyone was a winner on Saturday. We're hoping to have another intraleague game day this season in August. We think these in-class events prepare the kids for the end-of-season tournament, the ups and downs of winning and losing, and the need for perseverance and practice.

View more photos of our special KCTL Davis Cup on the KCTL Facebook page! (Don't forget to "Like" us, while you're there.) Huge thanks to Sam Hasan for the photos!