27 Million Players and a Coaching Gap: What America's Tennis Boom Is Missing

Akimenko sees the current surge of interest in tennis as positive overall, with one caveat. In her view, it is the best thing to happen to American tennis in decades, but an influx of players is not the same as growth. If clubs sell only first lessons, a large share of today's beginners will leave. If they build a path from the first lesson to a recreational league, the country will gain a generation of people who play for life.

She calls the first four to six weeks critical: that is when beginners are most likely to become discouraged. Akimenko uses her own method, developed over many years, first as an international-level player and then as a coach. "In the very first lesson, a student should play a five- or six-shot rally with a partner," she said. "Technique doesn't go away; it just develops inside the game."

Her approach is also highly regarded at the academy itself. Its founder, Harout Khachatryan, was once ranked among the top 20 players in the Soviet Union, captained Armenia's Davis Cup team and coached the Soviet junior national team. "I haven't seen a coach like this in a long time," he said. "Yelyzaveta works with the same precision whether it's a beginner or a player preparing for college tennis. Her students see results, and that's why they stay." Her students bear this out: many who came to her as beginners are now well past their first season.

She also has specific advice for beginners: Don't buy a package of 10 private lessons in your first week. Start with a group at your level, find one or two regular partners, and set aside a specific day for tennis. In her experience, people who have their own "tennis Tuesday" stick with it, while those who play whenever they can usually disappear by winter.

Women who take up tennis in their 30s or 40s get particular attention in her program. She calls them her most determined students: an hour and a half on the court is time that belongs to them alone. The biggest barrier is the fear of looking awkward, so she spends the first few weeks building their confidence and gradually increases the load on their shoulders and elbows. At that age, she said, an injury in the first season is the most common reason people quit. With children, the task is different: a child has to fall in love with the game first, or they will quit tennis by age 12.

Her social media presence gives her an important professional advantage: she hears beginners' questions long before their first lesson. Every day, people from across the country message her about rackets, doubles, and injuries. As a result, she knows in advance what typically worries beginners and builds the first lesson around those concerns.

So why do beginners leave the court, and what will keep them there? In Akimenko's experience, they leave because of disappointment in the first weeks, feeling alone on the court and injuries no one prepared them for. They stay where the first lesson brings a small win, where they have their own group and a regular partner, and where they can see progress. But she considers the coach's professionalism the deciding factor: the ability to understand, from the first lesson, who is standing in front of you and to build a path for that particular person. "America has already done the hard part: getting people onto the courts," Akimenko said. "Now everything depends on the quality of coaching. If clubs invest in training coaches as actively as they invest in attracting beginners, then in a few years the country won't just have millions of people who have tried tennis, but millions for whom it has become part of their lives."