Other significant findings on tennis participation growth from the research include:
- Retained and returning players are on the rise with a five percent increase in retention rates over 2023 reaching a five-year high, while those who returned to the game after a break of at least one year rose nine percent. First time and returning players brought 6.3 million players to the game in 2024 and tennis lost the fewest number of players year over year since 2020. This balanced momentum represents an ideal scenario for the sport – simultaneously cultivating committed players while broadening reach.
- Tennis is increasingly attracting a younger player base as players under 35 powered tennis' expansion in 2024, contributing nearly two thirds of all growth (+1.2 million players). The youth influence is especially clear among those under 25, who drove 45 percent of total gains. This concentrated growth among younger segments underscores the sport's strong appeal to new generations and suggests a promising trajectory for tennis' future in America.
- The game is increasingly more diverse with 26 percent growth in Black / African American participation, representing a 662,000 player increase, and Hispanic players up 15.4 percent, to 4.54 million players over 2023. Senior players too are on the rise with a 17 percent increase in growth to 302K participants. These trends suggest tennis is strengthening its position as a cornerstone of community engagement and healthy lifestyle choices.
- Tennis reached a new milestone in engagement in 2024, with Core players (those playing 10+ times in the past 12 months) growing to a record 13 million, representing 50 percent of all participants. This expansion in committed players surpassed 2023 by 11 percent and signals deepening engagement across the sport. The rise in frequent players has helped drive total play occasions to 575 million, a nine percent increase over the previous year.
Also announced today in a separate press release (click here), the USTA has committed $10 million in grants to tennis courts and facilities across the country to ensure there are ample spaces to meet player demand, especially in underserved communities. Since 2005, the USTA's Tennis Venue Services (TVS) grant program has awarded more than $19 million in grants, including $1.2 million in 2024 that impacted more than 500 courts in more than 60 communities. Court investments that refurbish, build and extend playable hours on courts is one of the three major strategic focus areas for the USTA in its growth strategy.
"This report confirms what we know at the USTA: tennis popularity continues to grow and is a sport that is increasingly looking more like America than ever before," said Lew Sherr, USTA CEO. "Along with our section partners, our mission is to get more people on the court to inspire healthier people and communities everywhere and we are thrilled to see these numbers validate the work we do. We will continue to do our part through an ambitious strategy to grow the game to 35 million players by 2035, a goal that is both actionable and achievable as we seek to bring the benefits of the world's healthiest sport to more people across America."
The extraordinary growth in tennis last year comes as the USTA continues to execute against the goal to grow broad-based participation to 35 million players by 2035. The strategy includes a focus on innovating new programs and varied play formats; getting more directly involved with coaching to elevate, expand, and support tennis coaches at all levels; and ensuring court infrastructure meets player demand where they are. This ambition is in service of the USTA's purpose-driven mission of growing tennis to inspire healthier people and communities everywhere.
As more players take up the sport of tennis, the USTA is doubling down on its efforts to ensure safe play experiences for all with more than 27,000 people now Safe Play compliant. As a part of its Safe Play program, the USTA requires that any adult coaching tennis complete a criminal background screen, be educated on how to recognize and prevent misconduct in sport and acknowledge the Safe Play Policy which sets the standards for appropriate conduct in our sport. The USTA offers a searchable database of these coaches for players and parents to access nationwide — including both professional coaches and community-level instructors who provide on-court instruction and facilitation. In addition to the 27,000 Safe Play compliant coaches, an additional 23,000 individuals have completed the USTA's Safe Play educational program, ensuring that an even brighter light is shed on how to recognize and prevent abuse in sport.
*Tennis participation in the United States is measured through two complementary research studies:
- The Physical Activity Council (PAC) Study on Sports and Physical Activity, which has tracked tennis participation since 2007, draws from a nationally representative panel of over 1 million Americans and features responses from 18,000 people ages 6 and older. The study tracks participation across 122 separate sports, fitness and recreational activities, with strict quotas for gender, age, income, region, and ethnicity to ensure a balanced sample and is administered by Sports Marketing Surveys USA.
- The PLAY Study (formerly known as the Participation and Engagement Study), which has provided supplemental data through a partnership between the USTA and the National Golf Foundation (NGF) since 2021 surveys 18,000 individuals ages 6 and older annually.
The USTA is the national governing body for the sport of tennis in the U.S. and the leader in promoting and developing the growth of tennis at every level -- from local communities to the highest level of the professional game. A not-for-profit organization, it invests 100 percent of its proceeds in growing the game. It owns and operates the US Open, one of the highest-attended annual sporting events in the world, along with approximately 100 Pro Circuit events throughout the U.S., and selects the teams for Davis Cup, Billie Jean King Cup, and the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The USTA's philanthropic entity, the USTA Foundation, provides grants and scholarships in addition to supporting tennis and education programs nationwide to benefit under-resourced youth through the National Junior Tennis & Learning (NJTL) network. For more information about the USTA, go to USTA.com or follow the official accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (X) and TikTok.
For more information, contact:
Brendan McIntyre, [email protected]
Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis, [email protected]
SOURCE United States Tennis Association
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