A child’s first tennis camp becomes a positive experience when three things line up: the camp groups players by age and ability, the equipment is scaled to your child’s size, and preparation at home starts roughly a week before the first session. Preparation at home matters more than most parents expect, because a child who already knows the shape of the day arrives curious instead of uncertain. Below we walk through how to judge a beginner camp, which racquet and ball your child should be holding, what to pack, how to handle the first drop-off, what to ask afterward, and how to turn one good week into a sport your child keeps playing.

What Makes a Child’s First Tennis Camp a Positive Experience?

A child’s first tennis camp becomes a positive experience when the camp is matched to their level, their gear is matched to their body, and the adults around them treat the first day as a starting line rather than a test. Those three levers, camp fit, equipment fit, and adult behaviour on day one, account for almost everything a parent can actually control. Everything a parent cannot control, the weather, the other children, whether the forehand lands in, matters far less than it feels like it should.

Adult behaviour on day one deserves the emphasis it gets here, because the research on youth sport is blunt about what happens when the emphasis lands elsewhere. About 70% of children stop playing organized sports by age 13, and the reason they give most often is that it stopped being fun, according to polling from the National Alliance for Youth Sports. Fun, in the same body of research, does not mean goofing around. Researcher Amanda Visek at George Washington University found that 9 out of 10 young athletes named fun as their top reason for playing, and when children were asked to define it they produced 81 separate characteristics, with winning ranking 48th on the list.

Winning ranking 48th tells you what to optimize for in week one. Optimizing for effort, friendliness, and court time gives a first-time camper the conditions the research says keep children in the sport. Those conditions begin with the camp you choose.

What Should Parents Look For in a First Tennis Camp?

Parents should look for four measurable things in a first tennis camp: a small coach-to-player ratio, grouping by both age and ability, scaled balls and racquets, and a daily structure that keeps children hitting rather than queuing. All four are questions you can ask on the phone before you register, and a program that cannot answer them precisely is telling you something.

Queuing is the failure mode worth naming. Line drills look tidy from the fence, but a child in a line of ten may strike the ball only a handful of times per minute, while a cooperative rally game keeps the same child tracking, moving, and hitting almost continuously. Continuous ball contact is what builds timing, and timing is what makes a beginner feel capable by Friday. Our junior tennis camp is built around that principle, with sessions structured so beginners spend their court time playing rather than waiting.

How Many Kids Per Coach Should a Beginner Tennis Camp Have?

A beginner tennis camp should have no more than six children per coach, and six per coach is the figure the industry treats as the quality benchmark for youth programs. Six per coach allows a coach to watch every player’s grip, footwork, and contact point inside a single drill rotation. We run 6:1 for beginner and intermediate juniors and 4:1 for advanced and tournament players, which is why a first-time camper here gets corrected in real time instead of at the end of the week. Our coaching team is led by a Tennis Canada National Coach with more than 40 years of experience and a former Davis Cup player, and that level of eye on a beginner group is the point of keeping groups small.

Why Do Beginner Camps Use Red, Orange, and Green Tennis Balls?

Beginner camps use red, orange, and green tennis balls because lower-compression balls bounce lower and travel slower, which keeps the ball inside a child’s strike zone. A strike zone between the waist and the chest lets a young player swing through the ball rather than reach above the shoulder. Reaching above the shoulder is what produces the flailing, frustrated swing that convinces a six-year-old they are bad at tennis.

The colours come from the International Tennis Federation’s Tennis Play and Stay framework, and each one pairs a ball compression with a court size and a net height. Red stage balls carry roughly 75% reduced compression on a 36 ft by 18 ft court with a net set at 2 ft 9 in, according to the ITF Tennis10s specification. Orange stage balls carry 50% compression on a 60 ft by 21 ft singles court. Green stage balls sit at 25% reduced compression on the full 78 ft court, which is the last step before a standard yellow ball.

A standard yellow ball handed to a five-year-old skips past them before they finish their backswing, which is why a camp that uses one ball for every age is a camp to keep looking past.

How Long Should a Beginner Tennis Session Be?

A beginner tennis session should run about two to four hours of on-court time, broken into short blocks with water and shade breaks between them. Short blocks hold attention better than one long stretch, because a seven-year-old’s focus fades well before their legs do. Our half-day format runs 1 PM to 4 PM for exactly that reason, and our full-day format runs 9 AM to 4 PM with four hours of instruction plus structured off-court activity that keeps energy high without adding more racquet swings than a beginner’s arm wants.

What Is the Best Age to Start Tennis for Kids?

The best age to start tennis for kids is between four and six years old, when red stage equipment makes the game immediately playable. Red stage equipment is sized for a child of 23 inches of racquet or less, which is what a four-year-old can actually swing without dragging the head through the contact point. Children who start later are not behind; a nine-year-old walking on court for the first time slots straight into green or orange stage and often progresses faster because their coordination is further along.

Coordination at that age is being built across a rising number of Canadian courts. Over six million Canadians played tennis in 2025, more than a million higher than the previous study, according to Tennis Canada’s participation research with YouGov Canada, and growth was sharpest among young players, with 37% of Canadians aged 12 to 17 playing that year, a 14% increase. We cover the age question in more depth in our post on the best age to begin camp.

Whatever age your child begins, the stage they land in decides which racquet and ball they need, and our junior programs group children by both age and stage so the equipment matches the player. Matching equipment to the player is a Phase 2 problem, though. First comes the conversation at home.

How Do You Prepare a Child for Their First Day of Tennis Camp?

You prepare a child for their first day of tennis camp by describing the day in concrete detail about a week ahead, rehearsing the drop-off routine, protecting their sleep, and letting them handle a racquet before they arrive. Concrete detail is the active ingredient, because uncertainty is what children find hard, not tennis.

Uncertainty is measurable in the camp research. Dr. Christopher Thurber’s work with the American Camp Association found that 83% of studied campers reported feeling unsettled on at least one day, and that about 81% of them recovered quickly once the routine became familiar. Thurber’s comparison of preparation methods also showed that coaching parents and teaching children specific coping steps lowered first-year campers’ distress compared with standard preparation. Standard preparation, in other words, is not the ceiling.

How Far in Advance Should You Talk About Camp?

You should start talking about camp seven to ten days in advance, then return to it briefly two or three more times before the first morning. Seven to ten days is long enough for a child to absorb the idea and ask questions, and short enough that the topic does not become the only thing on their mind. Raising it once, months out, gives a child nothing to hold. Raising it every day for three weeks turns a fun week into a looming event.

What Should You Actually Say About the First Day?

You should say what will happen, in order, in plain language: who drops them off, what the coach will look like, how long they will be there, what they will do first, and who picks them up. Order is what calms a child, because a sequence they can repeat back is a sequence they can predict. Predictability also lets you name the feeling ahead of time. Telling a child that most kids feel a bit funny in the first ten minutes and that the feeling passes once the balls come out gives them a script instead of a surprise.

Avoid promising that they will love it, and avoid asking whether they are worried. A promise sets up a verdict, and the question plants the idea. Say instead that they will learn something new and that you will hear all about it at pick-up.

A Seven-Day Countdown to the First Session

1. Seven days out: tell your child which week they are going and walk through the shape of the day once, start to finish.
2. Six days out: confirm their racquet length and court shoes, and replace anything that no longer fits.
3. Five days out: spend fifteen minutes outside bouncing a ball on the racquet face and catching it. Nothing technical.
4. Four days out: shift bedtime earlier if the camp start is earlier than the summer routine, moving it fifteen minutes at a time.
5. Three days out: teach three words so the coach’s language is familiar: forehand, backhand, serve.
6. Two days out: pack the bag together and let your child carry it to the car once so it feels like theirs.
7. The night before: lay out clothes, fill the water bottle and refrigerate it, and protect a full night of sleep. The Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology recommends 9 to 11 hours for children aged 5 to 13 and 8 to 10 hours for those aged 14 to 17.

Sleep is the item on that list that quietly decides how the first morning goes, and it is also the one families most often sacrifice to a late summer evening. Our coaches see the difference on court by mid-morning at our North York facility, where a well-rested beginner holds focus through the second drill block and a tired one does not.

What Should a Child Bring to Their First Tennis Camp?

A child should bring a correctly sized racquet, court shoes, breathable athletic clothing, a wide-brimmed hat, sunscreen, a full water bottle, a small towel, and a snack to their first tennis camp. Balls and training equipment are supplied by the camp, so a beginner does not need to arrive with a tube of their own.

The First-Camp Packing List

• Junior racquet sized to the child’s height, not to the next few years of growth
• Court shoes with lateral support and a non-marking sole
• Two moisture-wicking shirts, since a mid-morning change keeps a child comfortable
• Wide-brimmed hat, which shades the ears and back of the neck better than a ball cap
• Broad-spectrum sunscreen, SPF 30 or higher
• Sunglasses with 100% UV protection
• Refillable water bottle, filled and chilled before leaving home
• Small towel for grip and sweat
• A snack such as fruit or a granola bar, plus lunch for full-day campers
• Everything labelled with your child’s name

Labelling matters more than it sounds, because a lost water bottle on day one is a small problem that feels large to a five-year-old. Our post on what to bring covers the seasonal variations in more detail, and the packing list there works for spring and fall sessions as well.

What Size Tennis Racquet Does a Child Need?

A child needs a racquet between 19 and 26 inches long, with the exact length set by their height and development stage rather than their age alone. Height is the better guide because a tall six-year-old and a small eight-year-old often swing the same frame comfortably. A frame that is too long forces a child to choke up on the handle, and choking up on the handle wrecks the swing path before a coach ever sees it. The table below maps stage to equipment so you can check what your child is holding before the first day of summer tennis camp.

Development stage	Typical ages	Racquet length	Ball compression	Court size (singles)	Net height (centre)
Red (foam)	4 to 6	19 to 23 in	Approx. 75% reduced	36 ft x 18 ft	2 ft 9 in
Red (felt)	6 to 8	21 to 23 in	25% of standard	36 ft x 18 ft	2 ft 9 in
Orange	7 to 10	23 to 25 in	50% of standard	60 ft x 21 ft	3 ft
Green	9 to 11	25 to 26 in	25% reduced	78 ft x 27 ft	3 ft
Yellow	11 and up	26 to 27 in	Full pressure	78 ft x 27 ft	3 ft

Sources: International Tennis Federation Tennis Play and Stay / Tennis10s specification; ITF junior competition equipment guidance.

What Shoes Should a Child Wear on Court?

A child should wear tennis court shoes on court, not running shoes. Running shoes are built to push a foot forward and offer little support when a player pushes sideways, and tennis is played almost entirely sideways. Sideways loading is also where a slipped step turns into a rolled ankle, so court shoes are a safety item as much as a performance one. A non-marking outsole is the second requirement, since it protects the playing surface.

How Much Water and Sun Protection Does a Child Need at Camp?

A child needs water available at every break and sun protection applied before they arrive, not after the first drill. Applied before arrival means about 30 minutes ahead, which is the window the Canadian Paediatric Society recommends for sunscreen of SPF 30 or higher on all exposed skin. Exposed skin includes the ears, the nose, the back of the neck, and the tops of the feet, which are the spots parents miss most.

Reapplication happens every two hours, or sooner after heavy sweating, according to the Canadian Cancer Society, which also advises protecting skin whenever the UV Index reads 3 or higher. Higher UV readings arrive with the same summer weeks that camp runs in, so a hat and a shirt do as much work as the bottle in the bag. Send a wide-brimmed hat rather than a cap, pack a spare shirt, and give your child a labelled bottle they can find without asking.

How Should You Handle Drop-Off on the First Morning?

You should handle drop-off on the first morning by arriving ten to fifteen minutes early, walking your child to their coach, saying a short and warm goodbye, and leaving. A short goodbye is the single highest-leverage thing a parent does on day one. A long goodbye reads to a child as evidence that something here is worth being worried about.

Worry transfers faster than reassurance. Thurber’s research on first-year campers found that a child’s distress tracked closely with how the separation was handled and how the child had been coached to cope, which is why the sequence below is worth following even when it feels abrupt.

1. Arrive early enough that your child is not walking into a group already mid-drill.
2. Introduce your child to the coach by name, and let your child answer the coach’s first question themselves.
3. Hand over the bag and point out where the water bottle sits.
4. Say when you will be back, using a marker they understand, such as after lunch or at four o’clock.
5. Hug, say you cannot wait to hear about it, and walk to the car without turning back.
6. Trust the coaching staff to handle the first ten minutes, which is what small groups exist for.

The first ten minutes is also where nerves show up most visibly, and nerves on day one are entirely normal.

What If Your Child Is Nervous About Tennis Camp?

If your child is nervous about tennis camp, name the feeling as normal, keep the goodbye short, and let the coaches fold them into an activity rather than talking the nerves through on the sideline. Activity resolves nerves faster than conversation does, because a child holding a racquet in a rally game has something to do with their hands and their attention. Thurber’s camp research supports the pattern: roughly 81% of unsettled campers recover quickly once friends, staff, and activity fill the space that worry was occupying.

Some children need more than one morning. A child who wobbles on Tuesday as well as Monday is following a normal curve, not signalling that camp was the wrong choice, and our coaches keep those players close in the first rotation until the group feels familiar. We wrote a separate post for families whose child is anxious rather than mildly unsure, and the strategies for a nervous child go a level deeper than what fits here.

Once the nerves settle, what remains is the part of tennis that keeps most players interested, which is the thinking.

Is Tennis More Mental or Physical for Young Players?

Tennis is both mental and physical, and for young players the mental side decides more of the outcome than the physical side does. A beginner who recovers quickly after a miss will out-improve a stronger beginner who dwells on it, every time. Dwelling is the real opponent in week one, because tennis gives a child a fresh point every twenty seconds and no teammate to hide behind between them.

No teammate to hide behind is also what makes tennis useful. A child learns to reset, choose a plan, and try again dozens of times in a single session, and that repetition of resetting is a habit that transfers well beyond the court. It is also physically demanding in a way that suits Canadian activity targets, since the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines call for at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity daily and only 39% of Canadian children aged 5 to 17 currently meet that recommendation, according to the 2024 ParticipACTION Report Card.

What Qualities Make a Good Tennis Player?

The qualities that make a good tennis player are effort, coachability, resilience after mistakes, focus between points, and consistency of attendance. Attendance sits on that list deliberately, because a child who shows up twice a week improves faster than a more naturally coordinated child who shows up occasionally. None of the five qualities are fixed traits, and all five are trainable in a beginner group.

Trainable qualities are what a good coach spends week one building. Coachability, specifically, is the one parents can support at home simply by praising the attempt a coach asked for rather than the ball that happened to land in. Praising the attempt is what the Visek research describes when children rank trying hard and positive coaching among their top definitions of fun.

How Can You Tell If Your Child Is Good at Tennis?

You can tell if your child is good at tennis by watching four markers: how many balls they keep in a rally, whether they move their feet before the ball arrives, whether they recover their ready position between shots, and how quickly they let go of a mistake. Letting go of a mistake is the strongest early predictor of the four, and it is visible from the fence within one session.

Rally length is the marker that improves fastest and the one most worth celebrating. A beginner who rallies three balls on Monday and eight on Friday has made a large gain, even if no shot looked like television tennis. Television tennis is a poor yardstick for a red or orange stage player, whose scaled court and lower-compression ball are built for control rather than pace.

Control shows up in the debrief, if you ask about the right things.

What Should You Ask Your Child After the First Day?

You should ask your child open questions about the day itself rather than questions about performance. Performance questions such as did you win or were you the best invite a verdict, and a verdict on day one is rarely useful. Useful questions sound like these:

• What was the first game you played?
• What did your coach ask you to work on?
• Who did you rally with?
• What was the hardest part, and what got easier?
• What do you want to try tomorrow?

Tomorrow is the word that does the work in that last question, because it treats a second day as the default rather than a decision. Treating it as the default also gives you a clean read on how the week is landing: a child who answers with a plan is engaged, and a child who answers with a shrug usually needs a snack and an hour before they say anything at all.

How Do You Keep the Momentum Going After the First Week?

You keep the momentum going after the first week by booking the next block of court time before the enthusiasm cools. Court time is the whole mechanism, since tennis improvement comes from repetition and a single week gives a beginner the foundation rather than the habit. Our spring program and fall sessions exist to carry that foundation forward across the year for families in Hillcrest Village and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

Some players want a faster route through a specific weakness, and private lessons pair well with group play for exactly that. Group play builds the competitive side, live points, match pressure, and the experience of a stroke holding up against a real opponent, while one-on-one time isolates the technical fix.

Isolating a technical fix is not the only route forward. Families whose child loved week one often add a second week of full-day camp instead, which is the simplest way to double the repetition inside a single summer.

How Often Should a Beginner Child Play Tennis?

A beginner child should play tennis two to three times a week to build skills at a steady rate. Two to three sessions gives the nervous system enough repetition to hold a new movement pattern between visits, which one weekly session rarely does. Our junior spring and fall programs are built on a two or three day per week choice for that reason, across 8 weeks in spring and 6 weeks in autumn.

Why Do Kids Quit Tennis, and How Do You Prevent It?

Kids quit tennis when the sport stops being fun, when they are grouped above or below their level, and when adult expectations outgrow their enjoyment. Enjoyment is the variable with the data behind it: the Aspen Institute’s National Youth Sport Survey with Utah State University found that the average child plays a given sport for under three years and leaves around age 11, most often after losing interest.

Preventing that outcome is mostly a matter of protecting three conditions. Keep the grouping accurate so a child is challenged without being overwhelmed, keep the praise pointed at effort rather than results, and keep the schedule sustainable across a school year rather than front-loading a single intense summer. All three are choices a parent makes, and all three are choices a well-run program supports.

Is Tennis Actually the Healthiest Sport for Kids?

Tennis ranks among the healthiest sports available, and the longevity data on it is stronger than for most alternatives. The Copenhagen City Heart Study, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, followed 8,577 people for up to 25 years and found a multivariable-adjusted life expectancy gain of 9.7 years for tennis players compared with sedentary adults, ahead of badminton at 6.2 years, soccer at 4.7 years, and jogging at 3.2 years. Researchers linked the largest gains to sports requiring a partner or an opponent, which points at the social element rather than the cardio alone.

The social element is also what makes tennis a sport a child can still be playing at fifty. Canada now ranks second globally for the share of its population playing tennis at 12.8%, up 7.1% since 2021, according to the ITF 2024 Global Tennis Report, and 46% of Canadian players are women and girls, up from 29.2% in 2021. Tennis Canada is targeting 100,000 additional young players by 2027, and every one of those players starts with a first week somewhere. Our fall program is where a good summer week most often turns into a year-round habit.

Frequently Asked Questions

What If My Child Says They Do Not Want to Go Back?

If your child says they do not want to go back, ask what specifically felt hard before agreeing or disagreeing. Specific answers such as the sun, a lost water bottle, or not knowing anyone are usually solvable by Tuesday. Thurber’s camp research found roughly 81% of unsettled campers recover quickly, so one difficult afternoon is a normal part of the curve rather than a conclusion.

Can a Child With No Tennis Experience Join a Tennis Camp?

A child with no tennis experience can absolutely join a tennis camp, and beginner groups are built specifically for players who have never held a racquet. Beginner groups use red or orange stage equipment with reduced-compression balls so a first-timer can rally within their first session. We cover this in full in our post for families whose child has no experience at all.

Should a First-Timer Choose a Half-Day or a Full-Day Camp?

A first-timer should usually choose a half-day camp, because three hours of court time gives a beginner a full experience without exhausting their focus. Focus fades before fitness does in children under about nine years old. Older beginners, or children who already sit through long structured days at school, handle the full-day format comfortably from week one.

Do Kids Need to Bring Their Own Tennis Balls?

Kids do not need to bring their own tennis balls, because camps supply all balls and training equipment. Camps also supply the stage-appropriate ball for each group, which matters since a beginner group works with reduced-compression red or orange balls rather than standard yellow ones. A racquet and court shoes are the two items a family provides.

How Long Is a Typical Day at a Junior Tennis Camp?

A typical day at a junior tennis camp runs three hours in a half-day format and six to seven hours in a full-day format. Full-day formats combine about four hours of instruction with supervised breaks, lunch, and structured off-court activity. Extended care before and after those hours is available at many programs, including ours, for families whose work day starts earlier.

Should My Child Eat Before Tennis Camp?

Your child should eat a normal breakfast about an hour before tennis camp begins. An hour gives the stomach time to settle before the first movement block. Pair the meal with water rather than juice, and send a mid-morning snack such as fruit or a granola bar, since children run through energy faster than adults during sustained outdoor activity.

Can Parents Watch the First Session?

Parents can generally watch the first session from outside the court, and most programs welcome it. Watching from a distance works better than watching from the fence, because a child who can catch a parent’s eye between points tends to look for reassurance instead of listening to the coach. Coaches will usually tell you where to stand if you ask at drop-off.

What It All Comes Down To

A first tennis camp goes well when the fundamentals are handled quietly in advance. Choose a program that groups by ability and keeps six or fewer players per coach, check that the racquet length and ball stage match your child’s size, start the conversation about a week out, protect their sleep, keep the goodbye short, and ask about the games rather than the score. Those choices cost a parent very little and they shape almost everything a child takes home from week one.

What a child takes home from week one is often the thing that decides whether tennis becomes a sport they play for a summer or for the next forty years. If you have questions about which week, format, or group fits your child, we would be glad to talk it through with you at Hillcrest Tennis Camp.

Our team is happy to help you match your child to the right week, format, and group. Call 647-335-7473, email info@hillcresttenniscamp.com, or send us a note through the contact page.