In 2025, high school tennis is on solid footing.
Unlike the tennis industry, which added six million participants because of COVID-19-related policies, NFHS did not track participation for two seasons (2019-2020 and 2020-2021). In 2018-2019, there were 348,750 tennis athletes. Four seasons later (2022-2023), the total number of tennis athletes finally surpassed this level (349,342). The recovery is a result of a strong rebound in girls’ play. In 2023-2024, the number of boys tennis athletes was less than the 2016-2017 level.
In the 2023-34 season, NFHS reported 353,601 high school tennis athletes. About 55.4% were girl athletes. Of the 20,820 programs, 51.1% were girls’ teams.
On average, there were 15.5 tennis athletes per boys’ team and 18.4 athletes per girls’ team.
The United States Tennis Participation Report states there are 23.8 million tennis players and 2.7 million players in the 13-to-17-year category. Approximately 13.1% of the players in this category play high school tennis (353,601/2.7 million= 13.1%).
Almost one in four high school tennis athletes live in Texas and California. Texas had 44,381 tennis athletes in 2023-24, and California had 39,494.
Over 10,000 high school tennis athletes participate in 10 states, and about two-thirds reside in 16 states (TX, CA, NY, MI, IL, NJ, WA, OH, MN, FL, IN, WI, PA, MA, NC, and MO). The distribution of tennis programs is not even between and within states, which affects access to teams and program costs. For additional data analysis about high school tennis, go to https://racketbusiness.com/p/the-tennis-industry-s-best-kept-secret-high-school-tennis. In addition, another article can be found at https://racketbusiness.com/p/capturing-the-potential-of-high-school-tennis.
There is more that can be done to meet the needs of high school tennis programs in Colorado and other states. In 2016, an analysis of Colorado’s secondary tennis programs identified key elements of the programs and presented questions about potential issues that could be addressed. The document at this link contains the cover letter and the report Meeting the Needs of High School Tennis Players Observations and Analysis of Colorado High School Tennis.
It was sent to stakeholders in the high school tennis community in hopes they would discuss how to further strengthen Colorado high school programs. Topics addressed in the document were:
• Purpose of Colorado high school tennis
• Participation Colorado high school tennis
• Costs to play Colorado high school programs
• Stakeholders and investment
• Length of Colorado high school tennis season
• Ability level of Colorado high school players
• Match competitiveness
• Match format
• Number of courts on Colorado high school campuses
• Quality of Colorado high school coaches
• Expectations of Colorado high school coaches
• Building a community for high school programs and players
• Expanding relationships with allied organizations
• CHSAA regulations.