In Charleston, the sound of a tennis ball hitting a racquet is almost as familiar as church bells ringing across the Holy City. These days it’s joined by the pop of pickleball paddles echoing across courts around town.
For many women here, racquet sports have become more than exercise. They’re competition, connection and often the best few hours of the day.
I grew up around tennis on Hilton Head Island, where the courts were basically daycare. Kids were dropped off with racquets and told to run. Hilton Head is also where the Family Circle Cup, now the Credit One Charleston Open (the largest women’s professional tennis tournament in North America), first began. When the tournament moved to Charleston, it became part of the rhythm of spring. It’s also the one week of the year you can get a court because half the players in town are at the Open watching the pros.
In my 20s, I needed something that belonged just to me. I started hitting with friends, joined a league and haven’t stopped since.
Courts With Character
Every set of courts in Charleston holds more than lights and lines. They hold entire communities, each with their own personality. St. Andrews in West Ashley is one of them. At any moment you might hear the car wash next door or smell pizza drifting through the air. When you’re new, it’s strangely comforting—like singing in a choir instead of alone, because everyone out there is figuring it out together.
For many players, myself included, Maybank Tennis Center on James Island becomes home base. With longtime pro Toni Young, the leadership of Kimberly Faust and Renn Kronsberg running the show (Renn was even married right there on the courts), Maybank has a culture all its own.
Finding Your Team
League tennis develops its own rhythm. You figure out your rating, sign up for USTA, find a club and then find your team—carefully, because these might turn out to be your people for life.
Teams develop personalities too. Ours is called the Mullets: business in the front, party in the back. Maybank can feel a little like Cheers for tennis players—everyone knows your name, or at least your tennis nickname. I’m Abomb.
The opportunities to play are endless. There are night leagues, day leagues and CALTA, a longtime Charleston league filling courts every Tuesday morning. If your team wins, the path continues: local playoffs, then state championships, then sectionals, regionals and sometimes even nationals.
I play 4.5 tennis and haven’t missed a season in 20 years. By now I’ve probably played on close to 250 teams in Charleston. The game here is played year-round on outdoor courts, whether it’s 100 degrees in August or a freezing January morning. When rain hits, you’ll see women out there with beach towels and leaf blowers trying to dry courts just so a match can happen.
The Honor System
Club and recreational racquet sports run on an honor system. Players call their own lines, which means your opponent is also the referee. Most of the time it works beautifully. Sometimes the competitive lines blur. The integrity of these games relies on player honesty.
Charleston is a small town, and the sports circles are even smaller. I learned early on to play hard but stay classy—because the person across the net today might be the one walking into the delivery room when your baby is about to arrive. True story.
The Great Equalizer
Tennis courts bring together women from different backgrounds, careers and sometimes very different economic worlds—and somehow the game becomes the great equalizer. My mom is 79 and still plays four times a week. My stepdad Carl is 87 and plays just as often. Around here, tennis isn’t just a hobby—it’s something people keep doing for life.
Meanwhile pickleball has surged across Charleston, often sharing the same facilities. Tennis players may grumble about the pop of the paddle, but most admit there’s room for both games. Pickleball is often advertised as easier on the knees, though after a few quick points many players might debate that claim.
Where to Start
For anyone wondering where to start, Charleston makes it easy. Much of the beginner pipeline runs through April Gift, USTA local program director, who organizes clinics, leagues and community play days through the Facebook group Lowcountry Tennis Enthusiasts. Intro programs like Tennis 101 clinics and beginner round robins pop up across the area—from Snee Farm, where participants even receive a new racquet, to the Hawk’s Nest courts in Hanahan. Pickleball has its own network too, with Facebook groups like Charleston Pickleball helping players find games across the city.
For anyone curious about the sport’s deeper history, the Charleston Tennis Museum at 55 Spring St. offers a small but fascinating look at the game’s past.
In Charleston, racquet sports have a way of turning strangers into teammates—and teammates into lifelong friends.
By Angie Colyer Dupree