With the eyes of the tennis world turning to New York for the U.S. Open, the world’s largest one day tennis Pro Am event will be held this weekend on Long Island to support programs to bring tennis lessons and opportunities to kids from under-resourced neighborhoods.
The Johnny Mac Tennis Project makes the sport accessible to more than 5,000 New York City kids each week through free community partnerships with schools in four of the five boroughs. It was founded in 2012 by tennis great John McEnroe.
Ryann Cutillo is Executive Director of the Johnny Mac Tennis Project.
“What this fundraiser supports is our programming which ranges from free community programming where we have school partnerships with over 34 schools in four of the boroughs, so these kids come to us once a week over the course of the school year, so that supports the actual tennis lessons and their equipment.”
Cutillo said this opens the door to kids who would not otherwise be able to afford the sport.
In addition, she said the Johnny Mac Tennis Project or JMTP has provided more than 550 needs based scholarships to the John McEnroe Tennis Academy for promising players, 44 of which have earned college scholarships, including one this year who has been with the program for years.
“Again, he is a kid who would never have been exposed to tennis, there’s not a lot of courts there.It’s a super expensive sport, and he started with us in the second grade, he just graduated from high school back in May and he’ll be heading to Hobart College in the fall on nearly a full tennis scholarship.”
The ProAm fundraiser will be held this Saturday at SPORTIME Amagansett. For more information on how to play with or watch some of the 72 tennis pros at the event go to jmtpny.org/events
