USTA ventures backs tech to boost American tennis participation

We have been hearing a lot lately about technological advancements that are reshaping how people live, work, and play. Most of that noise, understandably, revolves around artificial intelligence, the improvements that AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude are bringing to everyday life.

When it comes to video games, titles like Ninja Gaiden 4 have shown just how far the gaming industry has come, and how immersive experiences for players continue to get deeper and more engaging. That momentum is only going to grow once GTA VI drops later this year.
But not all exciting tech news belongs to gaming or chatbots.

Some of the most meaningful advancements right now are targeting something far more physical: getting millions of Americans off the couch and onto a tennis court. USTA Ventures, the strategic investment arm of the United States Tennis Association, has backed Rec Technologies, a platform quietly building the infrastructure that could, for the first time, make tennis genuinely accessible at a national scale.

Why Public Courts Have Always Been a Problem Worth Solving

Tennis has a participation problem that rarely gets discussed openly. The sport has always carried a reputation for being exclusive: private clubs, expensive coaching, limited court access. But the reality on the ground is different. More than 27.3 million people played tennis in America in 2025, and nearly 40 percent of them play on public park courts. That is a massive segment of the playing population using courts that, in many cities, are still managed with paper sign-up sheets, phone calls, or no booking system at all.

Finding an available court on a Tuesday evening or registering for a beginner lesson at a local park should be simple. For most players, it is anything but. The friction is real: showing up to find courts occupied, not knowing which parks have lights for evening play, having no clear way to connect with a certified coach nearby. These are not minor inconveniences. They are the exact kind of barriers that push casual players away from the sport entirely before they ever build a habit around it.

This is the gap Rec Technologies was built to close. The platform functions as an operating system for local recreation, connecting players, coaches, facilities, and community programs through one unified network. It handles court bookings, lesson registrations, and coach discovery, the basic logistics that should have been digital years ago.

What Rec Technologies Actually Does on the Ground

Rec is already operating in nearly 100 cities across the United States, which means this is not a startup with a pitch deck and a dream. It is a working product with real adoption. The platform uses AI-driven tools to simplify the recreation experience at the local level, making it easier for anyone in any neighborhood to find available courts, book time, and connect with coaching, all through a single interface.

The scope goes beyond tennis. Rec handles soccer bookings, swim lesson registrations, and other community recreation categories. That breadth matters because it positions the platform as genuine municipal infrastructure rather than a niche tennis app.

Cities and parks departments are more likely to adopt and maintain a tool that serves multiple sports and programs, which, in turn, means more consistent availability for tennis players.
For coaches, the platform creates a clearer pipeline to students. Public park players who want instruction have historically had limited visibility into who teaches in their area and how to reach them. Rec changes that dynamic by placing certified coaches directly within the same system players use to book courts.

The USTA has also signaled it will explore integrating Rec with USTA Coaching, which would extend that reach even further by connecting community players with nationally certified professionals.

USTA Ventures and the Goal of 35 Million Players by 2035

The investment from USTA Ventures is not just financial backing; it signals a strategic alignment between what Rec is building and where the USTA wants American tennis to go. The association has set a concrete target: 35 million players in the United States by 2035. That means adding roughly 7.7 million players over the next decade, a significant lift that cannot happen through private club growth alone.

Public parks are the only realistic pathway to that scale. They are where first-time players try the sport, where kids pick up a racket for the first time, and where adults return to the game after years away.

Rachel Williams, Rec’s co-founder and president, framed the core problem well: technology for local recreation has become the biggest obstacle to play. Search is hard. Booking is harder. The platform’s goal is to make both effortless, so that the decision to play tennis on a Saturday afternoon is as simple as pulling out a phone and tapping a few times.

What This Means for the Future of Grassroots Tennis

The combination of USTA credibility, Rec’s existing city-level adoption, and AI-powered tools creates something genuinely useful for the sport’s long-term health. Grassroots participation drives everything downstream; it builds the youth pipeline, sustains recreational leagues, and eventually produces competitive players at every level.

Technology has transformed how people access almost every other form of entertainment and physical activity. Fitness apps, streaming platforms, on-demand coaching, all of it has become standard. Tennis, particularly at the public level, has lagged behind. This investment suggests that gap is finally being treated as the solvable problem it always was.

If Rec continues to expand its city footprint and the USTA integration with certified coaching comes through, the barrier to a person taking their first tennis lesson could shrink to almost nothing. That is a meaningful shift, and it has been a long time coming.