Professional tennis has skyrocketed in popularity among urbanites in the modern era, with a lot of credit appropriated to the meteoric rise of Serena and Venus Williams and the current charismatic prodigy Coco Gauff.
XS Tennis founder Kamau Murray, who coached another African American female, Sloane Stephens, to a Grand Slam title in 2017, has worked meticulously to close the gap of accessibility to the sport across racial and socioeconomic divides. He is helping to accomplish this ambitious goal through the Chicago Tennis Festival, which is running through Oct. 3, 2021.
Murray’s illustrious coaching portfolio, which also includes Olympic medalist Monica Puig, gives him instant and ample credibility in this space.
Murray became the first Black person to promote the Chicago Tennis Festival, which is located on the city’s South Side. At his side will be Zina Garrison, a pro tennis pioneer who is the first Black female to be the tournament director of the festival in 25 years.
The Chicago Tennis Festival consists of three Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments that are scheduled at XS Tennis Village at 54th and State streets. Murray explained that the impetus behind the founding of his XS Tennis.
“We founded the organization in 2005 to try to provide inner-city kids with access to tennis, in hopes that it would lead to division one college scholarships and free education for students,” Murray told rolling out. “We wanted to provide access to a sport that Blacks had been mostly shut out of for a long time.”
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