Junior Tennis Champions Center
The center hosts United States Tennis Association (USTA) and International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior World Tour events, and serves as the training center for the University of Maryland's women's tennis team.
The center has 17 outdoor courts and 15 indoor courts, including hardcourts, Har-Tru courts, and red clay courts.
History
JTCC was founded in 1999 by investment banker Ken Brody. The school was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization meant to serve Washington, D.C., and its Maryland suburbs of Montgomery County and Prince George’s County. Rather than recruiting players from around the country and world, like some tennis academies, the center aims to discover and harvest the best tennis talent from the Washington metropolitan area, JTCC officials said in 2014.
JTCC began operating with 40 recruited junior tennis players from the Mid-Atlantic region.
From 1999 to 2010, future World No. 10 Frances Tiafoe often stayed at the center five nights a week, sleeping in a back room with his brother and his father, the center's head of maintenance. Tiafoe attended school and was coached by the staff at the center.
By 2004, JTCC had demonstrated enough success in junior tennis to earn a designation as a USTA Regional Training Center.
JTCC reached a multi-year agreement with Fila in 2013. As a result of this agreement, Fila has a shop at JTCC and top JTCC players are provided with Fila apparel for junior tournaments.
In 2013 and 2018, JTCC received the USTA's USA Developmental Program of the Year Award for training youth tennis players.
Tournaments held
The center has hosted various USTA regional tournaments. It hosts the Wayne K. Curry Prince George’s County International Junior Tennis Championships, an ITF Junior World Tour Grade 1 event. The tournament has drawn numerous future professional tennis players including Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Denis Shapovalov, Reilly Opelka, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Frances Tiafoe, Casper Ruud, Tommy Paul, Sebastian Korda, Coco Gauff, Sofia Kenin and Claire Liu.
JTCC also hosts the ITA Bedford Cup Mid-Atlantic Championships, which is an NCAA Division I women's tennis tournament that draws teams from around the country. Participating schools have included the University of Maryland, University of Delaware, Georgetown University, James Madison University and George Washington University.
Programs
Community outreach
Since 2009, JTCC has run the GEICO Game On! program, which brings JTCC coaches to inner-city schools and recreation centers to teach at-risk children how to play tennis.
High Performance program
The High Performance program has four components: Full Time, Champs I, Champs II, and Junior Champs. Each group has players between ages 6 and 18, and trains for collegiate recruitment.
School
JTCC uses the Laurel Springs School as its distance schooling program. Players in the Full Time High Performance program usually are enrolled in the program to help maximize training time. The school claims that "every student who has graduated from JTCC’s Champions program has earned a scholarship to a Division I program or a facilitated acceptance at a Division III or Ivy League college or university and/or have pursued careers in professional tennis." There are two teachers that teach in-person and full-time at JTCC.
The program's graduates have gone on to attend all the Ivy League colleges, Stanford, Chicago, Virginia, UCLA, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Penn State, Michigan, Texas, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Rice, Duke, Georgetown, George Washington, Notre Dame, Wake Forest and many other colleges and universities.
Notable alumni
JTCC has trained numerous NCAA college tennis players, including NCAA Division I, II, and III champions and All-American players.
The center has also trained professional tennis players during professional events, including the US Open Series' Washington Open, the ATP 500, and WTA International tournament at the nearby William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center.