East St. Louis Community Tennis Association is a non-profit 501 C3 charitable organization with the purpose of developing youth through the sport of tennis. ESLCTA’s approach is distinctive because it integrates tennis instruction with yoga, mindfulness, and mentorship rather than treating athletics and wellness as separate experiences. Through the Ace the Inside Game: Holistic Health and Wellness for the Tennis Athlete curriculum, youth participate in tennis instruction alongside breathing exercises, yoga-based movement, visualization, focus strategies, and emotional regulation practices.
Tennis provides the physical and developmental framework. Youth learn serving, rallying, footwork, strategy, match play, discipline, and sportsmanship. Yoga and mindfulness strengthen that work by improving flexibility, body awareness, stress management, attention, and resilience. Together, these components create a holistic model of youth development that supports both athletic performance and healthy emotional development.
This combination matters because tennis is one of the few sports that consistently requires individual accountability, strategic thinking, emotional control, and real-time problem solving. When those demands are paired with yoga and mindfulness practices, participants learn not only how to move better on the court, but also how to manage frustration, remain focused, and recover from setbacks. These are skills that translate into school, relationships, work, and leadership experiences later in life.
The result is a program that supports healthy hearts through physical activity and healthy minds through emotional regulation, confidence building, and stress management. This alignment is especially important in communities where youth may face elevated environmental stressors and limited access to structured wellness resources.
What We Do
Our work includes:
Where We Work
We currently have two beautiful tennis courts – Juniors (5-18) play on the brand new East St. Louis Senior High School Tennis Courts and Adults play on the Lincoln Park courts.
