48 WWW.CHARLESTONWOMENPODCAST.COM | WWW.READCW.COM | WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM/CHARLESTONWOMEN WELLNESS + BEAUTY GAME, SET, LOVE Why Charleston Women Keep Showing Up to the Courts BY ANGIE COLYER DUPREE In Charleston, the sound of a tennis ball hitting a racquet is almost as familiar as church bells ringing across the Holy City. These days it's joined by the pop of pickleball paddles echoing across courts around town. For many women here, racquet sports have become more than exercise. They're competition, connection and often the best few hours of the day. I grew up around tennis on Hilton Head Island, where the courts were basically daycare. Kids were dropped off with racquets and told to run. Hilton Head is also where the Family Circle Cup, now the Credit One Charleston Open (the largest women's professional tennis tournament in North America), first began. When the tournament moved to Charleston, it became part of the rhythm of spring. It's also the one week of the year you can get a court because half the players in town are at the Open watching the pros. In my 20s, I needed something that belonged just to me. I started hitting with friends, joined a league and haven't stopped since. COURTS WITH CHARACTER Every set of courts in Charleston holds more than lights and lines. They hold entire communities, each with their own personality. St. Andrews in West Ashley is one of them. At any moment you might hear the car wash next door or smell pizza drifting through the air. When you're new, it's strangely comforting—like singing in a choir instead of alone, because everyone out there is figuring it out together. For many players, myself included, Maybank Tennis Center on James Island becomes home base. With longtime pro Toni Young, the leadership of Kimberly Faust and Renn Kronsberg running the show (Renn was even married right there on the courts), Maybank has a culture all its own. FINDING YOUR TEAM League tennis develops its own rhythm. You figure out your rating, sign up for USTA, find a club and then find your team—carefully, because these might turn out to be your people for life. Teams develop personalities too. Ours is called the Mullets: business in the front, party in the back.
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