More Than a Tennis Match: How Tennis Girls Social Club Is Connecting Women
- Morgan Koepp
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
Fort Wayne’s growing tennis scene can be found everywhere from public parks to racquet clubs. For many players, finding someone to play with can become just as important as finding a court. That need is becoming more apparent as tennis participation continues to grow nationwide. In 2025, a record 27.3 million people played tennis in the United States, marking six consecutive years of growth. Women are also driving that momentum, with 1.1 million more women taking up tennis in 2025 than the year before.
For Miami entrepreneur and content creator Julia Marrero, that challenge became personal when she returned to tennis after many years away. Marrero hadn’t played since she was about 14. As life became increasingly busy with work, children, and responsibilities at home, she realized she needed something that was just for her.
“I believe when we work, when we have kids, when we take care of the house, we kind of get lost in it all,” Marrero said. “Sometimes it’s hard for us to find the time or something that we enjoy and that we only do for ourselves, to clear our minds.”
She joined tennis clinics near her home and quickly discovered that returning to the court offered more than exercise. Tennis became a form of mental escape.
“I call it my meditation moment because when you are playing tennis, you can’t think about anything else,” she said. “You need to be paying attention to the ball, to your form, to your backhand, your forehand. So it’s an amazing way to clear your head.”
For Marrero, the court became a place where she could step away from the demands of everyday life and do something simply because she enjoyed it.
“We are often the pillars of our home, and if we don’t take care of ourselves, who is going to take care of it all?” she said.
Once she found her way back to the sport, however, she wanted more women to share it with.
At the suggestion of a friend, Marrero began collecting phone numbers from women at her tennis clinics and created a group chat to coordinate matches. The group quickly grew to approximately 120 women. What started as a simple way to find a time and opponent that worked for everyone became increasingly difficult through a text thread.
That was when Marrero’s son, a recent computer engineering graduate, saw an opportunity.
“He told me, ‘So what if we built an app and then you could have the whole city to play?’” Marrero said.
That conversation became the starting point for Tennis Girls Social Club. With her son helping build the app, Marrero turned a simple need into a business.
“It started out of the need for me to find other girls to play with, like a community, a little space that I can just go play, have a coffee, and then come back to my daily routine,” she said.
The Tennis Girls Social Club brand launched in November 2025, followed by the app’s official launch on March 20, 2026. Today, the platform has roughly 2,000 members across the country and is expanding into new cities.
The app allows women to create profiles based on their availability, skill level and preferred style of play. Members can create matches, invite other players and choose whether they want to play socially, competitively or a combination of both. The flexibility is intentional. Marrero knows what a player wants from the court can change from day to day.
“Sometimes you just feel like you want to go out and have fun and not take the game too seriously,” she said. “Other times, you want to play competitively and you want to win.”
Tournament features also give members a way to organize friendly competitions, giving players another way to meet and compete outside of traditional group chats.
But the more Marrero brought women together through matches and events, the more she saw the relationships that developed beyond the court. Some women became close friends, traveling together, and attending events together.
“I started to create different events and different little get-togethers, and I realized there was a huge need for a community, you know, for a sense of belonging,” she said.
Those connections can also help women grow as players. Marrero encourages members to step outside their usual circle of friends and play against different styles and skill levels.
“If you are thinking of playing in a league or to get better, you need to play everyone around you, not just your two, three, four friends,” she said. “You need to challenge yourself.”
As women meet new players, building trust becomes just as important as finding the right match. Tennis Girls Social Club is designed for women 18 and older, and new members go through a verification process. Marrero said members provide a photo of themselves while holding their identification so the team can verify their identity, age, and gender before they gain access to the platform. That trust has helped Marrero take the idea beyond Miami. The app is now available nationwide, with its strongest communities in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, and Texas. She has even seen a small group form in Guam.
Local hosts help bring the club to new cities by organizing events and connecting women with one another. That opportunity could eventually extend to Fort Wayne. Women interested in bringing Tennis Girls Social Club to the area can apply to become a city host.
The vision for Tennis Girls Social Club extends well beyond individual cities. Marrero hopes to build a global community for women who love tennis, with tournaments, social events, travel experiences, and partnerships along the way.
“I want to become a global community for women who love tennis,” she said. “The sky is the limit.”
For Marrero, though, the most meaningful measure of what she has built may not be membership numbers or how many cities join the club. It is found at home, where her children have watched her turn an idea into a business.
“To see their face of how proud they are of me, I love it,” Marrero said. Even when she has doubts, her daughter reminds her, “Mommy, it’s going to work. Don’t worry.”
That encouragement has given Marrero a perspective on success that goes beyond the growth of the app.
“Even if it doesn’t work, that to me, is success already, just to see them be able to see that I’m able to dream about something, create something and make it work,” she said. “To me, that’s priceless.”
What started as Marrero’s search for something that was just for herself has grown into something far bigger than she expected. As Tennis Girls Social Club continues expanding into new cities, she is carrying with her the same lesson that brought her back to the court in the first place: making time for something you love can sometimes lead you somewhere you never expected to go.
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