![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/d6dc9655347f0a9f844c4796b7421a2c.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nby Coach A.J. Baumwell<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Learning the fundamentals.<\/p>\n
photos by Tony Hughes<\/p>\n
tonyrhughes.com<\/p>\n
When I moved into Lakewood in 2018 it was a goal of mine to get my children interested in one of my childhood passions, tennis. I was fortunate enough to play on a state winning high school team back in Pittsburgh, PA where I was raised. During my undergrad at Penn State, I combined my passion for working with kids and teaching to become\u00a0PTR (Professional Tennis Registry) certified to teach\/coach tennis. I was excited about the number of tennis courts Lakewood had to offer but unfortunately it seemed that one would need to travel outside of Lakewood to find beginner classes.<\/p>\n
With the initial\u00a0goal of starting some grassroots beginner classes I developed a great partnership with the Lakewood Recreation Department. However, since starting my 1-hour classes a few years back with the Rec, I\u00a0saw the need\/demand for a more intensive youth program to really help kids learn the fundamentals\u00a0of the game. This past month I launched my first ever Lakewood Youth Tennis camp the week of June 23rd (which just happened to be the hottest week of the year). From 9a – 12p Monday\u00a0through Friday, I was\u00a0joined by a few helpers (including two Lakewood High tennis athletes) to focus on proper grips, footwork, forehands\/backhands, volleys\/overheads, serves and an understanding of how tennis is scored. The camp even featured a demonstration of two college level tennis players from Case Western who visited to show off their amazing hitting capabilities. A big thank you to Lakewood’s own Geiger’s for pitching in t-shirts for everyone. <\/p>\n
Coach A.J. is strongly considering putting together a spring\/fall middle school tennis program to hopefully act as a feeder into the highschool. Help him reach this goal. Feel free to direct any questions to [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Coach A.J. Baumwell Learning the fundamentals. photos by Tony Hughes tonyrhughes.com When I moved into Lakewood in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}