Tennis can range from very affordable to very expensive for a child, and the deciding factor is whether your child plays recreationally or trains competitively. A recreational junior in Canada plays for well under the national average cost of youth sport, often for the price of a racquet, a pair of court shoes, and a seasonal group program. A competitive junior who trains year-round, takes weekly private lessons, and travels to tournaments can spend several times that amount. This post breaks down what recreational tennis actually costs each year, what makes the competitive track so much pricier, which line items drive the bill, how tennis compares to hockey and other sports Canadian families play, the age a child should start, and the staged approach that keeps the sport affordable while your child decides how far they want to take it.
Is Tennis an Expensive Sport for Kids?
Tennis is not an expensive sport for kids at the recreational level, and it becomes expensive only when a family adds competitive training, year-round court time, and tournament travel. Those two tracks produce completely different bills from the same sport, which is why parents get such conflicting answers when they ask the question.
The recreational track starts with one racquet, one pair of non-marking court shoes, and a seasonal group program. Group programs in Canada cost roughly half of what private club training costs, according to Canadian Tire Jumpstart research published through the Sport Information Resource Centre. Jumpstart’s 2025 Cost of Sport Survey, which captured 5,891 parents representing nearly 10,000 children, found that Canadian families spend an average of $2,140 per year on each participating child across all sports, and that a typical family’s annual organized-sport bill sits at roughly $1,200. A recreational tennis junior sits at or below those figures rather than above them.
Figures above those numbers come from a different kind of participation. Competitive junior training replaces one weekly group session with several training blocks, adds individual coaching hours, extends the season from one season to four, and introduces entry fees and travel. The Solutions Research Group Canadian Youth Sports Report found that 44% of family sport spending goes to lesson fees or dues and another 30% goes to travel and transportation, so the two categories that separate recreational from competitive tennis are precisely the two categories that dominate the budget.
How Much Does Recreational Tennis Cost for a Child Each Year?
Recreational tennis costs a Canadian child a few hundred dollars a year once a racquet and shoes are purchased and the child plays in a seasonal group program on public or club courts. This is the floor almost no cost guide bothers to state, and it is the number most parents are actually asking about.
Three pieces make up that floor. Equipment is a one-time purchase that lasts a season or two. Court time can be free. Coaching is the only recurring expense, and group coaching spreads a coach’s hourly rate across several children, which is what pulls the per-session price down. Families who enrol a child in seasonal junior tennis programs pay for structured instruction on a set schedule rather than for individual coaching hours, and that single choice accounts for most of the gap between the two tracks.
Canadian data supports how modest the entry-level figure is. The Solutions Research Group report found that families with children aged 3 to 7 spend an average of $1,227 per year across all organized and casual sport, less than half of the $2,500-plus that families with teens aged 13 to 17 report. Jumpstart’s comparison of recreational and competitive options in the same sport is sharper still: recreational soccer averaged $675 a year against $1,650 for a competitive club place, and Jumpstart concluded that recreational programs cost roughly half of what private clubs charge across popular sports while keeping children playing longer.
When Does Junior Tennis Get Expensive?
Junior tennis gets expensive when three things stack at once: weekly individual coaching, year-round training instead of a single season, and tournament travel. Any one of them on its own adds a manageable amount. All three together multiply the annual total.
Individual coaching is the first and largest escalation. Showcase Tennis reports private lesson rates of US$65 to US$160 or more per hour across the United States, with advanced competitive coaching sitting at the top of that range. A junior taking two private hours a week for most of the year carries a coaching bill that no group program approaches. Tournament entries then add a second layer. The Sport Information Resource Centre puts Canadian local tournament costs at $100 to $200 per event and out-of-town events at $100 to $600 once travel is counted, and USTA junior entry fees in the United States run US$40 to US$80 per event before any travel is added.
At the far end of the competitive track, the numbers stop resembling a youth activity. SportsSteps reports that national- and international-level junior tennis players can spend US$10,000 to US$40,000 or more per year on coaching, clinics, and tournament travel, and Showcase Tennis puts full-time boarding academies at US$60,000 to US$100,000 or more annually. Very few families ever reach that tier, and no child needs to reach it to play tennis well. The table below shows how the same sport prices out across the two tracks a Canadian family is realistically choosing between, drawing on the Jumpstart Cost of Sport Survey, Sport Information Resource Centre tournament figures, and Solutions Research Group spending categories.
| Cost Category | Recreational Junior | Competitive Junior |
|---|---|---|
| Coaching format | Seasonal group program, one or two sessions a week | Small-group training plus weekly individual hours |
| Season length | One or two outdoor seasons | Year-round, including indoor winter court time |
| Court access | Free public courts or a club membership | Club membership plus paid indoor court hours |
| Equipment | One junior racquet and court shoes per season or two | Multiple frames, frequent restringing, several pairs of shoes |
| Tournaments | None, or local events at $100 to $200 | 12 or more events a year, out-of-town events at $100 to $600 |
| Share of budget from travel | Minimal, local play | Up to 30% of total spending |
Travel’s share of that bill is the line Canadian families underestimate most. Solutions Research Group found that transportation accounts for 30% of what families spend on youth sport, second only to lesson fees and dues at 44%. Equipment, clothing, and shoes account for the remaining balance, which means the racquet most parents worry about buying is the smallest part of the picture.
What Are You Actually Paying For in Junior Tennis?
You are paying for four things in junior tennis: equipment, court access, coaching, and tournaments. Each one behaves differently. Equipment is a small one-time purchase, court access can cost nothing, coaching is the recurring expense that scales with format, and tournaments are optional until a child chooses to compete.
What Does a Kid Need to Start Playing Tennis?
A kid needs a junior-sized racquet, non-marking court shoes, comfortable athletic clothing, and low-compression balls to start playing tennis. That is the entire starting kit, and most of it lasts well beyond the first season.
- A junior racquet sized to the child’s height, not a shortened adult frame
- Non-marking court shoes with lateral support, which hard courts require
- Athletic clothing the child can move and sweat in
- Low-compression balls, the red, orange, and green progression the International Tennis Federation uses for young players
- A water bottle, a hat, and sunscreen for outdoor sessions
Low-compression balls deserve a note, because they change the economics of starting young. These balls travel slower and bounce lower than a standard yellow ball, which lets a five-year-old rally in a first lesson rather than after a year of practice. Faster rallying keeps young children engaged, and engagement is what determines whether the money a family spends in year one produces a second year.
What Size Tennis Racquet Does a 7 Year Old Need?
A 7 year old needs a 21-inch to 23-inch tennis racquet, roughly 53 to 58 centimetres, depending on height. Children aged 4 to 6 generally use 19-inch or 21-inch frames, and players aged 9 to 10 move up to 25 inches before graduating to a full-size adult frame around age 11. A frame that is too long forces a child to shorten their swing and build habits a coach later has to undo, so sizing is a technical decision rather than a cosmetic one.
Do You Have to Join a Club to Play Tennis?
No, you do not have to join a club to play tennis, because most Canadian cities maintain free public courts that anyone can use. The City of Toronto operates 339 free public courts across 185 parks, available first-come, first-served, alongside 263 club courts and agreements with the operators of six tennis bubbles for winter play. Families across North York can put a child on a court for the price of a bus fare.
Club access buys something different from court time alone. A membership provides maintained surfaces, booked court availability instead of a queue, organized play, and a coaching staff who track a child’s progress across seasons. Parents weighing the two options can review club membership requirements before enrolling in any seasonal program, since membership and program registration are separate steps.
How Much Do Tennis Lessons Cost for Kids?
Tennis lessons for kids cost far less in a group format than one-on-one, because a group session divides a coach’s hourly rate across several players. Showcase Tennis reports private rates of US$65 to US$160 or more per hour in the United States and notes that group clinics cost far less per hour and are often the better value for younger players.
Rates in any market reflect coach certification, court costs, group size, and season length, and they vary widely between a municipal recreation program and a private club. We cover the ranges families encounter in more detail in a separate piece on average lesson costs, including how seasonal packages compare to drop-in sessions.
Individual instruction still earns its place for specific jobs. A player preparing for a tournament, fixing a serve, or recovering from a long layoff progresses faster with undivided attention, which is why many families use private lessons as a supplement rather than as the foundation of a child’s week.
Are Group Tennis Lessons Better Than Private Lessons?
Group tennis lessons are better than private lessons for most beginner and intermediate children, because the ratio delivers enough coach attention at a fraction of the per-hour cost. The mechanism is the ratio itself. At a 6:1 student-to-coach ratio, a beginner receives live correction on every drill while still rallying, serving, and playing points with peers. At a 4:1 ratio, an advanced or tournament-level junior gets closer supervision on tactical work without paying individual rates.
Peer play is the part a private lesson cannot replicate. Children who learn alongside others develop point construction, rally tolerance, and the social habits that keep them returning to the court, and our seasonal group tennis programs are built around that principle for every age and level we coach.
Coach qualification matters as much as the ratio. A certified coach running a group of six produces better development than an uncertified instructor running a group of two, which is why we staff every session with Ontario Tennis Association certified coaches and publish our coaching credentials openly.
What Do Junior Tournaments Cost?
Junior tournaments cost $100 to $200 for a local event in Canada and $100 to $600 for an out-of-town event, according to the Sport Information Resource Centre. Entry fees are the smaller half of that figure. Fuel, hotels, meals, and sometimes a coach’s day rate make up the rest.
Volume is what turns tournaments into a budget line. Showcase Tennis reports that 12 to 16 events a year is normal for a competitive junior, with older elite players running higher. Multiply an out-of-town weekend by a dozen and the tournament category alone can exceed everything a recreational family spends in a year. Tournaments remain entirely optional, and a child can play tennis for a decade without entering one.
Is Tennis More Expensive Than Other Sports for Kids?
Tennis is less expensive than hockey, skiing, and equestrian sports at the recreational level, and more expensive than most team sports at the elite competitive level. Its cost range is simply wider than the range of a sport with fixed registration and a short season.
What Is the Most Expensive Sport to Play for a Kid?
The most expensive sport to play for a kid is equestrian by cost ceiling and ice hockey by what families actually pay. SportsSteps puts serious equestrian programs at US$5,000 to US$20,000 or more a year, far above anything most families encounter, while ranking ice hockey as the priciest sport millions of children genuinely play, citing an average of roughly US$2,583 a year in an Aspen Institute and Utah State University parent survey.
What Are the 3 Most Expensive Sports?
The 3 most expensive sports for children are equestrian, fencing, and figure skating by annual cost ceiling. SportsSteps places fencing at US$3,000 to US$10,000 or more once private coaching and national travel are counted, and competitive figure skating at US$7,000 to US$10,000 or more a year, climbing past US$20,000 at higher levels. Facility rent, equipment a growing child outgrows, individual coaching, and travel are the four drivers that appear at the top of every expensive sport.
Is Tennis Cheaper Than Hockey?
Yes, tennis is cheaper than hockey for Canadian families at every level except elite competition. A Royal Bank of Canada analysis found that Canadian families spend an average of $4,478 a year to keep a child in hockey, climbing past $7,000 for teenagers aged 13 to 16, with registration, equipment, tournament travel, and skill development making up the total. The Solutions Research Group report places hockey, skiing, and equestrian in the same bracket at $3,600 to $4,350 a year, roughly twice the average across all youth sports.
Hockey’s floor is high because its costs are mandatory. Ice time is rented, full protective equipment is required before a child’s first skate, and competitive play means travel. Tennis has no equipment barrier beyond a racquet and shoes, and its court time can cost nothing at all, which is why a recreational tennis junior and a recreational hockey player are not comparable expenses.
What Is the Cheapest Sport to Play?
Track and field is the cheapest sport to play, costing little more than a pair of running shoes and a modest team fee. Cross-country running and recreational basketball follow closely, and SportsSteps notes the common thread: sports without facility rent and without mandatory travel to find competition stay inexpensive even at a fairly serious level. Recreational tennis shares that profile, since public courts carry no rent and local play requires no travel.
At What Age Should a Kid Start Tennis?
A kid should start tennis between ages 4 and 6 using a short racquet and low-compression balls, which is the cheapest possible entry point into the sport. Starting young costs less because a four-year-old needs a short entry-level racquet rather than a performance frame, plays in a group rather than individually, and competes in nothing at all.
Early starts have become common in Canada. Tennis Canada’s 2025 participation study found that 29% of Canadian children under 12 picked up a racquet that year, alongside nearly 37% of Canadians aged 12 to 17, a 14% increase over 2023. Tennis Canada chief executive Gavin Ziv attributed part of that growth to accessible equipment, noting that modern junior racquets and learning balls let a child play within five or ten minutes of stepping on court.
Age shapes the format rather than the fee. Our youngest players work on coordination, footwork, and contact through game-based drills, while older beginners move faster into rallies and scoring. Parents across North York often start a child in a short seasonal block or a week of summer tennis camp before committing to anything longer, which keeps the first financial decision small.
Why Do 70% of Kids Quit Sports?
Seventy percent of kids quit organized sports by age 13 because the sport stops being fun, with burnout, overuse injury, and cost as the main drivers. The figure comes from a National Alliance for Youth Sports poll and is echoed in an American Academy of Pediatrics report identifying injuries, overtraining, and burnout as the leading causes, with the Academy recommending age-appropriate training and a variety of physical activities instead of early specialization.
Cost drives the Canadian version of the same problem. Jumpstart found that “too expensive” is the single most cited reason Canadian children quit, named by 48% of respondents, and that 32% of parents report stress about affordability, rising to 41% among low-income families. Those two findings together explain the real financial risk in youth sport, which is not the size of the bill but paying a large bill for a track the child never wanted.
Tennis sits well against that risk for one structural reason: it is an individual sport a person can play at any age, so a child who steps back from competition does not step away from the game. A junior who tires of an intense schedule can return to a shorter seasonal format like our fall junior program and keep playing rather than quitting outright.
Parents worried about a child losing interest early are asking the right question before spending. We address what that looks like in practice in a separate piece on changing their mind partway through a program.
How to Keep Tennis Affordable for Your Child
You keep tennis affordable by staging the spend, matching each purchase to the level your child has actually reached rather than the level you hope they reach. The sequence below is the order experienced coaches recommend, and following it protects both the budget and the child’s enjoyment.
- Buy one correctly sized junior racquet and a pair of non-marking court shoes. Skip the second frame until the first one is outgrown.
- Play on free public courts first. A child who rallies happily in a park for a few weekends has told you something no purchase can.
- Enrol in one seasonal group program rather than a year-round commitment. One season is enough to see whether the interest holds.
- Add individual coaching only for specific problems, such as a serve that will not develop or preparation for a first event.
- Enter local tournaments before out-of-town ones. Travel is the category that multiplies a budget, and local play builds the same competitive experience.
- Extend to a second and third season once the child asks for it, not before.
Season-by-season enrolment is what makes that ladder possible. Our eight-week spring tennis program runs as a self-contained block, so a family can test one season without buying into a full year of training.
Group formats carry the ladder the rest of the way. Children who progress through structured coaching at a consistent ratio develop the technical base that makes later private hours productive, which means the expensive layer, when a family eventually adds it, actually buys something.
Is Tennis Worth the Cost for Kids?
Yes, tennis is worth the cost for kids, because it is a lifelong sport a player can keep for 60 years rather than a seasonal activity that ends with high school. That difference in duration changes how a family should read the annual figure.
Participation data shows how many Canadians stay with the game. Tennis Canada reported that more than six million Canadians played tennis in 2025, an increase of over one million players since 2023, lifting tennis to third among Canada’s most popular sports by participation, tied with golf. The 2024 International Tennis Federation Global Tennis Report ranks Canada second globally for the share of its population playing tennis at 12.8%, and records that women and girls now make up 46% of Canadian players, up from 29.2% in 2021.
The return extends past the court. A child who learns tennis gains footwork, hand-eye coordination, and the habit of solving problems alone under pressure, since no teammate takes the next point for them. We cover the physical and mental side of that in more depth in a piece on the benefits of tennis for young players.
Frequently Asked Questions
At What Age Do Most Kids Quit Sports?
Most kids quit sports by age 13, with a National Alliance for Youth Sports poll placing the dropout rate at 70% by that age. Aspen Institute and Utah State University research found the average child spends under three years in a given sport. Declining enjoyment, burnout, and cost are the reasons children name most often.
At What Age Do Most Girls Quit Sports?
Most girls quit sports in early adolescence, with dropout concentrated between ages 13 and 17. Jumpstart reports that nearly four in ten girls in Canada are missing out on sport altogether. Tennis runs against that trend: the International Tennis Federation records women and girls at 46% of Canadian tennis players in 2024, up from 29.2% in 2021.
What Sports Do Wealthy Kids Play?
Wealthy families are more likely to enrol children in sports with facility rent and travel requirements, including equestrian, figure skating, fencing, and elite-level tennis. Aspen Institute data shows the participation gap between the lowest and highest income households has widened for a decade. Recreational tennis sits outside that pattern, since public courts in most Canadian cities are free.
How Often Should a Child Play Tennis a Week?
A child should play tennis one to three times a week, depending on age and goals. Beginners progress well on a single weekly session plus casual play. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises keeping training age-appropriate and preserving variety in physical activity, so two or three structured sessions is a sensible ceiling for most young players.
Can You Learn Tennis Without Lessons?
You can learn tennis without lessons well enough to rally and enjoy the game, but technique built without correction tends to limit a player later. Serve mechanics and footwork are the two areas self-taught players struggle with most. A short block of coaching early is usually cheaper than fixing established habits years afterward.
How Much Does It Cost to Restring a Tennis Racquet?
Restringing a tennis racquet averages about US$40 per frame according to Showcase Tennis, and a competitive junior who breaks strings every few weeks can spend more on string over a year than on racquets. Recreational players rarely face this cost, since a beginner’s strings commonly last a full season or longer.
The Bottom Line
Tennis is as expensive as a family chooses to make it. A child can start with one racquet, a pair of court shoes, and a seasonal group program, play on free public courts between sessions, and spend less in a year than Canadian families average across all youth sport. Costs climb only when individual coaching hours, year-round court time, and tournament travel stack on top of each other, and every one of those steps is a decision a family makes deliberately rather than a fee the sport imposes.
Our advice to parents in North York is simple: start small, let the child’s interest set the pace, and add the expensive layers only when they are earned. We have coached beginners through to tournament level at Bayview Village Tennis Camp for four decades, and the families who enjoy the sport longest are almost always the ones who built up to it gradually. If you would like help working out which format suits your child right now, get in touch and we will talk it through with you.
