Teens taking time to teach tennis

Two Richard Montgomery high tennis players parlayed their love of the game into a tennis instruction business

Serve It Up, LLC, employs 18 coaches from Clarksburg, James Hubert Blake, Montgomery Blair, Poolesville, Richard Montgomery and Walt Whitman high schools to teach private and group lessons at high schools around the county. More than 100 people have taken lessons since 2005.

‘‘What we realized is that at a lot of the fancy clubs, private lessons are around $70 an hour,” said Knudson of Boyds. ‘‘But most of the time, they have the [teenage] junior instructors teach a lot of the lessons.”

Knudson said the junior instructors see little of those profits, and so he and Liu decided they could probably teach others for less money but keep more of it.

Serve It Up lessons start at $15 an hour for group lessons and $30 for individual lessons at high school courts.

Prices are low because there are no overhead costs, such as maintaining courts, or paying for lighting and the heating and cooling of an indoor facility.

Knudson and Liu, 17-year-old teammates on the Richard Montgomery varsity tennis squad, built their initial client base from heading to local courts and talking with teens and adults who looked like they could use a few pointers.

‘‘It grew organically, it’s not like we laid out a plan,” said Liu of North Potomac. ‘‘The first lesson I ever taught, I was just playing at a local court and there was a dad who wondered if I could teach his son tennis. ...That’s when we realized there is a big market in this area.”

Soon the boys scouted for more instructors by watching other varsity high school practices and researched U.S. Tennis Association rankings for local junior tennis players they knew.

‘‘Varsity tennis is a pretty small circle,” said Priyanka Gokhale, an instructor since last summer. ‘‘Everyone knows everyone else.”

Instructors interview with Knudson and Liu to make sure they work well with people. Instructors then attend training sessions run by the owners and eventually sign contracts with Serve It Up.

Instructors can earn $14 per hour for individual lessons and up to $30 per hour for group lessons.

‘‘High school tennis can be very competitive, but when you’re teaching it’s very relaxing,” said Gokhale, a senior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. ‘‘It gives me a way to play tennis beyond just competing.”

The boys said clients of all ages take up tennis lessons.

‘‘I started playing when I was 7, and my grandfather is like 80 and he still plays tennis,” he said. ‘‘It was funny because when I started there was this really, really old guy who could still beat me. It really is a lifelong sport.”

Knudson said the lessons are a win-win situation for instructors and students because instructors get a decent part-time job and it’s relatively inexpensive for the clients of all ages.

‘‘Most of the clients I teach are adults,” Liu said. ‘‘We find that we do have to approach them differently, but the positive feedback and encouragement we give to the kids is there, it’s all the same.”

The guys said there is no reason to close the company when they head to college in the fall.

Serve It Up, LLC is a registered trade name and the boys will finalize the incorporation into a full-fledged business this summer when they both turn 18. Most of the scheduling can be run through e-mail and phone calls and lesson payments are accepted online.

Instructors are paid as independent contractors and the nearly $7,000 earned last year were filed under Knudson’s name as a self-employed individual.

‘‘We can’t legally be in charge of the company now, so we wanted to defer that until May,” Liu said. ‘‘We always did this for ourselves, and didn’t want to involve our parents [as liable partners.]”

But before they head to college the two owners are preparing for a charitable partnership with the Montgomery County Tennis Association.

‘‘In the summer we’re hoping to do an after-school tennis program at middle schools,” Liu said. ‘‘We’ll do it to help out and feel like tennis is something just to get them interested and playing after school.”