KCTL Rings the Opening Bell at NASDAQ Tomorrow!

UPDATE: View photos of the event on Facebook.

Kings County Tennis League has the extreme pleasure of ringing the opening bell tomorrow at 9:15am at NASDAQ in Times Square! Board members and volunteers will be on hand to celebrate the occasion.

To watch the event live: http://www.nasdaq.com/about/marketsitetowervideo.asx

Instructions to watch:
The MarketSite Webcam is great way include employees, stakeholders, family and friends in the experience who aren't able to join the ceremony live.

By launching this link at 9:15am (Opening) or 3:45pm (Closing) you will have a view into the MarketSite studio where you can view the ceremony. The ceremony is live, not archived, so it is important to watch in real time. Do not be alarmed that the web cam is fuzzy. The video feed is compressed for online viewing.

• Viewers must have Windows Media Player to view the webcam
• Scroll to the bottom of the page under the heading MarkeketSite
• Web cam and click on Windows Media Player
• The Web cam is live only and is not archived
• Do not be alarmed that the web cam is fuzzy. The video feed is compressed for online viewing.

Class Recap: Week 15

Can you believe we're headed towards the end of the season already? July and August have just flown by! This past Saturday, things went back to our regularly scheduled programming after an amazing intra-league Davis Cup tournament last week.

Marcy played a lot of games and match play, and broke into serves. Lafayette Gardens had a 2:1 student to volunteer ratio, as did Sumner. A perfect opportunity for the volunteers to work with the students on the fundamentals. Tompkins Houses had Family Day, so there wasn't too much tennis happening there. Overall a really nice day.

This coming Saturday, we have one of our big events of the season: Arthur Ashe Kids Day. AAKD is an opportunity for parents and kids to experience tennis together on the main stage. Kids will go on the courts to play with the pros and participate in fun games. They will also get to watch the top pros practice. Buses leave at 9:00AM, we get back at 4:30PM.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who support KCTL during our annual fundraiser. It was a spectacular evening and we hope to have photos soon!

Class Recap: Davis Cup #2

Saturday was an excellent, extra special class! All four sites convened at Marcy site for our second Davis Cup of the season. We started the event by explaining the Davis Cup and talking about the four countries the players would represent: China (red), Ireland (green), Greece (blue) and Cameroon (yellow).

Each player was given a ribbon in the color of their country. After a few relay races, we got down to tennis. Each country defended for 15 minutes, while the other three countries had the opportunity to advance to the "championship" court. At the championship court, if the attacker beat the defender, he/she would score a point for his/her country. At the end of the hour, the country with the most points wins.

Our Davis Cup winner at the end of class was... Cameroon!

Follow KCTL on Vine for more awesome clips of our youth athletes!

Davis Cup on Saturday

Reminder to parents and players: KCTL will be holding it's second intraleague Davis Cup of the season this Saturday, August 10! Meet at your site at 1pm and your site leader will walk everyone over to Marcy Playground. The Davis Cup is a men's tennis tournament where players compete for their country (similar to the Olympics.) The women's tennis tournament is called the Federation (Fed) Cup.

Read about our first Davis Cup held earlier this season: ‘Global’ Tennis Tournament Teaches Bed-Stuy Kids Backhands and Borders and view photos from it on Facebook.

Positively Black: NBC New York

There's no class recap today since we had to cancel Saturday's class due to weather. But enjoy this super great video of President and Vice President, Michael McCasland and Jonathan Williams, on NBC New York's segment: Positively Black.

"Michael, I've never won anything before. This is amazing. It's a rule class is from one to three?"
"Well, class is from one to three. It's not a rule."
"Can you make it a rule it's one to four, one to five?!"

Fundraiser: Less than 2 weeks away!

Don't miss it -- our 4th annual fundraiser is less than 2 weeks away! Get your tickets now online at: kctl4.eventbrite.com.

Ticket and raffle sales go towards supporting our amazing program that brings FREE tennis lessons to over 100 kids every Saturday at four public housing locations in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Every year, we take the kids, parents and volunteers to Arthur Ashe Kids Day (AAKD) where they get to play tennis games, watch professional players practice (last year there was a Federer sighting!) and most importantly, spend a day with hundreds of other tennis enthusiasts of all ages from all walks of life. It's a really amazing day where we share that special feeling that is the love of the game.

Here are a few photos from last year's AAKD. View the full album on Facebook.

This we have amazing raffle prizes including: Nets Box tickets, US Open tickets and tour, Philharmonic tickets, restaurant gift certificates, and more. Drinks are being provided by Brooklyn Brewery. And there will be live jazz from The Austin Walker Trio. Not to mention, all your favorite KCTL board members and volunteers!

It'll be a great evening and we can't wait to see you there! Get your tickets now:

(VIDEO) Class Recap: Special Surprise

Saturday's class was one of our best. The weather was perfect, sunny and the wind was calm. The kids and volunteers both came out in full force. At Tompkins we even laid down lines for two youth-sized courts, so the kids could play out points while getting some perspective on court dimensions and strategy. It's pretty amazing to take a plain old blacktop and turn it into a legitimate tennis court. And it paid off, the kids were eager to get on to it and see what they could do.

We had a special surprise at each of the four sites too, but we can't tell you about it yet! Don't worry though, I'll let you know all about it when the time is right. When will the time be right, you ask? Oh, you know... some time around... *drumroll* the U.S. Open! Yea, it's big, exciting news!

In the meantime, check out these vines (short video clips) from Tompkins site. You can find us on your mobile device using the Vine app: KCTL. The first video are a few kids going through some drills. The second vine video is the end of class cheer.

DON'T MISS IT: Our fundraiser is happening soon on August 15th! If you're in NYC, come celebrate with KCTL and learn more about this amazing program. If you're too far away to join, please consider making a donation to the program. Big or small, it helps. To buy tickets or make a donation, visit our EventBrite page.