Dustin Brown likes to hit it big on the tennis court, and the rangy Jamaican hopes his U.S. Open showing enables him to hit it big back home.

The Tennis Industry Association

Who said kids can't raise big bucks? In the last five years, students of the Austin Tennis Academy , which annually trains more than 100 tennis players aged 5 to 18, has raised more than $350,000 for A Glimmer of Hope , a Texas charity that provides clean water and other necessities to needy people in Ethiopia.

Billie Jean King and Steffi Graf, a borough removed from one of their sport's crown-jewel events, are still spreading tennis gospel to the masses. Thursday morning, well before summer in the city got dirty and gritty, dozens of girls gathered at the Central Park public tennis courts to await visiting royalty.

The Monticello girls' tennis team has eight matches in, and school doesn't even start for another five days. But there have been some early highs and lows for coach Jeff Bordwell's team, which is facing its first season without the Magic's first lady of tennis - state qualifier Katie Kotschevar.

Tennis.com: Melanie Oudin's magical performance in 2009 ensured that no matter what she did in the 11-plus month interim, she would be judged by how she performed here in 2010. That pressure was Oudin's downfall in the second round.

John McEnroe wants a hand in reviving American tennis. He wants to do it his way. The John McEnroe Tennis Academy opens Sept. 13, the day after the U.S. Open. The academy will be on Randall's Island, a strip of land between Manhattan and Queens. McEnroe wants it to be a place where young players can develop without leaving home and moving to a boarding school and tennis academy.