A 'floating' tennis club with good vibes and a pinch of country club swagger? These Angelenos created it

Across the six players connected the tennis tribunal astatine noon connected a Friday successful Beverly Hills, I timepiece 2 Cartier watches and 1 Rolex. There’s tennis skirts paired with chunky cable-knit sweaters and achromatic sneakers and tote bags with collegiate embroidery. From down sunglasses and shot caps, members look to beryllium successful their mid-twenties to aboriginal thirties. But nary substance however overmuch the country whitethorn lucifer a bequest state nine astatine archetypal glance, this meetup exists astir successful absorption to the city’s fistful of costly clubs with yearslong wait-lists and lengthy rank requirements.

Kacper Owsian greets idiosyncratic to his Tennis Clinic successful Beverly Hills.

(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)

This is Sunset Tennis Club, a membership-based tennis nine that operates connected a bid of courts successful upscale neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Founded successful aboriginal 2023 by Anna and Kacper Owsian, the enactment thinks of itself arsenic a “floating tennis club,” said Anna, lone without the barriers to introduction that support retired galore millennials and zoomers.

Once a couple, present concern partners, Anna and Kacper immigrated to Los Angeles from Poland successful precocious 2022. The brace met implicit a decennary agone playing tennis successful the metropolis of Poznań, wherever Kacper, a erstwhile tennis pro, followed successful his family’s footsteps coaching astatine a tennis nine and Anna, who plays for fun, worked successful the manner and wellness industries. When the 2 moved to Los Angeles, they, similar galore caller transplants, struggled to find community. They utilized their communal emotion of tennis arsenic a mode to marque friends, mounting a once-a-week day to play, followed by nights retired for meal and drinks. From there, the thought to commencement the nine arsenic a concern was born.

Living successful affluent Brentwood astatine the time, they were inspired by the aesthetics of state nine life, adjacent if they were incapable to really participate. Anna wanted to lend her acquisition successful manner to branding a tennis nine that was “more than conscionable a spot to play, but the athletics we love, reimagined for the caller generation.” Kacper could teach. The archetypal authoritative Sunset Tennis Club started erstwhile a week successful Beverly Hills, attended by a tiny radical of friends of friends.

Sunset Tennis Club sells one-off clinics, oregon tiny radical lessons separated by level. Kacper inactive teaches, but they besides employment a fistful of coaches. Despite its deficiency of a azygous brick-and-mortar location, the nine runs connected a rank model. Anyone who tin spend to put a fewer 100 dollars successful their crippled is invited to articulation instantly via the brand’s website. Membership is tiered, based connected however often 1 wants to enactment successful clinics. Four beginner clinics a period runs $200, portion attending 12 ranges from $480-540 depending connected the member’s acquisition level. Add-on backstage lessons are available.

The nine plays crossed six locations — including Beverly Hills, Hancock Park, and Brentwood — each of which are connected backstage properties, accessed done the founders’ idiosyncratic relationships.

Sunset Tennis Club has arrived successful L.A. astatine a infinitesimal wherever racket sports are surging successful popularity. According to a 2024 survey by RacquetX, a league for racket athletics professionals, the class — which includes tennis, pickleball, squash, badminton and array tennis — has grown 30% since 2021. Tennis players successful the U.S. jumped from 1.9 cardinal players to 25.7 cardinal players successful 2024, its 5th consecutive twelvemonth of maturation according to the United States Tennis Association. The founders accidental that frankincense acold successful 2025, Sunset Tennis Club has hosted 1,000 players crossed its 25 play clinics and rotating events monthly.

Anna and Kacper Owsian big a Tennis Clinic successful Beverly Hills.

(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)

Its increasing rank whitethorn person arsenic overmuch to bash with the athletics of tennis arsenic it does the manner associated with it. Amanda Greeley, proprietor of racket sports manner marque Spence, argues tennis’ accrued popularity is simply a effect of the photogenic nature, but besides society’s tendency for connection.

“Tennis looks bully connected Instagram, but I besides judge it taps into thing deeper: Tennis is social. In a satellite wherever truthful overmuch fittingness has go solitary — rotation bikes, footwear camps, apps — tennis offers real, in-person connection. It’s progressive and communal.”

Even if anyone tin articulation Sunset Tennis Clubs, that doesn’t mean their events are wholly devoid of the old-money swagger often spotted connected L.A. tennis courts. The enactment operates “in the successful betwixt nationalist courts and state clubs … thing that’s approachable for radical but astatine the aforesaid clip a small spot much exclusive and much unique,” said Anna.

Anna Owsian astatine her Tennis Clinic

(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)

Outside of entree to backstage courts, the feeling of exclusivity comes from the Sunset Tennis Club’s branding and membership, which tends to stock an affinity for crisp tennis whites and beauteous watches. Sunset Tennis Club’s Instagram provender resembles that of a manner brand. Influencers similar Song of Style’s Aimee Song and Kardashian constitution creator Mary Phillips are known to predominant clinics. Beyond tennis lessons, rank includes entree to societal events that scope from ticker parties astatine boutique hotels to invites to backstage boxes astatine tennis tournaments. Recently, the nine partnered with the apparel institution FILA to acquisition members a tennis outfit and an invitation to their backstage container suite astatine the high-profile BNP Paribas Open successful the La Quinta desert, providing members with different mundane lives a sensation of the L.A. influencer life. Chelsea Ma, a 28-year-old shaper who discovered Sunset Tennis Club done an Instagram ad, attends a session with the radical erstwhile a week. She says she’s besides made adjacent friends done the club, immoderate of whom she’s traveled with.

“I was already playing tennis erstwhile oregon doubly a week, but I knew I wanted to get better,” Ma said. “It was hard to find friends who wanted to play tennis connected a regular ground [before joining] ... The nine is 1 of a kind. It taps into a manner their members already unrecorded by but done the instauration of tennis.”

Much similar your emblematic state club, determination is simply a formal codification astatine Sunset Tennis Club clinics: Tennis whites oregon all-black attire is required. At astir courts, the group’s logo is displayed connected nets and tin beryllium seen successful the inheritance of members’ cautiously posed Instagram photos connected the court. On the Friday that I visited successful Beverly Hills, location euphony by Rufus du Sol played softly from a talker arsenic we practiced drills. Even with each those tiny details, the acquisition wasn’t precisely the Ritz. Members parked connected the street, bath entree varied tribunal by tribunal and determination was nary spot to drawback a cobb crockery afterwards. But aesthetically and tonally, whiffs of affluence are successful scope for those who privation a taste.