SPORTIME Port Washington Hosts 10th Annual JMTA College Recruiting Combine

For the last decade, the John McEnroe Tennis Academy (JMTA)’s College Recruiting Combine has been helping bridge the gap between college coaches and high school-aged tennis players and their parents. 

The 10th annual version of the event was held at SPORTIME Port Washington this summer to continue its support of young athletes in pursuit of their collegiate dreams, while also helping college coaches from across the country get an up close look at many talented players from the Northeast.

“The Combine not only creates an environment of intense match play with college coaches watching, which is similar to other exposure events, but what sets ours apart is the OTHER aspects that are very important for the overall college search process to the players who participate in the Combine,” said Jay Harris, the Director of the JMTA Combine. 

Harris helped launch the Combine a decade ago, and has used his extensive experience as a head tennis coach at Bowling Green and Brown as well as his connections within the college tennis world to create a unique showcase that stands out among the others. Harris and his team continue to evaluate each year in order to improve upon it to provide the best possible showcase experience for all involved. 

“One of the biggest efforts we have made in between Combines has been to reach out and cultivate relationships with more and more College Coaches,” Harris explained. “We actually hired a special intern this past year whose main job was to do exactly this leading up to the 2026 Combine, and the result was a 25 percent increase in coach involvement as we had over 150 college coaches involved either in person, or virtually over the weekend.”

One of those coaches was Bobby Pennington, who has been the head men’s tennis coach at Colgate University since 2006. Pennington is a regular attendee of the Combine, and is a speaker on the Coaches Panels that takes place during the weekend. 

“Jay does a great job, fine tuning it every year,” Pennington said. “The fitness component, the fast serve challenge, and more; there are just so many cool things that set this Combine apart from other showcases I have been to.”

The Fast Serve Contest was one of the new additions to the Combine in 2026, with Lilliana Chou winning the Girls contest and Chris Winters winning the Boys contest, and was added to an event that already consisted of match play (which count towards UTR), fitness testing, sports vision testing, and numerous informational seminars for both players and parents, including topics like life on campus and financial planning, among others.

The Combine continues to grow every year, and it remains an event that Harris and the entire JMTA team take great pride in. They are already back to the drawing board and planning the 2027 Combine with the hopes of expanding its reach even further.

“Our Combine continues to grow with players and coaches,” said Harris. “As the Combine brand gains more exposure nation-wide we will have more players attending next year from outside of New York and beyond.”