Windridge Tennis & Sports Camps

Fun comes first

We've always believed that the best way to develop a player — in any sport — is to make sure they love what they're doing. But it goes beyond athletics. Children carry enough stress and anxiety from school, schedules, and the pressures of everyday life. Summer camp should be a release from all of that — a place built around discovery, joy, and the freedom to just be a kid.

At Windridge, fun and improvement aren't opposites. They're the same thing. When a child is genuinely having a great time, they're open, they're engaged, and they grow in ways that no amount of structured pressure can produce. We've seen it for over 55 years. It works.

Every camper is an individual

There's no single Windridge camper. We serve beginners and competitive athletes, first-timers and multi-year veterans, kids who come for tennis and kids who come for the horses. Everyone belongs here — and everyone gets a genuinely different experience.

We intentionally keep our enrollment at 150 campers per session. That's not an accident — it's a decision our directors make every year because they want to know every single camper by name. At 150, camp feels like a family. Staff know who's struggling, who's thriving, who had a rough morning and might need a quiet conversation before lunch. That kind of attention is simply not possible at a larger camp, and we're not willing to give it up.

Our 1:4 staff-to-camper ratio means there's always someone paying close attention. We know that every child arrives with different needs, different goals, and a different idea of what a great summer looks like — and we want each of them to feel seen, understood, and exactly where they're supposed to be.

Sport builds character

Discipline, resilience, sportsmanship, teamwork — these aren't things you can teach in a classroom. They emerge naturally when kids compete, struggle, improve, and celebrate together. We create the conditions for that to happen.

Sport teaches children how to set goals and work toward them — not because someone told them to, but because they genuinely want to get better. It teaches them how to handle success without arrogance and disappointment without collapse. Those are life skills that show up everywhere, long after the summer is over.

There's also something simpler and just as important: movement is good for the mind. Being outside, being physical, being active in the fresh Vermont air — it does something for a child's mental health that no screen, no structured activity indoors, and no amount of well-intentioned advice can replicate. At Windridge, kids spend their days outside, moving, competing, and breathing. We think that matters as much as anything else we offer.

Community is the product

The friendships made at Windridge are the thing campers talk about decades later. Sport is the vehicle — but so is the evening campfire, the walk to the next elective, waiting in line at the canteen, and cheering on a cabinmate in a tennis match. The moments that build real friendships aren't always the ones you plan.

That's why we're intentional about balancing structured and unstructured time. Scheduled periods and coached sessions matter — but so does the time in between, when kids are just kids, figuring out how to be with each other without an agenda. Those unscripted moments are where the deepest relationships form.

The connections at Windridge run in every direction — between campers, between campers and staff, between families and the camp itself. They're what bring people back summer after summer, and what make Windridge alumni feel, years later, like they're still part of something. We think that's the most meaningful thing we do.

Coaches who are great with kids. That combination is rarer than it sounds.

Our staff are selected not just for their playing and teaching ability but for their enthusiasm, patience, and genuine interest in young people. Our tennis directors bring decades of coaching experience at the collegiate and high school level — working with high-performance players and first-timers alike. A large portion of our tennis staff are current collegiate players themselves, meaning your child learns from people who are still actively competing and growing their own games.

The caring atmosphere at Windridge has always been one of our most distinctive features — and it starts with the people we hire. Parents and campers consistently tell us it's the thing they notice most, and the reason they keep coming back.

Campers come from around the world — and keep coming back

Windridge draws campers from across the United States and from countries around the world. That diversity is one of the things that makes the community so special — a cabin group at Windridge might include kids from New York, California, Brazil, Spain, and Japan, all brought together by a shared love of sport and a summer in Vermont.

Our returning camper rate is exceptionally high — something we take as the clearest possible measure of how the experience lands. Families don't bring their children back summer after summer because the brochure looked nice. They come back because it worked. Because their child grew, made real friends, and spent a summer they still talk about years later.