Tomás Laguna was 6 when picked up a tennis racket for the first time. It wasn’t at a club or an academy but through a free program at a public square in Yerba Buena, Tucumán.

“We wanted him to start playing a sport. We saw an advertisement and decided to give it a try. Tomás loved tennis from the moment he held a racket in his hands,” said his mother, María Eugenia.

Two years later, that first experience has become much more than a recreational activity. Tomás, now 8, competed in the Under-10 National Championship of the Argentine Junior Circuit, the country’s most prestigious tournament for his age group.

The program that introduced him to the sport is called Tennis in the Squares (Tenis en las Plazas). It was created through a partnership between the Argentine Tennis Association (AAT), the International Tennis Federation (ITF), and municipalities across the........

© Buenos Aires Herald