Why families move — and why it's usually Florida
- Year-round outdoor training. There is no indoor season. A Florida junior trains outdoors in January under the same conditions as July, while northern peers move indoors for months — different courts, different light, fewer hours.
- Tournament density. Florida's junior calendar — USTA, UTR, ITF — is the deepest in the country, so a relocated player competes more and travels less. From Davie, professional-level events run within half an hour; juniors here grow up watching the next level live.
- Academy access. The serious academies concentrate here, which means practice partners at every level and a daily standard that most home markets cannot supply. That concentration is the real product; the weather just makes it possible.
The three living setups
Almost every relocation resolves into one of three shapes, and choosing among them is the family question that precedes every tennis question.
- The whole family relocates. The cleanest version when work allows it — the household stays intact and the player simply lives at home near training. Increasingly common in the remote-work era, and the default for families with younger players.
- One parent relocates with the player. The most common serious-family compromise: one parent and the player take a rental near the academy while the other parent and siblings hold the home base. It works, but count the real cost — two households and a split family calendar — and set a review date rather than letting a one-year plan drift into three.
- The player stays with a vetted host family. For older, self-possessed players, the player lives in a vetted private home near the academy while the family stays put. Saviano maintains a network of vetted host families in Davie for exactly this. It is the setup with the most moving parts and the most questions worth asking — our full guide to how tennis academy host families work covers vetting, matching and when it is the wrong answer.
Choosing where to live
The rule is unglamorous: live near the academy, because the drive is daily and everything else is occasional. Saviano trains in Davie, in Broward County — about 15 minutes from Fort Lauderdale, 25 from Miami, with three international airports within 50 minutes and the beaches 15 minutes away. For a relocating family that geography does real work: short daily commutes to training, a deep tournament corridor in every direction, and easy flights for the parent commuting back, the traveling player, and the relatives who visit. Davie and the surrounding Broward towns are ordinary family suburbs with the usual spread of rentals and neighborhoods; pick for commute-to-court first and let everything else follow.
The school transition
School is the piece that frightens families most and turns out to be the most solved. Because full-time academy players pair training with accredited online school — Saviano's partners are Laurel Springs and ICL Academy — a mid-year move does not mean wedging a child into a new local school in October. The player enrolls online, the coursework travels with the family through the move, and the transcript continues uninterrupted. Families who prefer a physical classroom have that option too: the academy's afternoon-only track accommodates students at local schools such as American Heritage. The full picture of how schooling and serious training fit together — online, partner schools, and boarding — is in our guide to high school and tennis training in Florida.
Test before you commit
No family should sell a house on the strength of a website. Florida makes the trial easy, and a serious academy will insist on it. Spend a summer program week training inside the actual full-time group — same coaches, same standards — and treat it as a dress rehearsal: the player tests the training and the group, and the family tests the drive, the neighborhoods, and what daily life here feels like. An evaluation week does the same during the school year and adds a written assessment of the player's level and realistic path. Move only after the trial confirms the fit — the cost of a test week is nothing against the cost of an unwound relocation.
For international families
Everything above applies, plus student status, visa paperwork and school enrollment from abroad — the extra steps are covered in our guide for international families bringing a junior to train in the USA.