Why Davie is a good place to develop a tennis player
Davie sits in the middle of the densest competitive-tennis corridor in the country. From the academy, Fort Lauderdale is about 15 minutes, Miami about 25, and West Palm Beach about 30 — which means the tournament calendar comes to you. ATP and WTA Futures and Tour events run within 30 minutes of the courts, so juniors here grow up watching professional tennis live, not on a screen. Three international airports sit within 50 minutes, which matters more than it sounds: traveling players lose fewer training days getting to events, and visiting family can actually visit. The beaches are 15 minutes away, and the weather allows outdoor training year-round — the reason serious junior tennis concentrated in South Florida in the first place. For a Broward family, all of this is simply home-field advantage: the training, the competition and the exposure that families elsewhere relocate for is a short drive away.
The facility on South Pine Island Road
The academy trains on both of the surfaces American juniors need: lighted Har-Tru clay courts and lighted hard courts. Learning to build points on clay and finish them on hard courts is not a luxury — most of the national junior calendar and nearly all of college tennis is played on hard, while clay teaches patience, movement and point construction. The rest of the campus supports the tennis:
- Lighted Har-Tru (clay) and lighted hard courts
- Gym and indoor track, plus a professional turf area for movement and footwork sessions
- Indoor basketball and racquetball, and a pool
- Video analysis as part of regular training, not a paid add-on
- Athletix physical training integrated into the weekly schedule
- Conference room for parent and player meetings, and 24/7 security
Coaching runs at a maximum 4:1 player-to-coach ratio. That number is the single most concrete thing you can compare across programs, and it is worth asking every academy you visit what theirs actually is at peak hours.
Which program fits which local family
Kids in Broward schools. The after-school program is built for competitive tournament players ages 9–18 who go to regular school: Monday through Friday afternoons, 2.25 hours a day, from one to five days a week depending on how serious the player is. Families choose their days, so it scales from a supplement to a club junior's week up to near-daily training. Pricing depends on days per week — from a few hundred dollars a month — and the program page has current details.
Players committed to college or professional tennis. The full-time program runs Monday through Friday on a nine-month calendar, paired with accredited online academics. It is the academy's core, and the after-school and camp groups train in its orbit. The record behind it: every college-track player the academy has developed has earned a spot on a university tennis team, D1 to D3, with alumni at Yale, Harvard, Duke, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Florida and UC San Diego.
School breaks. Holiday camps run over Thanksgiving, winter and spring break, 10:00 to 5:00 — full training days that line up with the Broward school calendar, not half-day filler.
New families. The front door for everyone is the Saviano Evaluation: a one-to-one assessment by Nick Saviano of the player's level, development opportunities and realistic path. It is not a private lesson — it exists so that both sides know what they are signing up for before any program starts.
Who is actually on court
This is where local programs differ most, so we will name names. Nick Saviano — nine years on the ATP Tour with a career-high of world No. 48, fifteen years as a USTA Director of Coaching, and author of Maximum Tennis — founded the academy, designs every player's program personally, and is typically on court daily. The high performance coaching staff is Daniel Ventura, Sergio Lizarraga, Junior (Israel) Ore, Bodin Zarkovic and Courtney Davis, each hand-selected and mentored by Nick himself. Around the court time, players have access to sports nutritionists Tara Collingwood and Page Love and to sport and performance psychologist Megan Neyer, Ph.D. When you visit any academy in Broward, ask the same question: who, by name, will run my child's sessions — and how often does the person whose name is on the building actually coach?
If you are moving to Davie for tennis
Saviano is a day academy, not a boarding school — there are no dorms, and we consider that a feature. Families who relocate for the full-time program either move to the area or place their player with the academy's network of vetted private host families in Davie, so players live in real homes minutes from the courts. Academics run through education partners Laurel Springs and ICL Academy, both accredited with flexible scheduling built for athletes, and students at American Heritage are accommodated with transportation. The result is serious training without handing a teenager to an institution.
How to compare Broward and Miami-area programs honestly
Davie is not the only option, and a good decision means looking at several. Whatever program you visit — here, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton or Miami — apply the same tests:
- Ratio at peak hours. Not the brochure number — stand at the fence at 4pm and count players per coach.
- Both surfaces. A program with only hard courts is preparing players for half the game.
- Physical training that is scheduled, not suggested. Fitness bolted on as an optional extra tells you how seriously development is taken.
- Named coaches with real credentials — and consistency, so your child is not with a different feeder every week.
- Evidence of a pathway. Ask where the last few years of players went: college teams, national rankings, specifics.
- Watch a session before you commit. Every good program will let you. If one won't, that answers the question.
For the wider field, our guide to the best tennis academies in Miami and South Florida compares the region's serious programs — including ours — openly.