NATCHEZ — Summer tennis camp at Duncan Park officially begins today, though tennis director Henry Harris said he doesn’t expect a large influx of youth until next week.

Even if they’re a week late, Harris said he’s looking to spend the summer helping develop the area’s young tennis talent to hopefully feed back into their schools.

“We have some that have been doing this two to three years, but a lot of them will be new,” Harris said. “Hopefully, we can convince them to be on the high school team.”

The camp will also serve as an audition of sorts for when Harris takes approximately 15 of his campers to a United State Tennis Association summer combine July 26 and 27 in Dallas. And the upcoming combine has highlighted Harris’ need to find some boys that would be fit to go on the trip, he said.

“We only have three boys from the 10 we took last year (coming back),” Harris said. “One of them graduated, and the others got jobs, so they won’t be here.

“Hopefully, we can get some young boys out here to learn the game of tennis, so that by the start of the school year they’ll have an idea of what tennis is.”

With Natchez High School’s recent move to Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A, Harris said it would be important for the public school players to get a jump on tennis early.

“It’s a little bit tougher in 5A than it is in 6A,” Harris said. “Maybe not in football, but definitely in tennis. You have programs like Laurel, Oxford and South Jones that are all established programs.”

Because of that, Harris said the younger the public school players can start, the better.

“We just have to get the kids out here early, in third and fourth grade, and give them a tennis background so they can match up,” Harris said.

With that said, Harris stressed that his camp was not public-school exclusive, with players from Cathedral School, Trinity Episcopal Day School and Tensas Academy signed up.

The camp will focus on forehand, backhand, volley and serve mechanics, Harris said, and will also teach players how to hit the ball to certain parts of the court.

“Last year, we focused on conditioning and lasting through the heat, and I think most of the kids are ready for direction and learning where you should hit the ball,” Harris said.

Children ages 10 and under will practice from 8 to 10 a.m., and fourth- through sixth-graders will go from 10 a.m. to noon. Junior high and high schoolers will participate from 1 to 5 p.m.

For more information, call Harris at 601-442-1584 or 601-597-8070.