On a recent Sunday morning at a few minutes before 9AM, the sky is clear and the air is comfortable, but  a bit too warm to be called cool. A hint of the day’s expected heat can already be felt.

  Two members of the Strawberry Mansion Tennis Association (SMTA) bat balls back and forth on one of the ten Miles Gray Jr., Memorial Tennis Courts in East Fairmount Park’s Mander Playground (33rd and Diamond Sts). They are not yet playing an actual game, but Salim Ali is practicing his serving skills. A wire basket of tennis balls rests on the court beside him and he drills one after another across the net to the proper service receiving area.

  “There! That one got in!” As does the next. ”That’s in!”

  “I like to get out early, before the heat comes,” he remarked to an onlooker. He said the SMTA was founded in June 1999 as an extension of the Strawberry Mansion Learning Center. At the after-school haven and educational hub for children, the SMTA encouraged kids to exercise and not spend all their free time in front of a TV or game console.

  The SMTA has expanded its link to area children by reaching out to children by introducing the game to K-8 students at the nearby Ethel D. Allen Promise Academy, a public school at 32nd Street and Lehigh Avenue, teaching them how to play and giving them the opportunity to do so.

  Last year a drop in available city funding forced the cancellation of the summer tennis camp for high-school-aged children at the Miles Gray Courts, but Ali is hopeful that  funding will be restored this season and that the program will be resuscitated this year.

  Ali remains passionate about tennis after playing for 33 years and loves  introducing people to the game, but young people are not the only ones he and the SMTA attempt to attract to the sport. Anyone who has never played before is a fair target for Ali’s zeal. There’s even a senior citizens group that plays on the courts, one of whom is 85 years old, Ali said proudly.

  An overriding goal of Ali’s is to get people up and get moving to improve their health. And he is a perfect example of the that benefit of exercise. He claims to be 64 years old, but he could easily pass for ten years younger.

  Though men make a large portion of the SMTA, women are also involved in the group. Of its total 47 members, eight are women, Ali said.

  One woman who showed up to the SMTA gathering on a recent Sunday morning introduced herself only as “Ennis.” She explained that, as a tennis player in high school, that became her nickname becasue her last name rhymes so closely with tennis. It’s now the only name she used on the courts and remains so to this day. She said she came out that day to trade strokes with Ali. “I like to play with him. He’s so consistent.”

 But in addition to inspiring others to become more physically active, especially through tennis,  Ali and other members of SMTA also tend to the Gray courts  and keep them clear of debris that would impede people’s play, he said.

 “We do what the city doesn’t do,” said George Brown, an SMTA member who said he has been using the Mander courts for about 20 years.

 But they are not the only ones who use the courts.

“Others just come out to enjoy the area.” Ali says,  waving an arm toward the other side of a fence dividing the two sets of five courts.  A small group of men play a game on the other side of the fence.

 “We’re all stake-holders in the park,” he said. “The park belongs to all of us.”

 One of the non-SMTA players that morning, who identified himself only as John,  said  the players with him all got together in an online “meet-up.”

 John, who lives near Bala Cynwyd, said he has been linking up with other tennis players that way for about a year.

 Ali said the next step to letting people know about the courts at Mander Playground is to find a broadcaster for a video that has already been produced about them. One possibility, he added, is the cable TV’s  MIND channel.

 But for all its work to improve the health of Strawberry Mansion’s children and adults, the SMTA is, at its core, a bunch of people who love to play tennis.  

 “It’s a good group of guys,” said Ali, “with good personalities and all levels of [playing ability].