Sloane Stephens: Teaching kids tennis … and financial skills

Tennis is an expensive sport. There's the basic equipment, such as balls, shoes and rackets. Then there are court fees and tennis camp costs and personal coaching. As a young player grows and improves, there are tournament fees and travel costs, and even more coaching.

The high price of tennis can keep many lower-to-middle-income children from even starting the sport, much less gaining the skills that they need to qualify for college scholarships or a professional career. That's part of why Sloane Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion and winner of eight WTA titles, launched the Sloane Stephens Foundation (SSF) in 2013.

Based in Los Angeles' Compton Unified School District, the Foundation serves more than 10,000 students in 23 schools in California and Florida, introducing them to the joys of tennis. It offers six-day-a-week tennis programming, including Scholar Tennis at Recess (STAR), after-school tennis, Saturday tennis clinics and new summer offerings.  

“My main objective in starting the Foundation was to make sure that kids who wouldn’t normally have exposure to tennis have an opportunity to play in a setting that was super fun and inviting,” she says. “I want to introduce kids to the sport that’s given me so much in life.”

Success on the Court

Stephens, 33, was born in Plantation, FL, but moved with her family to Fresno, CA, before returning to Florida to train in tennis. The daughter of two elite athletes, she began playing at nine and quickly showed promise. Her extended family, in particular her grandparents, supported her efforts to get the best coaching possible.

Their efforts paid off: Stephens began her junior career in 2006 on the International Tennis Federation Junior Circuit, and within five years, she was the number five-ranked junior player in the world. By 19 she’d reached the semifinals of the 2013 Australian Open with a victory over Serena Williams. Four years later, in 2017, she won the U.S. Open, despite a serious foot injury that kept her on the sidelines.

Learning How to Manage Money

As Stephens won more and more tournaments, she also had to learn about managing her winnings. A major watershed in her financial planning came when Stephens won the U.S. Open. “That was the most amount of money I’d ever had,” she later recalled. “But I set up a plan to save a certain amount of money by, say, 2025. Obviously, I had to learn what your money does.”

In September 2021, Stephens was invited to take part in a series of interviews on the Kneading Dough podcast. Sponsored by JPMorganChase Wealth Management, the program interviews professional athletes about money and investing. Stephens sat down with former NFL player Andrew Hawkins to discuss her investment philosophy and financial goals.

She also discussed her foundation and her interest in passing along the money lessons she had learned to the young tennis players she works with. Her mission — to educate kids on financial health — dovetailed with JPMorganChase's efforts: In 2020, the bank announced its $30 billion commitment to advancing racial equity, focusing on closing the wealth gap and promoting economic opportunity for underserved communities. Partnering with the Sloane Stephens Foundation was exactly the kind of endeavor JPMorganChase had in mind when funding that commitment.

Supporting Students ... and Their Parents

A team of JPMorganChase technologists worked with Stephens to help upgrade her foundation's website. And to help her financially educate her tennis students, JPMorganChase connected Stephens with Tatiana Roberts, a driven young community manager in the South Los Angeles area, which includes Compton. Roberts was eager to assist with the development of a financial literacy curriculum. These classes, many of which are taught in Spanish to accommodate the native tongue of most of the families, touch on basic financial skills such as budgeting, saving and planning.

For Roberts, developing financial literacy classes for the Foundation's families and the Compton community is a passion project.

“Growing up in a Spanish-speaking household where resources were not always accessible, I recognized the struggles that people here had,” says Roberts. “From a very young age, I realized that there was a gap in how my community felt about banks, not the least being the language barrier.

“I want people to know that money isn’t as intimidating as it seems … but you need a team around you," she adds. “JPMorganChase's commitment to this community has had a significant impact. I’m proud I can be a part of it.”

New Foundations

As the financial literacy classes have grown in popularity, the Foundation has expanded its operations. In June 2025, it began sponsoring basic swimming lessons, taking inspiration from Stephens’ mother Sybil, who was the first Black woman to be named a first-team All-American swimmer in Division 1 history for Boston University.

Stephens' timing, as usual, was perfect: Compton Unified recently opened a brand-new high school facility, complete with a new state-of-the-art swimming pool.

“Black and brown kids have a higher rate of drowning, so being able to provide water safety and the basics of swimming is what we’re starting with,” says Stephens. “We think this is the most important thing for the community, just not being afraid of the water, being willing to get in, learning how to save yourself, learning how to doggy paddle, learning how to float.”

The Foundation also sponsors a reading lab. “Kids often drop two grade levels over the summer because they’re not reading anything,” Stephens says. Summer students at the SSF are encouraged to enter the annual Arthur Ashe essay-writing competition, reflecting on their personal growth during their tennis journeys. Winners are recognized at Arthur Ashe Kids' Day during the US Open.

“We’ve even had a few winners,” says Stephens.

Ongoing Success

With the Foundation growing and its offerings to the community expanding, its partnership with JPMorganChase is just getting started.

“Our partnership helps me see the dreams of the kids we serve day in and day out,” says Stephens. “It helps us give them another tool, another resource to be successful. And at the Foundation, we want them to be successful in every aspect of their lives.”

In the meantime, JPMorganChase is also partnering with Stephens on her new entrepreneurial ventures. In 2024, she launched a skin-care brand, Doc & Glo, named after her grandparents, both of whom passed away during the COVID pandemic. JPMorganChase supported this endeavor by bringing Stephens on as a Chase for Business client.

Stephens smiles when recounting that fateful day. “Meeting Lois and the team, everyone I met that day has become a colleague and a friend. We’ve been able to do so much more and reach a much wider audience,” she recalls.

“Connecting my goal of trying to help these kids as much as possible with JPMorganChase's goal of giving them that resource … it just makes sense,” says Stephens, laughing and adding a popular slang term for excellence: “It’s money.”