What It Really Takes to Build a Business in Racket Sports

There are plenty of books about leadership and entrepreneurship. Far fewer are written by people who have actually built businesses from the ground up, managed teams, delivered programmes, dealt with the difficult days and continued to put themselves at the sharp end of an industry they genuinely care about.

That is one of the reasons we think GRIT: Building a Business, Leading with Purpose, the new book from Emma Victoria Wells, is worth the attention of the racket sports industry.

For anyone who has worked in British tennis over the past decade, Emma will need little introduction. She has become one of the most recognisable and influential operators in the coaching and participation side of the sport, combining the energy of an entrepreneur with a relentless focus on creating opportunities for more people to play.

Her career has taken her from hospitality and international sports roles to building a tennis programme that began on a single public court and grew into a purpose-driven organisation operating across multiple venues. She also became the first International Female Director in the 50-year history of the Professional Tennis Registry, an achievement that says plenty about both the trajectory of her career and the influence she has developed well beyond the UK.

At Racket Business, we have also had the opportunity to deal with Emma personally over the years, and that makes this book particularly interesting to us. What has always stood out is her work ethic. Emma is one of those people who seems permanently to be building, improving, connecting people and pushing projects forward. Whether discussing participation, coaching, facilities or the wider direction of the industry, her enthusiasm is matched by an obvious determination to actually make things happen.

We've frequently come away from conversations with Emma inspired by that energy, so a book examining what sits behind it feels particularly timely.

And importantly, GRIT doesn't appear to be an attempt to present entrepreneurship as a perfectly executed upward trajectory. Quite the opposite.

Emma writes about the less glamorous reality behind building an organisation: pressure, uncertainty, difficult decisions, personal sacrifices, setbacks and the constant requirement to adapt. For anyone running a coaching business, club, facility, start-up or growing racket sports organisation, much of that will sound extremely familiar.

The book explores how to build something meaningful from the ground up, why people and culture ultimately matter more than programmes, how leaders operate through periods of pressure and change, and why community, purpose and persistence can become competitive advantages in their own right.

Perhaps most interestingly, its central message is that resilience isn't something people simply possess. It is developed by doing the work, getting things wrong, adapting and continuing to show up.

That feels particularly relevant to racket sports right now.

Tennis, padel and pickleball are attracting significant investment and entrepreneurial attention, and from the outside it can sometimes look as though successful businesses simply appear when participation curves start pointing upwards. The reality, of course, is very different. Behind every thriving venue, coaching operation, tournament or participation programme are people dealing with staffing problems, planning issues, difficult customers, cash flow, long hours and countless decisions that nobody outside the business ever sees.

Those stories deserve to be told too.

GRIT is therefore more than Emma's personal story. It is a useful contribution to a wider conversation about what leadership in sport actually looks like when you move beyond job titles, announcements and LinkedIn posts and into the day-to-day reality of building something.

For coaches considering becoming business owners, entrepreneurs entering racket sports, established operators managing growing teams, or anyone trying to create meaningful impact through sport, there should be plenty here to recognise and learn from.

And knowing Emma, we suspect the title couldn't be much more appropriate.

GRIT: Building a Business, Leading with Purpose by Emma Victoria Wells is available in paperback.