There's a new game in town at the Boys and Girls Club.   For 9 years, Wareham resident Joann Byron and friends from various community tennis organizations throughout the region have traveled to the Ron Burton Training Village in Hubbardston to teach underprivileged inner city youth the game of tennis.  This year, they decided to offer the clinics closer to home.

"We tried to give something back to the local community," Byron said.

About 25 children participate in two, hour-long clinics held Wednesday and Friday afternoons at the high school courts from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.   In addition, younger children from the Boys and Girls Club race around as ball boys and ball girls, scooping up the hit or missed balls that shoot off in all directions (they are just learning, after all).

"As long as they enjoy themselves and like the sport, that's okay," said Byron.

The groups start on center court, practicing their groundstrokes as Byron calls out "ready position, forehand, ready position, backhand."  Next they divide among the three courts where Byron, several adult volunteers, and three members of the Old Rochester Regional Girls Tennis team feed balls and monitor progress.

"Tennis is absolutely the best" mental and physical workout, said Susan Sattelmeir Pelican, who has been teaching with Byron for years and also works for Dr. John Ratey, a clinical psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School who studies the connection between exercise and the brain.  "Tennis keeps the brain active as you have to deal with a series of emergencies."

More importantly, it's a fun game.

"It's like when you hit the ball, you feel good inside, you get excited, especially when the person on the other side hits it back," said seventh-grader Evelyn SeAle, who had never played the game before the clinics began on July 14.  Now, Evelyn, her sister and her dad practice on Saturdays.

And even with a few rainouts, the students are making good progress.  They're getting better at their backhands and made some necessary adjustments to their serves (most notably, switching so that they serve into the court backed by the baseball field, not the side of the court backed by the woods).

"Some of them were hitting the ball like baseballs when they came in," said Jimmy Cannon, who works for the Boys and Girls Club and is in charge of getting all the kids to the court.  He said no trash talking in anticipation of the tournament (where the winner will receive a new Prince racquet) has erupted at the club, but the kids are enthusiastic about the lessons.

"The kids are over here because they want to be," he said.