The chest bump, franchised.

■ The family business

“It was never a job. It was joy, it was fun, and most importantly it was family.”

Mike Bryan, Hall of Fame induction · August 2025

The Bryans grew up with no television — “instead we had musical instruments set up right in the middle of our living room” — and a father who has spent decades telling anyone who’ll listen how tennis ought to be run.

“Tennis will never grow from Madison Avenue! It grows from Main Street.”

“It grows with bells and whistles. With energy and enthusiasm. With fun. With laughs. With trips.”

“Some youngsters just love the ‘team thing’… And don’t forget Mixed Doubles – boys and girls truly love that.”

Wayne Bryan · from a letter to the tennis establishment, 2012

Wayne, on committees

In the same letter he passed on his mother’s view of how sports get designed: “a Rhinoceros is a Horse that was designed by a committee.”

INTENNSE was designed by people who play. Team energy, music in the building, mixed teams of three women and three men, and a match that starts and finishes when the schedule says it will. Fourteen years ago Wayne Bryan wrote the brief for it. He just didn’t know it yet.

■ Where the story ends, and starts

Their last title was Delray Beach. Their next team should be too.

The Bryans won the Delray Beach Open six times — including their 119th and final title together, in February 2020. In February 2027 they are back there headlining the tournament’s Legends Event.

Tennis country

Broward and Palm Beach are some of the deepest tennis ground in America. Chris Evert grew up in Fort Lauderdale on the courts her father taught at, and her academy is in Boca Raton. Venus and Serena Williams’ family moved to West Palm Beach when Venus was eleven. The Delray Beach Tennis Center’s stadium seats 8,200, and has hosted Davis Cup and Fed Cup ties.

What the region has never had is a professional team of its own to follow through a season.

■ Broward–Palm Beach

More people than Miami-Dade. A hockey town twice over.

Broward and Palm Beach counties together are home to 3.59 million people — more than Miami-Dade. Their NHL team has won back-to-back Stanley Cups. And tennis runs the length of it, from Fort Lauderdale to Boca to Delray.

■ The derby

Smash and Sting. One highway apart.

The Sting are heading to Miami-Dade; Smash would take Broward–Palm Beach. Two South Florida teams, in the same conference, meeting twice a season — the tennis version of hockey’s Battle of Florida, a short drive up I-95.

It is already a rivalry

Their first meeting in 2026 was decided by a single point, 159–158. The highlight reel from that night has drawn nearly seventeen thousand views — one of the most-watched clips the league has posted.

And across the state, Tampa Bay is in the conversation too. A South Florida derby, and a Battle of Florida on top of it, is the kind of schedule a team-tennis owner dreams about.

■ The team today

A roster that beats champions.

In July, Smash beat the eventual 2026 champions, Freeze, 177–139 — one of only three teams to beat them all season — and finished the year having scored more points than it conceded.

Who plays for Smash

Head coach Sofia Rachi was raised in Miami, where her parents have run a tennis academy since she was nine, and now leads the women’s program at North Carolina Central. Adriana Reami was born and raised in Miami before starring at NC State. Dalayna Hewitt led the team in scoring. Benjamin Lock was an All-American at Florida State.

Every team is three women and three men, drafted, paid and coached by the league — the mixed-doubles world Wayne Bryan said juniors love, turned professional.

■ How it plays

Two minutes on the rules.

Each match, an Arc, is time-boxed. Singles and doubles count equally toward one team score, a serve clock and a single-ball rule keep it moving, and there is music in the building. Bob Bryan’s test was simple: “it’s got to be high energy.”

■ The calendar

Summer for the locals. February for the season.

The INTENNSE season runs June to early August — built for the millions who live in South Florida all year. And Palm Beach’s season, November to April, is the perfect time for a Smash weekend of its own.

■ The path to owning it

A ten-year charter for Broward–Palm Beach.

Owners hold an exclusive Team Charter: MLS-style, geographically bound economic rights, not a traditional franchise. Ten years, renewing in five-year terms.

■ Why we sent this

One more chest bump.

You’ve owned team tennis in Boston, and you sit on the board of the Hall of Fame that inducted the Bryans. This is team tennis where you live now — with the two most famous teammates in the sport already on the bench.

The charter

Terms, territory and the path from league-operated to owner-operated, walked through in full.

Delray, February

A day with the Bryans at the Legends Event, and the Smash story told where they finished theirs.

The derby

Smash and Sting, twice a season, a short drive apart.

Or, as Wayne Bryan once signed off a letter: “this will teach you to never ask my opinion again…”