Serve It Up for the Troops: Huntington Beach's Best Weekend of Tennis and Pickleball
On a Saturday morning every August, play stops on all the courts at The Huntington Club. A military color guard presents the colors, the national anthem carries out over a few hundred players standing courtside, and then the draws resume. If you have never started a tournament that way, put this one on your calendar. It is the best morning of the Orange County racquet season.
Serve It Up for the Troops — and its pickleball sibling, Dink It Up for the Troops — is the racquet side of the Huntington Beach chapter of Tee It Up for the Troops. It runs each August at The Huntington Club alongside the chapter's long-running golf tournament: competitive sanctioned draws, a cause worth playing for, and a Saturday night celebration that players talk about all year.
Fourteen years of it, and more than $4 million raised
The Huntington Beach chapter played its first event at The Huntington Club in 2012, and it has grown every year since. The local tally now stands at over $4 million raised for America's veterans.
That money goes to work. Nationally, Tee It Up for the Troops has delivered more than $18 million through 800-plus events across 40 states, funding six areas that matter most to service members coming home: rehabilitation through sports, suicide prevention, PTSD and traumatic brain injury care, employment assistance, housing, and support for military families.
The racquet events are the newer part of the weekend, and they are growing fast. The 2026 edition was the chapter's 15th annual weekend overall, with pickleball in just its third year — which means there is still plenty of room to get in early and become one of the regulars.
How the weekend runs
Friday afternoon — match play opens around 3:00 PM for select divisions.
Saturday morning — check-in from 8:30 AM, opening ceremonies at 10:00 AM with the color guard and the national anthem. BBQ lunch is available on the grounds.
Saturday night — the Raise It Up for the Troops community celebration: dinner, dancing, a silent auction, and military ceremonies and presentations. You do not have to be playing to come, and it is worth the ticket on its own.
Sunday — match play resumes at 8:30 AM, and the weekend finishes with the tennis ball drop at 4:00 PM.
Tennis is a USTA-sanctioned tournament with multiple divisions, registered through USTA PlayTennis. Pickleball is a mixed doubles event, registered through the chapter's own registration page. Everything happens at The Huntington Club, 6501 Palm Ave, Huntington Beach.
Why players keep coming back
The tennis is real — sanctioned, multi-day, with divisions deep enough that you will get matches worth playing. Grab a partner you like playing with and enter together; the pickleball mixed doubles field is full of pairs who have been coming back as a team for years.
It is also one of the few tournaments where the people who came to watch have as good a day as the people competing. Between the ceremonies, the BBQ, the auction, and the ball drop, family and friends are part of the weekend instead of sitting courtside waiting for you to finish.
And every entry fee, auction bid, and dinner ticket goes straight to veterans' programs. You get a full weekend of competition and you fund care for the people who earned it. That is a good trade.
Getting in next year
The 2026 weekend ran August 14–16. The chapter holds it in mid-August every year, so plan on a similar window next summer — dates typically go up in the spring, with registration opening well ahead of the weekend.
Three places to watch:
hb.teeitupforthetroops.org — the chapter site, with detail pages for tennis, pickleball, and golf, plus sponsorship and volunteer forms.
The chapter's Facebook page — where dates and photos land first.
USTA PlayTennis — where the tennis draw posts once the tournament is sanctioned for the year.
The whole weekend is put on by volunteers: Kelly Kelleher-Casares chairs tennis, Michael Bailin coordinates pickleball, and Leslie Mayes chairs golf. Their contact details are on the chapter site, and they will happily hear from you whether you want to play, sponsor a court, donate an auction item, or work the weekend. Volunteers are how an event like this happens at all.
Between now and August
That is about eleven months to sharpen up. If you are in the Huntington Beach area and want a doubles partner, a standing Saturday morning group, or three other people who want a pickleball court at 7 AM, that is exactly what StartTime is for — find courts near you, see who is playing, and get on the schedule.
Then we will see you in August.