A bold, new era: High-energy INTENNSE league debuts in Atlanta

A bold new era for tennis officially kicked off this month in Atlanta as INTENNSE held its first-ever match at the newly launched Atlanta hub, marking the debut of a league designed to reimagine how fans engage with the sport.

INTENNSE does just that with a unique team-based format. Matches are called surges. Each team consists of three men and three women, plus coaches, playing together on a single court. This condensed, high-energy style creates a unified fan experience unlike traditional tennis formats, where action is spread across multiple courts.

INTENNSE matches are built for speed, energy, and nonstop action. Each match is played in three 10-minute intervals called bolts, with two-minute breaks in between, and five-minute intermissions between match types. A full team battle featuring men’s singles, women’s singles, and three rotating doubles sets (men’s, women’s, and mixed) runs about two hours.

Unique rules

The rules are fast and fierce: one toss, one serve — miss it, and the point and serve are lost. Players have just 14 seconds to serve and don’t need to wait for the returner to be ready. Each traditional point is worth a point while winners earn two points. Lets are live and teams can make unlimited substitutions and take two 60-second timeouts per match.

The inaugural match wasn’t just a competition; it was the culmination of years of conversations, challenges, and ideas coming together to form a vision for making tennis faster-paced, more community-driven, and fan-based.

“There wasn’t one single idea that started INTENNSE, it was the culmination of many,” said Charles Allen, CEO of INTENNSE. “We kept seeing how fragmented the tennis world was, especially in the U.S. It’s expensive to attend, it’s hard to follow, and outside the top 100 players, the athletes don’t have a great quality of life. We wanted to change that.

“You can feel the difference right away,” Allen said. “It’s concentrated energy. You’ve got people on the same court, cheering each other on, with fans feeling every moment.”

Court built on a stage at Electric Owl Studios

The debut surges in Atlanta were played at the league’s new INTENNSE Arena, a stage at Electric Owl Studios in Decatur, Ga. Allen emphasized that Atlanta, with its strong tennis culture and vibrant sports community, was the ideal starting point for the league’s first hub.

The court itself mirrors the league’s bold vision with a sleek and modern matte gray court, framed by striking black-and-yellow branding that reads “INTENNSE” across the walls. Large overhead lights flood the court, flashing red dramatically when a ball is out, while upbeat music pulses throughout the arena, turning each point into a show. With a digital scoreboard ticking down the time, two tiers of spectators and the flashing lights, the setup feels more like a high-energy concert than a traditional tennis match.

That electric atmosphere was on full display Saturday as the Jacksonville team took on Tampa in front of a packed crowd. The fans brought the energy cheering after every point, wearing team jerseys and custom shirts to show their support and dancing to music between bolts. The league’s emphasis on fan interaction was clear, with players responding to the crowd and coaches hyping up their teams throughout.

The action opened with Jacksonville’s Sam Nicholson, who just finished his senior year at North Carolina – Wilmington, set the tone in men’s singles, using aggressive serving to gain an early lead. Tampa’s captain, Noori, responded with strong energy and fast-paced play, keeping the match tight throughout. Each point felt like a rally between momentum and pressure with players feeding off the crowd’s energy and teammates cheering from the sidelines. In the end, Jacksonville downed Tampa 205–181, giving fans a thrilling preview of what INTENNSE has in store.