NASHUA – It’s a brilliant Thursday morning and Scott MacDougald is doing what he loves best: serving up tennis balls to a swarm of eager kids, eager to polish their ground strokes and win the praises of the ebullient blond-haired coach.

But this was a different crowd of kids. For the second year in a row, MacDougald has led a team of volunteers in bringing tennis to inner city children. The program, City Tennis NH, which was started in Manchester in 2002 by community activist Gustavo Moral, is now taking over the courts of Nashua.

Both Moral and MacDougald hope to disrupt the perception that tennis is a sport of the elite.

“That is changing now,” MacDougald said. “It started with a grassroots campaign by people like Arthur Ashe, and local people like Gus, who said let’s let kids of all walks of life get exposed to tennis. Especially since there’s so many nice public courts in Nashua.”

For five summer days, from 9 a.m. until noon, about 30 kids gather at the Holman Stadium courts to crush the felt balls – ideally onto the opposite half of the court.

To carry out their mission, MacDougald and Moral do outreach in neighborhoods like the tree streets, zeroing in on the bodegas and churches to post flyers and tell of the free program.

“We focus on the areas of the city where the perception is that folks have the most need, given the economics of the neighborhood,” said Moral, a native of Ecuador who currently lives in Manchester.

“This is the age where you can really impact someone’s life, when they are young. And this is the time of the year when the kids are not in school, and where the kids we are targeting may not have the same opportunities as other kids.”

For MacDougald, City Tennis NH is one of the most fulfilling aspects of his work as a tennis pro. He said the same is true for the eight teenagers who volunteered their time to help out.

But the lessons don’t end with tennis.

“I wanted kids to learn more than just about ground strokes,” MacDougald said. “So I teach them some history. I challenge them. I give them different riddles. I like to keep the kids, and their minds, constantly challenged.”

He insists that all the kids know the “five goals” before leaving the camp: ball over net; hit it into the proper court; look good doing it; have fun; and practice good sportsmanship and the rules and etiquette of tennis.

City Tennis NH has been made possible by the donations of several businesses and non-profits.

Two Guys Market in Manchester, the Derryfield School, McLane Law Firm, Merchants Auto, the United States Tennis Association and Independent Services Network.

The teenage coaches are also instrumental: Toshit, Rachel, Katherine, Casey, Laura, Melanie, Tommy, Dan, Lian and Jen.

“I had a mother come up to me and talk about how her boys were so excited and telling all the stories I’d told about not smoking and doing drugs,” MacDougald said. “She was really happy that these kids had grabbed the concept so well.”

Later this month some 50 of these kids will travel to Flushing, N.Y., to attend Kid’s Day at Arthur Ashe Stadium, a Mecca of the tennis world. There they will get to hit with pros such as Rafael Nadal and Kim Clijsters.

Moral hopes that City Tennis NH will prove to be a seed, not only to spread into other New Hampshire towns, but also to inspire similar projects that delve into the performing arts.

“There is a lot of honor inherent in the game in the sense that you make your own calls,” he said. “If the ball’s on your side it’s your call. If it’s on their side, it’s the opponent’s call. And you have to err in favor of the opponent.”