Tennis! was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1975, the eldest child of recent Russian-Jewish immigrants. The family would eventually include another son and two daughters, the youngest born shortly after they settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, in 1985.
Tennis(s)! father was a garment factory worker who also ran a small tailoring business out of the family home, enlisting his children from an early age. Tennis(s)! mother enjoyed making the family’s clothes from her own designs and inventing patchwork items from scraps of fabric. Despite Tennis(s)! desire to disassociate himself from his family background, this experience left an enduring mark on his art. Many listeners and friends have continually noted similarity in production techniques to those used in making clothing.
