"Deadlier than the male" is the phrase that comes to mind while watching a half-dozen preadolescent girls work on their tennis game at George English Park in Fort Lauderdale on a recent Tuesday evening.

They are students in a program called High Performance, a creation of the Jimmy Evert Tennis Center presided over by coach Jennifer Wiley.

"All the girls play in tournaments; they're all ranked high in the state of Florida," Wiley said. "They're a select group [and] they play every day."

And they get from her and her colleague, Evert Tennis Center coach T.J. Urhobo, the kind of high-intensity training that is otherwise only available at pricey tennis academies.

"If they stay healthy," she said, "they should all be able to play on scholarships at good colleges."

Or maybe make millions of dollars available to players at the very top?

"We never said we're in it for that," Wiley said. "But we practice as hard as anybody else."

The girls, some of them barely taller than the net, play with an incredible ferocity that can make the coaches reach and sweat.

Learn more about the High Performance Tennis Program by calling 954-828-5378.