Respectfully Dave and Hillrider.... There are different pages for baggage which are accessed with different information......the page that Dave references seems to be a OneWorld page which clearly states tennis equipment can be carried onboard.
However the
www.aa.com site accessed by myself residing in the US brings up a totally different page which looks like this:
http://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInforma...eAllowance.jsp
http://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInforma...ce.jsp#!sports
In the case where there would be no overhead space for them what can we expect at that point? We are traveling First/Business.