5 Ideas to Improve High PerformanceJunior Tennis in the USA

There’s been a growing frustration amongst players and parents in junior tennis for a while now, and it hurts my tennis loving soul. It hurts the tennis loving soul of all current coaches and former players.

Junior tennis wasn’t perfect growing up. It had it’s issues, but we loved the game and couldn’t imagine a life without it.

Now? Families are more than willing to bail on high performance junior tennis because of the scheduling structure in place, bad line calls that causes fights amongst parents and ruins the experience for the kids, the rising cost of raising a high performance player, and more.

These are some ideas I think the USTA can legitimately look at to help junior tennis in this country become more enjoyable for it’s participating.

1. Automatic line calling

Let’s face it, bad calls are a huge problem in junior tennis. I’m not going to call it cheating because some kids don’t even know what they they’re calling. They’ll call in balls out, and out balls in. Those kids shouldn’t be called cheaters.

Regardless, everyone assumes most kids are cheaters, and it causes big problems. Parents yell at other parents. Kids yell at other kids. They talk bad behind each others backs and it needs to end.

Automatic line calling can end this. Not more umpires. Automatic line calling.

SwingVision is close to having reliable technology that can be used to automatically make line calls. And whether it’s SwingVision, or any other company like Playsight, this will solve one of the biggest issues in junior tennis. It will create a more enjoyable atmosphere for all participants, including the crazy parents who take their child’s loss just as personally as their child.

The current cost for Playsight is too expensive to be at all facilities, but SwingVision is more than affordable when you consider the stress removed from the match by having accurate line calling.

2. Tournaments can only be played on the weekend during the school year

Look, junior tennis should be about the kids first. And in my mind, kid shouldn’t be forced to choose between going to regular schooling, and high performance tennis.

We’ve reached the point where kids are being forced to continuously miss school, and are being threatened to be kicked out of school. And this isn’t for kids that are trying to play professionally straight after high school. This is for kids who are just trying to play division 1 college tennis!

When I and other kids homeschooled in the early 2000’s, it was because we wanted to go pro as soon as possible. 

Now, kids homeschool because it gives them the best chance to play tennis in college! The USTA system forces kids to miss too many days of school and to make a choice. Anyone who is serious about becoming a division 1 collegiate tennis player has to consider homeschooling. 

That’s insane.

The USTA needs to implement rules that during the school year, tournaments can only be played on Saturday and Sunday. If there’s a national holiday, then a bigger even can be played on that 3 or 4 day weekend. 

All the big events that are a week long should be played during the summer or winter break.

This will force tournaments to have smaller draws, but it can allow for multiple tournaments to occur on the same weekend. Or, the USTA should allow a fast 4 scoring format at these lower level events so they can maintain their big draws.

Whatever route the USTA chooses, I don’t care. It’s time to pay attention to why parents prefer the structures other sports have in place and implement changes.

3. Have more team events & make junior team tennis relevant

One of the biggest drawbacks to tennis is the individuality of the sport. For many people, things are more fun when you’re a part of the team. That’s why most professional players who played college tennis say they enjoyed college tennis more than playing pro! It’s fun to play with your friends. It’s fun to play for and represent something bigger than yourself. 

The USTA has started to have more team events throughout the year and the kids love it. They say it’s their favorite time of the year. They still get to play their individual match, but they’re a part of a team.

The Junior Team Tennis league is available, but there’s no incentive for higher level players to stay in the league. This needs to be addressed.

If we want to grow the sport, and keep kids in it longer, we need more team events.

4. Make high school tennis relevant

This idea piggybacks off of having more team events. High school tennis is a team sport! Unfortunately, it’s not structured well. 

Most high schools don’t have a real tennis coach. The kids might have an English teacher that doesn’t have any real playing or coaching experience as the coach! That’s ridiculous.

Practices are usually a joke. Kids don’t learn much. And since the matches don’t count towards the individual ranking kids need to get into USTA events, kids elect to skip the team altogether. 

To add to it, college coaches don’t even care about a player’s high school record! It’s probably the last thing they look at, if they even look at it at all. I didn’t play any high school tennis and was recruited by many division 1 schools. 

Let’s change this. Let’s make high school tennis a legitimate part of junior tennis development in this country. As the national governing body of tennis, the USTA needs to step in and help guide high schools across the country in implementing a better structure that incentivizes kids to play.

5. Limit how many withdrawals a player can have per year, and provide more incentives to play consolation

I’m sorry but you can’t withdraw from double digit matches per year without something questionable going on. And we all know why this is. Families know UTR is what college coaches look at to recruit players. When players go into consolation, they’re likely to play someone with a lower UTR. Since the incentives to win consolation matches do not outweigh the potential downside of losing to someone with a lower UTR, many families elect to skip consolation.

Anyone who follows my blogs know I think this is stupid. The more kids play, the more they’ll improve. Unfortunately families are caught up with winning now, so they make the incorrect decision of withdrawawing from consolation.

Why is this bad?

Well the chain reaction effect is the players who do choose to stay for consolation are left spending money without playing matches! Players I work with have had two days in a row of consolation matches where all their opponents withdrew against them. They spent extra money on hotels, missed school, and didn’t play matches on certain days. That’s ridiculous! Why would they want to continue taking parent in junior tennis? That’s not a fun learning experience.

The USTA needs to provide more incentives for kids to stay in consolation, while limiting how many withdrawals a player can have in consolation in a year. I know that can be a controversial move as some players will have legitimate injuries or sicknesses, but I’ve never seen a player withdraw 10 times in a year, only from consolation matches, never from main draw, without something sketchy going on.

So USTA! Hey! Let’s step it up!