Can you think of a sport where the coach works with their players throughout the week, then doesn’t watch them compete? Can you think of a sport where the coach has to ask for the parent’s and player’s feedback on what to potentially work on after a competition? Especially a parent that has no experience in developing a junior tennis player?

I can……..

You don’t want to look back and realize the money you spent on your child’s coaching was actually for an expensive baby sitting program.

When you’re focused on beating your current opponents, you’re only focused on marginal improvements. But players make their biggest jump in playing level when they’re under the age of 18. Their bodies are growing. Their muscle memory is still open to big changes. Their brains are ready to learn new things. Players need to take advantage of this and think of how they can make the biggest long term improvements in their game to reach their ultimate desired level of play.

The biggest difference between the best junior tennis players and everyone else is how well structured their development was. No child made it to the top by random chance. By the age of 12-14, their development started to be planned for success. And the development plan for those lagging behind was consistently missing four things.

“A jack of all trades, master of none.”

If a player works on too many things at once, they’ll be mediocre at everything, great at nothing. It’s better to master the most important things first, then start adding in everything else later/

Theres are the 5 most important things a junior player should work on once they have the basic skills down:

Junior tennis ranking systems for people to be obsessed with have existed for decades. UTR is just another system with its own advantages and disadvantages.

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders affect 1 out of every 4 kids ages 13 to 18.

Forty million adults are affected by anxiety disorders each year.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In 2016 Federer fell out of the top 10 for the first time in 14 years. In 2017 he finished number 2. The difference in points won…..1%.