The Problem With Junior Tennis In 2024
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 เม.ย. 2024
- The Problem With Junior Tennis In 2024
An impromptu chat on the back of a video I posted on Instagram last week about kids spending less ‘free play’ time on court.
I’d love to know your thought on this?
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I remember one parent at our academy shouting at his kid during his game for having fun, another person said that the kid should have fun while playing after all and the parent said no he’s not here to have fun, but rather to be a better player. So I agree with you that parents shouldn’t be breathing down their necks and let them be themselves on the court and let them be kids as well
Much needed video. Bravo to stand up. As a promising junior back in the early 80’s, I lived the dream by being an elite protege on full scholarship with my coach nick bollettieri (same time and along with Andre Agassi) and I am shocked at how junior tennis is nowadays. I’ve been to many U12 international tournaments and ITF Futures and am shocked that almost no junior even knows who Agassi is. Yes. They don’t even know him let alone McEnroe, Connor’s, etc. and they don’t laugh at all on court. As a former elementary school teacher too, I have many ideas too. I was director of a massive tennis academy with 100 juniors and I know what to change. Bravo to you too for bringing this up!
totally agree, that is one of the reasons i decided to step out of the 'high performance program' in the regional tennis academy, instead i found a former atp pro coach and now I beat everyone from my former group, because the repetitiveness is holding their game back, it is all so predictable and they aren't used to a more 'creative' style of playing with more dropshots and variations.
I know you sort of touched on it in this video but pushy parents are a big issue these days, not just in tennis but any sport. If a child is only playing because they are being coerced into it it by parents they are going to grow resentful of tennis. It needs to be organic and the child has to want to do it.
I would say the problem lies with coaches. Why does the LTA qualify coaches who never play and have never played? I know two coaches who only coach for money they have no passion for the sport and they are not role models for the juniors. LTA should only qualify coaches who can demonstrate a passion for the sport and have a history of playing for their club and in all competition.
"Hollywood tennis" hehehe that was nice! Fun is everything, it creates passion and passion creates dedication (in a healthy way). and once you find the dedication and commitment you can build your career around it.
Yes, yes and yes!
I really love how you are having the children-parent moments to just have fun and not for "improvement"
Those parent and child sessions have been amazing for that!
Excellent, excellent video. Keep up the good work
I remember spending an afternoon hitting really high, spinny forehands with a full western grip (usually we used SW) with a friend. For no other reason than it was fun, but it turned out to be useful anyway.
Excellent video, I hear these things from tennis coaching friends all the time and it's only getting worse, thanks Coach for sharing your insight and thoughts on this very important topic! 👍🙏
Amazing video, completely spot on! I’m always thinking about this as a coach myself
Great video. I tend to agree with everything you said. In north America the coaching set ups are a massive problem. They are often designed around making money rather than having the kids best interests in mind. Then a large percentage of players drop out at 16 becuase they are burnt out.
Just put two touchtennis courts at every club. Great video.
That would absolutely help… I’m off to find the space!
Fantastic points.
Thanks another great video. This helped me on understanding how things are changing
Glad it was helpful!
I don't know much about tennis. I personally play badminton. But i truly believe this is a problem throughout all sports nowadays. In badminton, kids specialize early, they get private training sessions. And doesn't just go to the hall to play with their mates. Just like you've said in this video. the touch and feel for the ball/shuttle and the enjoyment factor is some of the key factors for developing different elite players. And nowadays it's harder to develop elite players, because they all play the same.
Great video!
Great advice Ash. I have a 6 year old learning to play. He loves rallies and points so that's what we spend most of our time doing.
I can't overstate how important this video is. To me as a coach of 30years it's just plain common sense. Growing up we spent all day at the tennis club honing our skills coming up with new an inventive ways to practice. Even if they didn't work that wasn't the point!. Kids learn through exploration. Tennis is a problem solving sport. They get told what to do all day at school, then they come to tennis and get told what to do by the coach. They follow blindly and learn little for themselves. Then on the match court they are lost. They hit a good shot and look over at their parents they hit a bad shot and look over at their parents, you can just imagine the car ride home! Let them be, let them learn Implicitly and even as a coach, don't preach, facilitate, guide. The constraints led approach is gaining traction.
Powerful and SO relevant... 👏👏
Great video, I agree with every point you make. I'd add that the same thing is happening in many other youth sports, too much structure, coach/parent involvement, social media skewing reality. For sure coaches are needed to give a technical foundation but the only way to truly own a skill that holds up under pressure is to "dig it out the dirt" which usually involves hours and hours of trial and error through unstructured play. Finally, having been a longtime youth coach, I've observed that the most important predictor of success is inner drive. Raw talent, money/coaching can only take you so far...
As a junior player myself I can confirm that I’ve seen and been in a situation where I’ve had an opponents parent yelling at them midway through the second set. My parents would often just not say things and or read a book while watching me play. People who often work out the best are the ones that strike a balance are the most successful ones. I’ve had friends who have gone very far and I’ve seen people push themselves wayyy too far into burnout to enjoy the sport again. You do have a point about juniors needing some “free time” however I do believe it should be in certain drills and only for 15-25 minutes. Practice matches have helped me SO SO SO SO SO much with different play styles and film has also helped me improve technique, contact point, finish and execution and so much more. People also need to strike a balance but I think it should be a 80% serous 20% different shots as in slices, drop shots, feel volleys and I think this is the best solution. Let me know what you think
As someone who has worked exclusively with tournament juniors the past 12 years I can say that structured environments can be too restrictive for some, especially those who don’t play on their own. One thing that made me smile as a coach was watching the kids playing on their own during lunch at summer camp. Their personalities would come out as they experimented with different shots and techniques. Kids need structure of course but they need to be left alone to learn and grow.
Great topic Ashley and food for thought ive seen all aspects of a few sports and particularly football and they never fails to disappoint me and we wonder way rarely produce top players
Due to the pressure imposed at a ridiculously young age
More fun in development for me
I empathize with all sides here. Everyone (parents included) gets incessant messaging about how they "should" be doing things and gets used to instant gratification which can create the fallacy of thinking there is truly a right way and that results should come quickly (or linearly). The beauty of tennis is that it is a lifelong sport in which you never stop developing. Trying to focus on that love of learning and development through whatever means can hopefully combat this to some extent vs focusing on results. Enjoy playing!
Nowadays parents are so focused on the output (results) at early ages, that they forget that inputs, the process is more important. Winning tournaments at 11, 12, 13 or 14 years mean nothing. Coaches fall into this game too. In order to secure lessons, they put focus on how get results quick. Typically, sending balls high over the net. Playing freely is a total must. Same happens in football, playing in the street develops skills that kids will not develop playing organized matches. In my opinion, federations should limit the number of tournaments children at early stages are playing and organize recreative leagues where kids play for fun and not for having a better ranking.
I am often present when my son is practicing and playing. But I stay quiet most of the time. Occasionally, I'll give hand signals to help remind him of things. Like "move your feet", "keep your eye on the ball" "follow through" etc. But I see your point, great video.
Of course, part of the problem is that kids are so self-conscious these days, perhaps due to the social media... when I was a kid, I had friends older than me and younger than me, usually within a range of 2-3 years older or younger. Nowadays, I see a lot of older kids not wanting to play with or really associate with younger kids. It's a lot harder for groups of kids to form when that's the case. Media, generally, seems to be the biggest problem. Truly, there is no need for a tv. Just allow them to watch educational and sports content in a limited window per day and I think all of this would be less of an issue.
Agreed. I used to play at least double if not triple the amount of time uncoached/free play compared to coached sessions. You need that court time. Especially as a junior. Just go have fun.
I think learning too since problems by yourself is key to a good player.
Could not love a video's message more. I'm 35 and played in high school and just always had an aptitude for slice backhand and volleys and finesse shots. I drove myself nearly mad desperately trying two-handed backhands, one-handed topspin backhands, over and over and over. I finally had a coach who just said "you love hitting slice, why dont we just maximize that? Angles, depth, drop shot, sidespin, volleys." I still like to win, but theres no harm in going for the low-percentage sidespin drop volley once in awhile.
The game became so much more fun, so much more positive. Even gave me players like Dan Evans and Dimitrov to root for. I capped out at 4.0, but who cares? Let your kids have fun! 99.99% aren't going to be pros anyway, create a source of joy and creativity.
I came back to tennis after a few decades(!) away from the game and the first time i started playing in the odd competition or round robin i got so down on myself for not coming over the top of my backhands and 'relying on the slice'. Anyway, i had a few wins and what did several of my opponents say in the aftermath of these matches? "I had lots of trouble dealing with your slice".
Very well put. 🙏🏼
The problem with juniors is the pro the idealised like when I was growing up you see nadal murray messing around on the practice court having fun and a laugh now they see the like of novak going out there hitting the same shot 50 times and junior see this and try to replicate it. Because that what the top guys do when alcaraz fulfills his potential and people see him practice more people will look to enjoy it once again
You also have to member we live in the age of if you seem to be having fun your doing somthing wrong and everything has to have a purpose
Sorry this a load of nonsense. Rafa is a notorious serious practiser, Novak has a fun warm-up game named after that he coined
I think another challenge is that there aren’t many “free to play” tennis courts available, at least not in my country. So even just to fool around you still have to pay to rent a court, fit it into a schedule etc. really takes the fun factor away
@cgh08443 this is another thing wrong with tennis if you like one player you can't like another, you can't just watch more than one because the Internet has created problems between fans
V true. Why doesn’t the LTA emulate the Spanish setup. More fun when young and not so focused on rankings and non stop tourneys like the LTA push. Which set up produces better developed players?
Some really good recommendations and definitely several take aways worth trying - tennis for juniors needs to be fun. 100% structured play sometimes looses that element. However, let me now play devils advocate and some of the challenges faced. At the "performance" level for juniors, there is often enormous pressure to commit a minimum number of hours on court in practice. Often this number is so high, that it leaves little room for anything else. Fitting in school, homework and then 2-3 hours per day, means any other time is usually down time for the kids - and screens. So the question is would you advocate this additional "1-hour" of unstructured play time instead of an hour structured play or in addition?
Secondly (and at least in Australia) tennis clubs hardly exist any more (certainly not the extend that they did when I was kid). Most tennis courts are now run by tennis operators, which means it's either squads, 1-1s, or competition. The idea of kids just turning up and playing on court hardly exists in Australia. I can't think of many tennis courts at all where this now exists. Not sure if this exists elsewhere in the world? But the demise of the tennis club has been a real shame down-under. But I thought the content was great and really agree with the concepts.
So important and same problems here in Germany.
nice
Hi Ash, you're opening a real can of worms here. And good on you for doing so.
As a coach / parent, I have some pretty strong views on this. I think it really depends what your child wants from the sport. They might be wanting to play for a bit of fun, in among a few other activities, or maybe they want to go all the way. My child grew up playing people like Isabel Lacy, Mimi Xu and Hannah Klugman, who are doing phenomenally well. That cohort of kids, I thought, were / are really strong.
My issue is really around what is needed for development. Tennis is a frighteningly expensive sport if you want to do it right. And not that many players get support from the LTA. Its almost a case of having to become a champion first, before you get support.
Also, and I hate to say this, a lot of coaches don't REALLY care about their students, beyond them being walking ATMs. I see a lot of sessions being taught that literally make me sick when I see them, because I know that no actual instruction is being provided. These are often the group sessions, with players that are in a squad, being fed balls one after the other like a bunch of trained monkeys, and the only focus from the "coach" is to feed the balls like a robot, and grab more balls at the end, keeping the conga-line of ATMs running.
I think the fundamental question arises of, HOW do you teach. I think squads are largely a waste of time IF all it is is someone feeding like a robot to a line of kids. In terms of what I DO think works, is to have a sequence of shots, for example a 4 ball drill, and repeat that drill over and over. Specifically, on the forehand side, ball1 just near the center line, ball 2 out near the tramlines, ball 3 roughly near the tramline / orange baseline (approach shot), and ball 4 crushing it near the net. The target is alternatively cross court for a basket, and then line for a basket. These 4 balls are pretty much the bread and butter of what you see. Repeat on the backhand.
Then you have very specific shots, like ripping it cross court for the angles. This doubles as a skill for passing shots.
Serving. I think the most important shot in tennis is the second serve. Ash, you're a coach, and you'll know plenty of coaches around the UK, especially in the south. I cannot give enough credit to Thom Lavis. He's an excellent coach, and in particular, at coaching juniors to serve. Helping someone get a very solid kick serve out wide, on the ad court in particular, was a revelation for the level of play.
Where I do like some fun, is for the kids to actively chase playing doubles. There's a great social aspect to this. And one of the things I haven't seen a lot of, is kids who have similar interests outside of tennis. Where their levels are similar, these kids get on like a house on fire.
Plenty more to add, but I'll shut up for now, other than to say, my player became #1 in Surrey, so I think something worked.
Unfortunately, kids dropped off at the courts tend to end up hunched over their phones on the sidelines. Tough to compete with the little screen. Maybe parents could keep the phone in the car?
I'm in Australia
my son who's 9 he has free time on Court about 3 hours a week
I love that, would you say this is common in Aus?
they've also pushed up-and-coming kids out of tournaments by requiring a USTA "L" ranking - back in the day you'd have a beginner vs. a good player, yes, but at least the lesser players had a chance to actually play the good players - so if you go home, train and improve and want to see how you're doing you can't - you aren't allowed into the upper "L" level tournaments - it's a way for parents to keep those improving kids out of tournaments - so everyone's skill stagnates in place...
In addition to free play time, kids really need to play a variety of sports. Sure, focus on the tennis if that’s your thing, but not to the exclusion of all other activities.
Points well made and from a coach and child development perspective it makes sense in many ways but i think there is another element that is perhaps missed. As a parent i cannot over state how valuable it is to see your child interact in any way with others especially in adult child relationships so as to give an insight into how that child is beyond the scenario where the parent is typically and specifically acting as the parent carer. As a spectator It allows a wholly different perspective of their child. Exclude those parents who dominate the space and intercede but being a fly on the wall and watching your child is magical and invaluable to grow understanding of your child and as a parent. Most children in my experience soon forget who is there watching once they get involved in the activity and with other kids. For sure involving parents can be great but i would guard against the competitive nature that parents might bring to those activities. Just consider school sports day and the dads 100m dash or parent child three legged race??! Not always pretty and can sometimes be very uncomfortable viewing. Meanwhile there is nothing better than kids having fun with their parents where kids see their parents as equals or at the very least fallible and able to model how to cope with frustration and disappointment as well as joy and confidence. Sport and play is fantastic for that and its a shame whenever that is not a shared experience for children and parents together. These opportunities are rare. Kids spend most of their waking hours with friends at school but rarely get the chance to experience their parents outside of their carer duties and dynamic. Interactive activities are fantastic once we get lost in the moment and truly get to enjoy our relationships with those we love in new and revealing ways. Thx again for you thoughts and genuine care.
Fr
I agree with everything you said. I would also add that it's a great idea to get the older kids (13+) to volunteer to help with the younger kids/tots. That really helps them realise how far they have come and how well they play this very hard sport.
I would also add that it's also a great idea to get kids (that are good) to play adult summer league doubles. They'll get all sorts of junk balls and crazy tactics and techniques.
Great suggestion, agree with you
i think kids just didint grow up like i did anymore (early 90s), they dont play with the friends outdoors , dont go to the local park for some kind of sport and just dont develop basic coordination early on
It’s sad but true… as coaches/parents can we change that culture?
This is why I walk around instead of watch. I know I can't keep my mouth shut.
The free play observation is probably true for how children spend their time more widely.
Definitely, which is why it’s such a difficult thing to tackle!
A comment someone also had made is the social media side of tennis when I was in secondary school you had rafa roger novak and murray you could look and support all of them if you wanted to but now if you support rafa you hate novak. I get it the goat discussion but why can we not allow everyone to watch tennis and support tennis as a whole not just individuals
Problem is that kids are until 4 pm at school
I would disagree on kids not watching and emulating today's pros. All I see in U10 tournaments are kids trying to imitate the Alcaraz drop shot.
That’s great! I’d love to see more kids doing it!
The main issue I see with tennis today is lack of court access, expense, and pickleball encroaching on court space. Another factor is the lack Americans in the top 10 on tour. Tennis needs the next Tiger Woods or Caitlin Clark. An American star to revitalize its popularity. Serena had a big impact but just didn’t increase the sport’s popularity as much as she probably should have.
Most little towns simply do not have the infrastructure. Tennis has not grown at the same rate other sports have because it is still very much a sport for the wealthy in areas that have private clubs. The USTA needs to put more money into facilities nationwide.
As far as free play or whatever you call it, I understand you are promoting fun but kids just dicking around on court accomplishes very little in my opinion. For young kids, you can’t exactly just drop them off at the courts unsupervised these days.
All the top players of the last 40 years were pushed hard by their parents. Agassi details it in his book. The Williams sisters story is well known. Novak was drilling by 8 yrs old. It might have led to burn out but they also wouldn’t be multimillionaires otherwise. Not many kids will take the Initiative to be great on their own. I agree parents need to use tact and have humility about their kids talent level.
In the UK its all about ranking points, grading, tournaments, winning at all costs! 99% are deluded and think their kid is something special, its sad to watch! Kids dont enjoy it and being pushed by parents, then they drop out when get older. Less that 1% that goto top tennis academies make it as a pro, even then only the very top make a good living. Parents have more chances of winning the lottery!!
Actually, one of the biggest problems is them being encouraged to grunt/shout/scream every time they hit the damn ball. Please, coaches, stop it before it gets worse.
If you are a coach, then ALL of your sessions should be constructed with the underpinning philosophy of developing self efficacy. The learning environment should naturally facilitate this. If it doesn't allow for experimentation and real) TWO WAY discourse [at the right time and in the right place] the result will be a decreasing level of self efficacy and increasing level of dependence.
Ultimately the player will then rebel against this, usually around adolescence, as the environment will be perceived as restrictive. That’s where you lose players.
But the seeds are sown earlier.
Spot on.
Totally agree with you, but in addition, I still think kids need time on court without a coach.
Unfortunately, not all tennis coaches should teach junior tennis. A paradox exists when clubs assign the newest, most underpaid members of their staff to their highest revenue generating program.
that is in every sport. This is the reason why young people burn out faster
Can we make a difference?
@@TheTennisMentor parents have to learn to that unstructured play time is important for children to become responsible adults. It doesn't have to be tennis, it can be any outdoor activity, even sitting down looking bored at the playground.
My daughter was a professional athlete, now coaching junior athletes and she complains that she deals most of the time with parents. Kids are taught if there are any issues, parents will deal with it. She is trying to block out the parents, but then they go to the administration or show up at the club, mostly questioning the coaching style.
What can we do, as a parent, give your kids more room, as coach, push back on parents and tell them you are not always welcome
Try telling that to Apostolos 😅
Zoo Tiger and Jungle Tiger syndrome.
Absolutely. You prompted me to watch a Ted Talk on it, a great analogy!!
@@TheTennisMentor I love the Zoo Tiger analogy, I have a video if you wanted me to share it with you? Also, say hi to Skippy for me, we know each other and I’m a stringer also. 👍🎾
@@paulnewman7467 yes please, I just watched a good 15 minute Ted talk on it, was it that? Small world, I will do!