Improving American Tennis

[airforce1]

We can see if there is any interest here and if there are some suggestions that readers would like to make. I'll start things off with 2.

1. Improve the number of college scholarships available to Americans on all teams. I don't want to take away from anyone else's pie, but mk sure we have some protected American scholarships on every team. I'd suggest 4 per team. Over that number, do what you want.

2. Optional Coaching in younger jrs events.
Between points f/ 10 and under and aid with scoring and calls on request
On change overs f/ 12 and under
Between sets f/ 14 and under
All enforcing the current time limits, so as not to extend match times.

Who's next?

[CraigC]

Absent leadership

Apparently the one tournament per year, which hosts the top national boys and girls from the 14s, 16s and 18s is not enough to draw out the new leader of elite player development. I understand that it is Davis Cup weekend, but how about earlier in the week, when all 700 of the nations top players were in one spot. Pat Mac??? Anyone? Pat Mac? Anyone? Hmmph!! Im sure the new head of ELITE player development has better things to do than see the top players in the nation. LOL Its almost sad.

[airforce1]

So you are saying that-

#3 Is to --at least make sure the top Player development Honchos are making a showing at the big events where a depth of American Talent will be on display

and looking not only at the names everyone has already noticed, but looking for the athletes who have not been spotted yet!


Thanks Craig, is that about right?

who's next?

[kmoranon]

usta

Apparently the one tournament per year, which hosts the top national boys and girls from the 14s, 16s and 18s is not enough to draw out the new leader of elite player development. I understand that it is Davis Cup weekend, but how about earlier in the week, when all 700 of the nations top players were in one spot. Pat Mac??? Anyone? Pat Mac? Anyone? Hmmph!! Im sure the new head of ELITE player development has better things to do than see the top players in the nation. LOL Its almost sad.

are you all talking about the Easter Bowl??? I was there... a lot of crazy upsets,in all divisions .. I had a few of my students playing ... first time visit for me....km

[CraigC]

Easter Bowl

Yes, I am referring to the Easter Bowl. Lots of upsets indicates talent other than the top seeds. You'd think our elite program leaders might like to know about that.
I believe John Yandell will be putting up some Easter Bowl footage again this year. Perhaps Pat Mac can look at those images to decide the future of our nation's tennis stars. 30 seconds per kid should be enough to decide whether to invest 100K into a kid, shouldn't it? LOL It's become very very sad.
Hope your kids did well KM!!

[kmoranon]

Easter Bowl

Yes, I am referring to the Easter Bowl. Lots of upsets indicates talent other than the top seeds. You'd think our elite program leaders might like to know about that.
I believe John Yandell will be putting up some Easter Bowl footage again this year. Perhaps Pat Mac can look at those images to decide the future of our nation's tennis stars. 30 seconds per kid should be enough to decide whether to invest 100K into a kid, shouldn't it? LOL It's become very very sad.
Hope your kids did well KM!!

I had 2 in the boys 14's,1 in the boys 16's,and 1 in the girls 18's...all first timers... the girl was hurt but did ok the week before in the ITF in Carson and the boy 16's had a bad first round but went pretty deep in the back-draw... overall it was a good experience for us to be in the Easter Bowl..
The thing that upset me was how USTA selected the wild card... in the 16s they gave one wildcard to a boy who will never wear USA on his back and overlook a Nat'l claycourt 14's runners up and was ranked as high as #1 before he aged out...I wrote to the selection person in charge and told her about it but, I guess who cares....I was glad to see the wild card boy lose early and he didn't even bother to play the consolation draw.... great selection....
I know the USTA will keep making these kinds of support to foreign players because they see them in the ITF tournaments and are the pushed by those big tennis camps in FL and IMG...
All these up and coming players will hardly see any support unless the join those big acadamies ... not every kid needs to be home schooled quit school all together to dream about tennis...
It's sort of sad to see ,but that's where tennis is going... most of those kids who are playing the ITF then 1 week later the Easter Bowl then 1 week later at another site all are home schooled or no- school ... what happens IF...well you know!! KM

[airforce1]

Funny, but you might can point to our academys as a big part of our US tennis problem.

They train kids from all over the world, many times for free, only to have those kids come back and beat our players, especially in the late teens where our kids would be stepping up.

They require an early commitment that most Americans are not interested or can afford. People like me don't even think it's healthy, mind or body.

They focus on the wrong kids so early, (mainly kids w/ money to cover the costs of the free foreign kids) that it is tough to displace them in the natural order of things in later years, but these kids don't have the potential to go the distance.

And they make it seem like they are the only ones who know about tennis, even though most of their success is just mainly due to the numbers and level of competition to stand out there.

[uspta146749877]

Tennis academies

Apparently the one tournament per year, which hosts the top national boys and girls from the 14s, 16s and 18s is not enough to draw out the new leader of elite player development. I understand that it is Davis Cup weekend, but how about earlier in the week, when all 700 of the nations top players were in one spot. Pat Mac??? Anyone? Pat Mac? Anyone? Hmmph!! Im sure the new head of ELITE player development has better things to do than see the top players in the nation. LOL Its almost sad.

CraigC,
how would you rate American tennis academies
comparing with following
1.Spanish tennis academies
2.French tennis academies
3.the Nikki Pilic's Academy in Munich,Germany ?


Rephasing a question:
what,I,julian, can learn from these academies
to help my coaching?
What are differences in a curriculum?


See an article in the uspta magazine addvantage about Cassel"s Academy
in Naples Florida and related issues.
Click

http://www.addvantageuspta.com/

scroll to the middle of thor example pdf document.
Any opinions?


Thank you,

julian


PS You may see

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/sports/tennis/02tennis.html?ref=sports

(only for registered NY times readers-sorry)
and

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...54C0A967958260and
(it is a very old aricle from times when Agassi was playing the Davis Cup)

http://www.sally-aquire.co.uk/Novak%20Djokovic.pdf

[10isDad]

We can see if there is any interest here and if there are some suggestions that readers would like to make. I'll start things off with 2.

1. Improve the number of college scholarships available to Americans on all teams. I don't want to take away from anyone else's pie, but mk sure we have some protected American scholarships on every team. I'd suggest 4 per team. Over that number, do what you want.

Since the NCAA only allows a maximum of 4.5 scholarships per team for men's tennis, you're suggesting only 1/2 scholarship for foreigners? Otherwise, perhaps 4 for women and 2 for men would be better?

Actually, if you want more Americans on US College teams, the best thing you could do is to completely eliminate tennis scholarships. Do away with tennis scholarships and fewer foreigners will have the impetus to play college tennis.

[CraigC]

Wow, how depressing.

How about some preventative medicine! How about raising the bar for American tennis players and working to improve the state of tennis in America. I agree that scholarships to foreigners is taking away funds from American players, however, the reason colleges go after foreign players is because the US players are simply not as good. Let's focus on creating a higher skill level in the states so the coaches don't have to look elsewhere. Let's focus on providing more opportunities for players in the states to compete at the pro level, so our kids get the competitive experience required to beat the foreigners. Europe has club tennis and futures and challengers and open tournaments and traveling teams, and and and and.... America has USTA junior events, a few futures and challengers, and then squat! Europeans have access to tennis all the time and work to help each other improve because a rising tide lifts all boats. Americans sit on their private courts and avoid competition because of the USTA ranking systems.

With all of that said, I agree we need to limit the foreign scholarships because it is providing a disincentive to American players that know they don't have the goods to compete. It seems very unfair for an American kid who stays in school and gets a 3.8 GPA and a top 200 national ranking to have to compete for a scholarship against a kid who quit school at 14 to play pro tennis for 5 years before offering himself up to the US universities.

We need traveling teams for top juniors and young pros.
We need more pro events in the states. Take the $2 million of the national coaches and create 20 more pro events in America.
We need to provide a reason for juniors to compete more often.
We need the USTA to work with private coaches instead of stealing their players.
We need colleges to offer on-campus events to inspire players to want to play at the college level.
We need mentoring programs (MOYA-NADAL) for our juniors.
We need to make the 2nd tier of American juniors (those ranked 50-200 in the nation) tougher and more seasoned by offering them more venues to compete against the higher level competition who normally avoid the 2nd tier tournaments.
Ughh, I rant again. It's not the foreigners fault, it's ours. We need to take control of our own American tennis destiny.
Julian, I'll get back to your question tomorrow.

[airforce1]

Since the NCAA only allows a maximum of 4.5 scholarships per team for men's tennis, you're suggesting only 1/2 scholarship for foreigners? Otherwise, perhaps 4 for women and 2 for men would be better?

Actually, if you want more Americans on US College teams, the best thing you could do is to completely eliminate tennis scholarships. Do away with tennis scholarships and fewer foreigners will have the impetus to play college tennis.

Why would you consider the 4.5 number in stone, but turn around and think you could eliminate them altogether??

Who is the NCAA? Just the colleges themselves. They hold themselves out to be something like the Fed Res or something, but they are just their own internal org. Their policies can be changed. Look at all the stupid changes they made to accommodate womens sports. (plus some of the changes were very good ones)

I do like the idea of eliminating all college athletic scholarships to have more true student athletes and cut the NCAA probs in half, but realize that for many sports and colleges this would mean not having the same big business machine they have and like having now.

[airforce1]

With all of that said, I agree we need to limit the foreign scholarships because it is providing a disincentive to American players that know they don't have the goods to compete. It seems very unfair for an American kid who stays in school and gets a 3.8 GPA and a top 200 national ranking to have to compete for a scholarship against a kid who quit school at 14 to play pro tennis for 5 years before offering himself up to the US universities.

Above is exactly what I'm talking about! I don't care how many foreign pro players we load down our college system with, we need to take care of our players regardless or it is all for nothing. If we don't even have success with our college players making pros, thats ok, as we can go to a college match and have an interest in what is going on. Also college coaches can actually coach, instead of being professional international recruiters. Oh wait, those jobs are all going foreign too, since that is where all the players come from. Next thing you know, colleges will just drop tennis cause on no interest outside the top 2-5 teams. But they wont have anyone to play, so what will their championships mean then??

[/QUOTE]
We need traveling teams for top juniors and young pros.
We need more pro events in the states. Take the $2 million of the national coaches and create 20 more pro events in America.
We need to provide a reason for juniors to compete more often.
We need the USTA to work with private coaches instead of stealing their players.
We need colleges to offer on-campus events to inspire players to want to play at the college level.
We need mentoring programs (MOYA-NADAL) for our juniors.
We need to make the 2nd tier of American juniors (those ranked 50-200 in the nation) tougher and more seasoned by offering them more venues to compete against the higher level competition who normally avoid the 2nd tier tournaments. [/QUOTE]
This is good stuff of course.

[/QUOTE]
We need to take control of our own American tennis destiny.
[/QUOTE]
Right

[airforce1]

Ideally a young player should be introduced to competition around 12s and then have 7-9 yrs to develop.

Those seeking to get a jump on the group, help themselves at the expense of all involved. The kids get to grow up into burn out and false expectations, but they do well enough to hold back the players who should be passing them by, especially with the way the learn to call so selectively while officiating their own matches.

7 yrs on a better time frame puts him at 19, in college with a couple of years to compete on a high level with his body and mind more matured. Then they should be ready for leading the team as Jr and Srs. A team should have 3- 4 guys at each yr group. By 21-22 they should be ready for the demands of the tour and have a nice 10-12 yr pro career for the top few who have shown the talent.

All this would work out nicely and fit into the normal rhythm of our American framework.

[10isDad]

Why would you consider the 4.5 number in stone, but turn around and think you could eliminate them altogether??

Who is the NCAA? Just the colleges themselves. They hold themselves out to be something like the Fed Res or something, but they are just their own internal org. Their policies can be changed. Look at all the stupid changes they made to accommodate womens sports. (plus some of the changes were very good ones)

I do like the idea of eliminating all college athletic scholarships to have more true student athletes and cut the NCAA probs in half, but realize that for many sports and colleges this would mean not having the same big business machine they have and like having now.

Certainly 4.5 isn't set in stone, but it isn't going to be changed except at the expense of another men's sport unless football decides to limit their current scholarship number of 85. Title IX just won't allow for the arbitrary increase or decrease in scholarships. Eliminate football from the mix and you can get parity but there will be an onslaught of complaints from various groups. For a decent article, refer to:

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/117574 (check the sidebar showing revenues for Arizona State sports...)

As for eliminating tennis scholarships, I first read about this idea here:

http://www.tennistrainer.com/abolishscholarship.html

If quotas were instituted, they would need to be percentage based to apply to all sports. Tennis isn't the only college sport with lots of foreign players, but it's probably the most visible. Check out college ice hockey and you'll find a higher percentage of foreign players.

I still say we need to build better tennis players. It's more difficult in the US, as we don't have much in the way of government-sponsored academies, etc. As I've said in other threads: get tennis racquets and instruction for free or very low cost to those kids that can't normally afford either. It'd take a few years, but then you'd see far more US players playing college and possibly the tour. Tennis is still a 'money' sport. It costs a lot to get decent instruction, to travel to tournaments, etc. If the USTA were to sponsor more grassroots programs, you'd see a change...

[uspta146749877]

CraigC,drop a line

How about some preventative medicine! How about raising the bar for American tennis players and working to improve the state of tennis in America. I agree that scholarships to foreigners is taking away funds from American players, however, the reason colleges go after foreign players is because the US players are simply not as good. Let's focus on creating a higher skill level in the states so the coaches don't have to look elsewhere. Let's focus on providing more opportunities for players in the states to compete at the pro level, so our kids get the competitive experience required to beat the foreigners. Europe has club tennis and futures and challengers and open tournaments and traveling teams, and and and and.... America has USTA junior events, a few futures and challengers, and then squat! Europeans have access to tennis all the time and work to help each other improve because a rising tide lifts all boats. Americans sit on their private courts and avoid competition because of the USTA ranking systems.

With all of that said, I agree we need to limit the foreign scholarships because it is providing a disincentive to American players that know they don't have the goods to compete. It seems very unfair for an American kid who stays in school and gets a 3.8 GPA and a top 200 national ranking to have to compete for a scholarship against a kid who quit school at 14 to play pro tennis for 5 years before offering himself up to the US universities.

We need traveling teams for top juniors and young pros.
We need more pro events in the states. Take the $2 million of the national coaches and create 20 more pro events in America.
We need to provide a reason for juniors to compete more often.
We need the USTA to work with private coaches instead of stealing their players.
We need colleges to offer on-campus events to inspire players to want to play at the college level.
We need mentoring programs (MOYA-NADAL) for our juniors.
We need to make the 2nd tier of American juniors (those ranked 50-200 in the nation) tougher and more seasoned by offering them more venues to compete against the higher level competition who normally avoid the 2nd tier tournaments.
Ughh, I rant again. It's not the foreigners fault, it's ours. We need to take control of our own American tennis destiny.
Julian, I'll get back to your question tomorrow.

CraigC,please drop a line
julian