A Candid Report on the State of American Junior Tennis

Many fans of American tennis crave the next dominant American champion. We all revere current American #1 Andy Roddick and his efforts, but what everyone wants to know is when we’ll have another multi Grand Slam champion. This past week I had the pleasure to spend time with a few juniors at the Boys 14 and under National Championships in San Antonio, Texas. What did I see?

First, I saw a lot of very good tennis players. Many of the boys were competing very hard and showing off their excellent athleticism. At this pre-pubescent age for boys, it’s still very difficult to identify who will be a champion in their adult years. However, there are certain qualities or habits that can be instilled at this age that can create a ceiling or limit on a junior player’s development.

REUTERS/Toby Melville

I arrived at the McFarlin Tennis Center with my players two days before the tournament started and I saw exactly ZERO players training to prepare for the year’s biggest tournament. I stood on the court where I was “preparing” my students, I looked left and I looked right and all I saw were kids fooling around, playing mini tennis, and some doubles. From this singular piece of information I’m questioning our methods of cultivating a future tennis champion in the United States. For some reason as each year passes it seems as though the work ethic of kids as a whole continues to decline.

There are many different theories on why kids are the way they are these days in terms of everyday life and coincidentally on the tennis court. With the advent of the internet childhood has clearly been reshaped as many of us older adults were happy with the inventions of video games and cable television while of course our parents didn’t understand. Now that the internet exists many tend to blame and point to the way children are today and how they go about their daily lives. However, I’m going to choose to take a different angle. In tennis, as in life, the path to achieving great things is constantly evolving and its the job of all of us who are interested in aiding the next American champion that we’re open in our ways and adapt to modern times. One thing is certain in this life, what was once successful ten years ago is old news, what currently works today is great except you’ll never get ahead. The only way to separate from others is to constantly be innovating and thinking ahead of the curve. This “theory” applies to your everyday technologies, to the next great invention and also to the development of the next tennis champion.

How are we going to evolve?

I’d love to hear opinions on facebook or right here at GEM Tennis!

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Below are a couple of interesting links I’ve found around the internet:

Tennis in America (ESPN)

Net Gain: The Junior Tennis Champion (Washington Post Magazine)