FEATURE 1 Are Junior Structure Changes the Answer? FEATURE 2 High School Tennis Don't Get No Respect NEW APP Tour NEW 2019 Awards NEW: Husband/Wife Pro Teams

DECEMBER 2019 FEATURE 1 Are Junior Structure Changes the Answer? x

THIS ISSUE Publisher's Notes - Letters - 2019 Awards - Spotlight Pickleball - Make Tennis Great Again Interview: Bill Burke (NGI) - Trending - Rod Heckelman: Tradition May Have To Take Back Seat - APP New Pickleball Tour Feature 1: Are Junior Structure Changes The Answer? Feature 2: High School Tennis Don't Get No Respect Bill Patton: Moving Past 4.0 With Visual Skills - Husband/Wife Teams - Where Are They Now?

Are Junior Structure Changes the Answer? By Rich Neher After studying the 53-page MEMORANDUM the USTA sent out August 10, a tennis professional wrote me: "I started reading it and gave up because we keep going down this rabbit hole - regional tournaments that are supposed to minimize travel that are poorly run, mandates for low compression balls that are not realistic and alienate players and parents, building USTA facilities that are intended to be the focal point at the expense of the clubs (competing against your members), incompetence in management of high performance programs." I was thinking WOW, some strong opinion. But then I realized I had written about most of that stuff this year. And the other items were covered by tennis friend and "USTA CRUSADER" Javier Palenque who keeps pointing out how low participation in junior tournaments really is nowadays. Is it because of that abysmal participation level at the juniors that the USTA seems to feel the pressure of "cooking" numbers? You realize how easy it is to muddle the issue by using registration numbers whenever participation numbers are low? It creates the illusion that there is a lot of activity, as a friend pointed out the other day. Of course, that perception is only half true. There is a lot of activity but only a small group of people are active. Registration numbers create the illusion of a lot of activity when in reality only a small number of players are active.     The following slide illustrates the subject of creating illusions with numbers. Look at the numbers designated as players for Team Tournaments, Team Challenge, and Junior Team Tennis. The sum listed is 96,735. Again, knowing how easy it is to manipulate data, and learning how much participation has gone down lately, it's really more likely these are registrations. And if they indeed list the number of players, it's also likely the unique player number is much lower than 96,735.   Incidentally, the above slide is from a "Net Generation Lab" presentation. It states there are 48,485 Junior Team Tennis players with an astonishingly low 43% retention rate. Remember it was not even three years ago that the USTA website stated: "Nearly 100,000 kids nationwide play Junior Team Tennis annually, thanks to the parents..." You can read it here, dated February 28, 2017. Is JTT the poster child for demonstrating how the USTA programs are not working anymore? I wonder if the TIA's published participation numbers still count 100,000 JTT players since they are WAY TOO HIGH! Should we trust ANY number the USTA is throwing at us? Reading this extremely convoluted MEMORANDUM (file name UnificationRegAmendments-SAMC2019), a 53-page monstrosity that probably took many months (years?) to write, correct and rewrite, I can't help myself thinking that some USTA staffers had to demonstrate how important it is that they keep their jobs. I understand that many people in USTA sections and out in the tennis trenches do not know what's in the new structure. I guess all they hear is that there will be a more structured national ranking and that the tournament/ranking system will become fairer throughout the country from 2021 on.     But, I am wondering why the USTA spent so much time on this. They must think that the standardization of junior tournaments is the answer. But I'm saying what is the question? If standardization of junior tennis is the answer, what on earth is the question? In their earlier announcement (March 18) they stated: "In response to academic research and a groundswell of support from USTA Sections for consistency and simplicity of junior competitive tennis, a group of volunteers and staff have developed this draft plan to make tennis easier to understand and address the needs of the modern family." Now, everyone involved one way or another with junior tournaments keeps telling me, junior tennis is in a crisis because Young players are leaving left and right because tennis is getting too expensive Kids are looking for ranking points no matter what, to the detriment of many tournaments No one wants to play consolation rounds which increases expenses even more In case of UTR tournaments: Kids are choosing who to play in order to protect their UTR Cheating is still rampant among kids and their coaches So, is the new structure addressing any of those concerns? Not surprisingly, it doesn't look that way. Shouldn't the USTA today, instead of putting so much effort and money in a new junior structure, be focusing on getting more juniors in the game? Shouldn't they lower the cost of tournaments to keep more kids playing and retain most of them? Shouldn't they be all over our High Schools and get tennis in front of every single student there? Shouldn't they be all over the Colleges that are shutting their tennis programs? I call for immediately shutting down Player Development and putting the saved $20 million into grassroots programs, club coaches, CTA's, junior academies, and high school tennis! I'd be happy to send you the MEMORANDUM regarding Junior Structure Changes. Send me an email.

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