Posts tagged ranking points

More Slashing of Opportunities

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1 day ago
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In case you haven’t heard (!), USTA changed the national junior competition schedule, effective January 1, 2014.  A big reason for the change, according to USTA, is to drive competition back to the sections instead of having so many big national tournaments requiring travel all over the country.

Those opposed to the changes, including Yours Truly, kept asking USTA what it was doing to ensure the sections would step up and fill in the gaps.  We never got a clear answer.

And, now, that which we feared – that sections would not take on that task but would actually slash competitive opportunities instead – has come to fruition.

I found out this week that the Southern California section is taking a big step in that direction (click here to read More >

High School Tennis Revisited

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1 week ago
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Last year, about this time, I was writing regularly about my son’s experience on his high school tennis team – the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

However, due to some ridiculous eligibility rule changes by the Georgia High School Association (GHSA), my son did not play for his school team this year.  It was HIS choice, don’t get me wrong, but, basically, our state governing body made it very unattractive for any high-level players to join their high school teams this year – to summarize, the rule said that a player lost eligibility if he or she trained for his/her sport during stated school hours.  For my son and many other tennis players, their school hours are modified in such a way as to include “zero period” and online classes so they More >

A National Schedule & Ranking System That Makes Sense

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3 months ago
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There have been several comments on this blog asking what parents, players, and coaches want to see in terms of a junior competition structure – USTA has asked all of us to email them at LetUsKnow@usta.com to share our thoughts.  Some people who are way smarter than I am have come up with one proposal that just may work.  This proposal addresses the travel and cost issue, the “earned advancement” issue, the missed school issue, and the rankings issue, among other things.  Please take some time to read through it and share your thoughts in the Comments below.

The key points to this proposal are as follows:

  1. No changes to the existing Level 1s.
  2. Every section (except Hawaii and Caribbean) hosts a Level 2 and at least one Level 3 during the More >

New National Seeding Rules

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3 months ago
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A couple of days ago, I saw a post on my Facebook newsfeed from USTA’s Junior Competition folks announcing seeding changes for National tournaments.  Apparently, I’m one of only a few people who saw the post or knew anything about it.  When I posted the link to the changes on the ParentingAces Facebook page, which also feeds to my Twitter, I got very little feedback from anyone . . . that is, until the seedings came out for this weekend’s Regional Segment tournaments!

Apparently, the biggest change to the seeding criteria has to do with using a separate Singles Seeding List – which does not include any doubles ranking points – to seed the singles draws.  For the doubles draws, there is now a separate National Individual Doubles Seeding More >

Who’s Really #1?

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7 months ago
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USTA rankings vs. Tennis Recruiting star ratings vs. Universal Tennis levels . . . is anyone else confused here?  I don’t know about the rest of you, but this obsessed Tennis Momma spends an inordinate amount of time trying to understand what the different ratings and rankings actually mean and how my son can best use the information to improve as a player.

A quick overview of some of the different ranking/rating systems out there . . .

USTA currently uses the Points Per Round (PPR) system which awards ranking points based on the level of tournament and which round the player reaches in the tournament.  A player’s top 6 singles tournament results and top 3 doubles tournament results for the previous 12 months are included in his/her More >

Dealing with Disappointment

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1 year ago
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I know.  You saw the title and expected to read about how to deal with your child’s disappointment after a loss . . . or something along those lines.  But, this piece is about dealing with your own disappointment when something doesn’t go quite right in your child’s tennis-centric world.

A fellow tennis parent wrote me last week, telling me about her child’s recent tournament schedule.  He has some important tournaments coming up and so decided to play a low-level local tourney just to build some confidence.  The child figured he could get a couple of easy wins and feel ready for next weekend, which will be a much tougher tournament.

Well, as I am sure you can guess, it didn’t go as planned and the child played the worst tennis of his More >

Quick Guide to the USTA Website

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1 year ago
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Even the Higher-Ups at USTA will admit that their website is difficult to navigate.  Well, really, that’s an understatement.  USTA has gone to great lengths to put some very helpful information on their site – the problem is that the average visitor can’t find it!  So, in the name of identify-problem-create-solution, below is a list of links to some of the information I’ve found to be useful in navigating the world of Junior Tennis.  You might want to print out this list and keep it handy then add to it as you discover more sub-pages.  If you have found any other useful articles at USTA.com, please add them in the Comments section below.

USTA Section Pages: www.usta.com

Click on the Find Your Section box in the top right corner of the More >

Keeping It All In Perspective

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1 year ago
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I have a confession to make:  I am NOT a perfect tennis parent.  Shocking, I know (!), but sometimes I tend to lose perspective, letting the little things get in the way of the big ones.

Last week, my son had Spring Break from school.  A few weeks earlier, my husband had mentioned that he’d like to take our son on a father-son trip, maybe fishing or skiing.  Given that I’m the parent in charge of All Things Tennis, my husband asked me which tournaments were coming up during our son’s break from school to figure out how best to schedule their getaway.  Of course, there were two big tournaments planned during that week, each within an hour and a half of our house and each one that our son really wanted to play.  I told my husband about the More >

Forever Friends

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1 year ago
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My dad is the one 4th from the left. His opponent/friend from yesterday is on the far left.

This week, I’m visiting my parents in Shreveport, Louisiana, where I grew up.  Yesterday, I had the chance to go watch my 74-year-old dad play tennis against his long-time friend and rival in what has become a once- or twice-weekly ritual.  These two guys have been competitors since childhood.  They have also been friends since childhood.  They played against each other in the juniors and with each other in college.  Yes, the level of tennis has changed over the years.  Neither one moves too well these days.  Neither one has the piercing groundstrokes that once defined their games.  And neither one has lost the desire to win when facing the other More >

Are Junior Rankings Truly An Indicator of Future Success?

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1 year ago
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Rafael Nadal

I read a very interesting post this morning on ZooTennis.com showing the top 10 men and women currently playing on the pro tour with their highest junior ITF rankings.  Here is an excerpt from the article:

Now it would be interesting to see a study on how many Top 10 ATP/WTA players over the past 15 years were never top 10 in the juniors. I’ve done a tiny bit of that research on the current ATP/WTA Top 10s and here’s the numbers, with the player’s highest ITF singles ranking in parentheses.

1. Novak Djokovic (24) 2. Rafael Nadal (145) 3. Roger Federer (1) 4. Andy Murray (2) 5. David Ferrer (-) 6. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (2) 7. Tomas Berdych (6) 8. Mardy Fish (14) 9. Janko Tipsarevic (1) 10. John Isner (93)

1. Victoria Azarenka More >

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