from tennisinsiders.com USTA pushed the pause button

From TennisInsiders.com – USTA Pushed the Pause Button

Lisa Stone
October 22, 2012

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The following is posted on TennisInsiders.com:

The junior competition committee of the USTA has spent the last couple of years working on a plan for growth that focuses on noble causes such as trying to lower costs for competitors, lowering school absences and adhering to Wayne Bryan’s “Don’t get on a plane to play a tournament until you can win the tournaments you can drive to and don’t get in a car until you can win the tournaments you can pedal to.”

After hearing the tennis industry’s reaction to the changes, the USTA agreed to have a series of meetings with a group of tennis industry insiders to discuss the situation.

After in person meetings in NY, Los Angeles, Carmel and now Chicago with the industry group, the USTA has decided to do the following:

Leave the 2013 changes alone and continue the same schedule as 2012
Conduct a series of Town Hall Listening Meetings between now and mid-March
Use the information gleaned from that Listening Tour to help determine refinements for the tournament schedule for 2014 and beyond

I can’t express how impressed I was with the level of concern of making double, triple, quadruple sure that they got this right. A lot of great people spent years volunteering their time to put this plan together. These USTA Execs were super sensitive about those volunteers balanced against a concern that the kids were getting enough opportunity.

The spirit of cooperation was off the charts and the results will hopefully be something that is more appreciated by more constituencies in tennis.

The joint announcement is below:

For Tennis Parents by a Tennis Parent