For Tennis Parents by a Tennis Parent

Thanks to the time change, I was up and ready to go watch some more great Junior Tennis well before the 10:30am start time for Day 2 of the Southern California Junior Sectional Championships! For my report on Day 1, click here.

I knew I wanted to have a look at the top seeds in the Boys 12s just to get to see what the top young players are like in my new section. Using the Match!Tennis App, I was able to see which court each player was on and position myself accordingly. I did a little Instagram Live (thank you to those of you who tuned in!) from the site which you can see on the ParentingAces feed here.

The tournament will finish next weekend with all age groups (except the 10s) playing at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego starting with the Quarterfinals on Friday. I hope to make it down there for the Finals on Sunday and will definitely report back if I do!

For full results from this first weekend of play, click here.

Some of my take-aways from the first weekend of this SoCal Level 1 tournament:

• Running tournaments over multiple weekends takes away some of the usual stress of junior competition. In a small geographic section like SoCal, families can spend the day at the tournament site then drive home and sleep in their own homes once play is finished. I don’t think this approach would work in a larger section like Southern, but it seems to hit the mark here.
• The level of play was stellar in the Boys 12s. I was blown away by the sportsmanship, footwork, stroke production, and point construction of these young players. Maybe because my son wasn’t playing in our sectional Level 1 tournaments when he was in the 12s so I didn’t have a good point of reference, but I was really impressed by what I saw this weekend.
• Overall, the parents were very well-behaved and quiet, letting their kids do their thing on the court. 
• All of the players I was able to interview told me they used the tournament down-time during the pandemic to work on their game and improve elements on which they didn’t usually have time to focus. Fitness, mental toughness, tactics – the kids stayed on track even though they weren’t able to compete for several months.
• There were many coaches on site which I loved seeing. Many of them had multiple kids in the tournament and were going site to site (different age groups played at different sites), but they were there for their players to offer support before and after matches.
• Using the Match!Tennis App’s Virtual Tournament Desk helped keep things on track and helped keep the number of extra players and parents on site to a minimum, especially important during a pandemic! As a spectator, I really appreciate the Matches In-Progress feature, allowing me to see which players are competing on which court.

I look forward to attending more Junior Tournaments and getting to know more of the SoCal Tennis Families and Coaches. A big thank you to Trevor Kronemann of USTA SoCal for allowing me to be on site!