You can’t be mentally tough without handling the routines in-between points properly. Player’s spend more time in a match dealing with their internal dialogue, than actually hitting a ball.
Most families are stuck in a position where their child splits sets, they’re able to receive coaching, and they have no coach there.
So the parent is left as the de facto coach.
What should they do? They’re not a coach, but here they are, with their child about to go into a nerve wrecking third set tiebreak (or regular set depending on the tournament), and are looking for guidance.
This blog reveals the fastest, most efficient way to improve your UTR dramatically! Nothing we want comes easy though so prepare yourself.
“Does my child need to homeschool to make it to division 1 collegiate tennis?” - Junior Tennis Parent
No.
But the things home school programs offer must be done some how and this is where a lot of after school programs fail.
The biggest difference between the best junior tennis players and everyone else is how well structured their development was. No child made it to the top by random chance. By the age of 12-14, their development started to be planned for success. And the development plan for those lagging behind was consistently missing four things.
“A jack of all trades, master of none.”
If a player works on too many things at once, they’ll be mediocre at everything, great at nothing. It’s better to master the most important things first, then start adding in everything else later/
Theres are the 5 most important things a junior player should work on once they have the basic skills down:
Junior tennis ranking systems for people to be obsessed with have existed for decades. UTR is just another system with its own advantages and disadvantages.
What are you willing to tolerate on your high performance junior tennis journey? Some people can't handle the emotional outbursts, bad line calls, frustrating parents, and the overall emotional roller coaster. They want a nice respectful game, with a nice relaxing atmosphere, and if goals aren't achieved, it's not a problem. Others can tolerate the roller coaster so long as progress is being made and the child is showing continuous signs of happiness.
Unfortunately you have to pick.