January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Between The Lines
Where have all the juniors gone?
The USPTA (United States Professional Tennis Association) is the world’s oldest and largest trade association for tennis-teaching professionals.
We discussed many tennis issues that relate to Bermuda's tennis infrastructure.
My main concern in Bermuda is how do we keep our juniors playing after they give up their tour dreams?
Obviously, their next option is to shoot for a tennis scholarship with some hope of still improving.
While college tennis may be an answer for a couple of our juniors, not all scholarships are created equal.
Women enjoy more opportunities to play tennis in college because of Title IX, which provides additional scholarships for women, while American football and other team sports take up the majority of scholarships offered to male athletes.
The reality in Bermuda is that most of our juniors will neither qualify for the tour nor a college scholarship.
So, what happens to them?
Do they quit playing tennis altogether, or are they satisfied to continue to play socially with their friends, or play a few local tournaments?
Unfortunately many seem to quit tennis altogether.
Other distractions come in to play such as college, studying, friends or work.
In order to keep growing tennis in Bermuda the BLTA will have to start recruiting lapsed players of all levels, but perhaps the best bet to recruit lapsed players is to prevent them from ever dropping out in the first place.
In order to fully understand how many young players are moving from the frequent player to lapsed player group, we must acknowledge that there is a problem.
Instead of tapping into resources of players for our Davis Cup and Fed Cup teams, we're losing them at a critical age. Girl participation begins to slack off at about 16, while boys hang on a couple of years more.
Maybe it’s time for Bermuda to have prize money tournaments?
While many juniors will never play on the pro tour, it is highly probable that they can succeed in local tournaments.
In the Coral Beach Tournaments a few weeks ago Andy Bray and myself were the only guys in it in our 20’s. Junior competitors are the foundation for a healthy tennis community. We want to keep these players playing as they attend university, start careers and then families.
In Bermuda this is a problem for most sporting associations. If you've got ideas on how we can keep juniors playing tennis after they move past their dreams contact me at [email protected][[In-content Ad]]
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