Fiend At Court Unplugged
This weekend I am continuing to consider the changes in USTA Adult Tournament Structure coming in 2021. In my initial viewing of the official USTA webinar on these upcoming changes, I observed that transitioning juniors into adult tournaments is one of the projected benefits of the updates.
As discussed last Monday in “Innovate or Die: USTA Adult Tournament Structure in 2021” the primary motivating factors for the USTA to update the adult tournament structure is to stop or reverse the trending decline in USTA Adult Tournament participation. The large pool of prospective players who are aging out of juniors cannot be ignored. The simple fact of the matter is that juniors rarely transition directly into adult tournament play. That is a problem not only for the USTA but also the adult tournament community of players that want to keep that format viable.
While transitioning juniors into adult tournaments was forecasted as a positive benefit of the new adult tournament structure during the USTA webinar, that assertion was not accompanied by a reason supporting why that would be the case. My assumption was that the statement was based on a unification of tournaments into the same seven tier framework for both juniors and adults. A question along these lines was in my informational request submitted to the USTA.
Now that Junior and Adults will have similar nomenclature and days allocated per tournaments based on the level, it will make it easier for players to know what to expect.
USTA National in Response to Fiend at Court Information Request
I am extremely skeptical about the claim that the reason that juniors do not transition into adult tournaments is because they do not understand the structure of the tournaments. All the information needed to understand the scope of any tournament is spelled out on the registration page in TennisLink. Ah… TennisLink. At least I now have a planned topic for my next “Tennis Technology Tuesday” post.
The thing about the junior tournament player population is there is a relatively high rate of attrition inherent to the system. There is a constant flow of players who “age out” of junior tennis. You can’t stay young forever. The USTA has had a problem converting junior players into adult players for an extraordinarily long time.
In “Mowing the Grassroots of the USTA House” I touched on the theme of how leagues drove a sharp increase in tennis participation during the “seventies boom” from 1972 to 1983. What is lost in history is that lowering of the minimum age for USTA league participation from 21 to 18 is a relatively recent innovation. In other words, players aging out of juniors were systematically excluded from the very mechanism that was engaging the most players in adult tennis for a very long time.
I shared “Innovate or Die: USTA Adult Tournament Structure in 2021” in the Facebook group for avid adult tournament players in Texas earlier this week. As expected, there was a lot of energetic discussion about the upcoming changes. I am always amazed at the insight that can emerge from the crucible of debate.
It’s a bit ironic that the USTA is worried about declining numbers in tournament play. The most obvious reason for the decline is the USTA’s expansion of League play isn’t it ? There used to just be NTRP levels leagues, now we have levels, age group levels, mixed ntrp, age mixed, combo, tri-level, “plus” etc. etc. Some league players play 2-3 matches in a single weekend, so of course they don’t need to travel to San Angelo to get some competitive matches. USTA leagues killed tournament play but leagues are also a cash cow for the USTA so there’s no going back.
Anthony Tatu, USTA Tournament Player Facebook Comment
I totally agree with the idea that leagues are negatively impacting the prospective player pool for tournaments. I do see some utility in some of the boutique league formats. However, I am generally opposed to any age group restrictions in association with NTRP levels. If the NTRP system is already level adjusted then there should be no reason for separation by age. To me the insatiable desire to divide NTRP divisions by age is an indictment against the system in general.
It is an inescapable fact that USTA adult tennis has come to be largely dominated by the NTRP system and league play. In fact, I would assert that the largest conceptual hurdle for juniors to overcome when transitioning to adult tennis is figuring out where they fit in within the NTRP system. I plan to explore that point in depth tomorrow.
For now, the salient question is whether going to a seven tier unified tournament structure for tennis will result in more juniors transitioning into adult tennis tournaments. On the surface, the answer to that question is a resounding no, of course not.
Examining that question a little deeper, however, if the new structure results in more tournaments at the open level and more tournaments that are locally accessible to the junior players then there is potential and opportunity. The players need to materialize to play those tournaments, but first the tournaments have to exist.
I have encountered a smattering of former junior players in the adult tournament and league system. I have yet to come across an instance when the established adults in the community truly embrace younger players coming from a junior background. What I have heard is a lot of grumbling about self-rating and just not wanting to have to play people so darn young. I do not think that the NTRP adult community is particularly welcoming to transitioning juniors. In some cases there is outright hostility.
Collectively, as a tennis community, we have to be better about retaining juniors and integrating them into the adult tennis community at the appropriate time. When we consider how to fill the pipeline with new players, this extremely large potential pool cannot be allowed to fade off into the sunset. Attrition at the junior to adult tennis transition point is killing tennis.
Clearly, I don’t fully follow the logic that Seven and Seven equals more juniors transitioning in to adult tennis. I give transitioning juniors enough credit to believe that the lack of engagement does not stem from an absence of understanding. My honest hope is that there was more driving the USTA decision than what has been shared publicly. In any case, the USTA is trying something, and that is a good thing.
- 2021 Adult Tournament Changes, USTA National Webinar, undated.
- USTA Adult Tournament Changes for 2021, USTA National Website, viewed 7/25/2020
- Fiend at Court Request, July 21, 2020, (Official response to emailed questions.)
- Kimball, Warren F. (2017) The United States Tennis Association: Raising the Game, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska.
