Fiend at Court Unplugged
The USTA doesn’t spend much time or resources promoting Adult tennis tournaments. It is a reflection of the fact that the vast majority of tennis playing adults simply don’t play tournaments. League play is the dominant form of adult engagement with the USTA. With small and shrinking tournament population, the USTA might have the organizational perception that Adult tournament play isn’t important to the future of tennis. If that is the case, it is a terrible mistake.
Tournaments are an essential and vital part of the tennis ecosystem. They are an effective engagement mechanism for both first time and returning players. Tournaments are also a vital outlet for players that have achieved a level of mastery above competitive players in their local area. This post outlines how tournaments are essential for building and sustaining tennis participation across the board.
Bridging Former Juniors to Adult Tennis
This site has previously published several posts on ways to retain Junior players as they age into Adult tennis. (Links to those posts are below.) The simple fact of the matter is that Junior tennis is dominated by tournament play almost to the point of exclusivity. Consequently, it is most natural for former Junior players to enter a tournament. They are unlikely to seek out league play without external stimulation.
The challenge for the USTA is in providing a consistent slate of Adult tournament opportunities for that time when former Junior players are ready to re-engage with the sport. Unfortunately, the tournament calendar in many areas is sparse to non-existent. In many cases where tournaments are actually scheduled, it is not unusual to have no entries in the divisions relevant to experienced players. That can be interpreted as “social proof” that no one plays tournaments anymore.
My own “short 28 year hiatus” from competitive tennis is a recurring theme on this site. When I returned to the fold, it was via age group open tennis tournament play. In the absence of that particular opportunity, I quite likely wouldn’t have re-engaged with the sport. (And this blog would certainly not exist and the USTA could rest in peace.)
The scary thing is that in my case… what caused me to enter that tournament was a very energetic tournament director. He was pulling out all the stops just to get a draw to make. I didn’t go looking for the opportunity. Even though I was in and around tennis through the junior play of the umpire I gave birth to, the USTA and the facilities I frequented were not effective in promoting the sport to me as a tennis parent.
This country is littered with former junior tennis players who do not play tennis anymore. It would be awesome if we could flip that story to say that we have a lot of former junior tennis players who have not returned to the sport… YET. Tournaments are the best competitive mechanism to bring them back to the game. Additionally, it makes little difference in how long former players are away from tennis. Tournaments work equally well for a player that just aged up into Adult divisions as it does for players who have been away for decades.
I am a testament to that.
Competitive Outlet for Locally High Performers
Some tennis tournament competitors play those events simply because they have no other alternative. Another recurring theme on this site is “Tennis Wastelands.” I define that as an area without enough tennis players to sustain local league play. In some areas getting “bumped up” to NTRP 4.5 is a league death sentence because there simply aren’t enough players form a single team, much less a league. In other areas, the cut off line for that death sentence is much lower.
I have spent the majority of the past year in my childhood hometown, Wichita Falls. (It’s a long story.) “The Falls” was a once a tennis hotbed with a lot of active players. The sad fact of the matter is that there aren’t enough players at any level to conduct a USTA league.
There is a small remnant of active players in my hometown. Tournaments are both the mechanism for competitive play as well as a bridge to league play. A shockingly high number of players in Wichita Falls play on league teams in Dallas and/or Ft. Worth. That is a 2-3 hour commute for a league match, one way. In many cases those players hooked up with their league teams through relationships forged via tournament participation.
Competition at The Highest Levels
International tennis competition is a thing. Paradoxically, most USTA Adult tennis competitors are blissfully unaware of the opportunity that may exist to represent their country at the world championship level. The USTA is the arbiter of who represents the United States in International competition. It is a tradition that is older than… well… we are.
Inside the borders of the USTA, there is also Intersectional competition between the best Adult age division competitors in each USTA Section. This is the the upper echelons of competition that is driven by national tournament participation. Tournaments are the proving grounds that drives the selection of the best competitors for those events.
In fact, the only thing that may save USTA Adult Tournaments from extinction at the hands of UTR, is the birthright to select the competitors for these prestigious competitive opportunities that belongs to the USTA.
Imagining a World Without Adult USTA Tennis Tournaments
USTA tennis tournament participation has been experiencing a perceptible steady decline that is fully acknowledged by the USTA. The erosion has been long and slow. Recently I have been going through the terrifying thought exercise over what the world would look like if USTA adult tournaments disappeared altogether.
In fact, in some USTA sections, it has effectively already occurred.
In a world without tournaments, USTA league play is the only means for players to engage with the USTA ecosystem. That means that tennis participation will be the exclusive domain of high population centers. It also means that participation will largely be hosted in private clubs and high end public tennis centers.
If that comes to pass, it is the exact opposite of what the USTA has set out to do with the strategic initiative to “Attract, engage and retain new generations of diverse tennis participants.” In fact, diversity and inclusion would take a significant hit. Tennis should not be the exclusive privilege of urban elites.
Tennis, as a sport, would also lose its most effective engagement mechanism to entice former junior players back into the fold. The natural engagement mechanism of their youth would simply no longer exist. Additionally, former junior players that return via league play, would most likely do so through club membership and residency in an affluent urban population center.
At the upper echelons of tennis performance, the competitive level of the United States’ best players will atrophy due to the lack of competitive play. Worse, those players may turn to other competitive pursuits or activities to maintain fitness.
Pickleball, anyone?
We Don’t Have to Live in that Dystopian Future
The USTA created the NTRP National Championships in an attempt to incentivize tournament play. In fact, it is a positive sign that the USTA may recognize the importance of tournaments in the tennis ecosystem. Unfortunately, that engagement mechanism recycles “Nationals” as motivational factor that is the basis of USTA League play. What works for leagues shouldn’t be expected to translate to tournaments. They are different beasts.
The USTA needs to take a holistic look at tennis. It must necessarily include consideration of how league and tournament play should work together for the greater good of the sport. In an environment where tournament participation is drowned out and dominated by league play, tournaments need strong advocacy with the USTA. That advocacy is currently absent.
If USTA tournaments fail, league play will also be negatively impacted. The same can be said of the USTA’s efforts to increase diversity and inclusion. We can do better.
Related Previous Posts on this Theme
- Seven and Seven: Transitioning Juniors Into Adult Tennis Tournaments. An examination of the tournament structure updates that is a lead in to the two following posts.
- Solving the NTRP Initialization Problem for Former Juniors. Juniors should be assigned a NTRP rating on their 18th birthday.
- Radical Ideas for Bridging Juniors to Adult Tennis. Ideas for retaining juniors. My own thinking has evolved and in the interim the USTA has announced that membership fees will be phased out.
- Why I Returned to Tennis. The story of how one former junior tennis returned to the game.
- Mapping My Return to Competitive Tennis Play. Part 2 of the previous post.
- Eight and a Half Ideas for Enticing Former Juniors Back to Tennis. More ideas for re-engaging former players.
- Overthinking a recent USTA Social Media Survey #NationalTennisMonth. Some thought on alternative engagement mechanisms beyond tournaments and leagues.
