I was never very good at it, but I always enjoyed it. To me, it was the perfect sport: strategic, athletic, social, and mental. It had all the elements to challenge anyone, and it was one of the rare sports that you could play well into your senior years.

Tommy started at our local tennis club, playing in the Junior Team Tennis program. This is a league of tennis sanctioned by the USTA to encourage junior tennis. It is mostly run by neighborhood club programs. The kids start with colored balls. The first level is called red ball. The kids play with a large, soft ball that is extremely forgiving when hit. Younger kids (ages 6 to 8) have trouble with control, which makes rallying difficult. These softer, red balls can be hit hard and without spin and still stay in the court. Gradually, as the kids get better and learn how to hit the ball correctly, the balls they play with get smaller and more firm, until they eventually reach a standard yellow ball. (As an aside, I learned that this colored ball approach was developed, and mostly used in the United States, as a way to get kids playing tennis at younger ages. It had become difficult competing against the pros in Europe who often got started at much younger ages than here in the US).

At the time Tommy started, he was playing a few different sports. He was on the soccer team and basketball team, but his first sports love was baseball. We spent countless hours in the backyard throwing the hardball back and forth, in addition to time at the batting cage and baseball field, working on his hitting. He was learning a lot and had great coaches. It felt like he had found a sport he wanted to focus on … and then COVID hit! Baseball ground to a halt quickly and he was forced to stop something he enjoyed. It was devastating! 

As we quarantined with the rest of the world, Tommy grew restless. He was a very active little boy, so the idea of staying inside all day with no athletic outlet, was driving him crazy. We needed to find something to burn off the uniquely high energy level of a boy forced indoors all day. Enter: Tennis.

Along with golf, tennis seemed like one of the only sports the world could still play. And because Tommy was already learning and improving, and because it was a sport I actually knew how to play, it seemed like an easy decision to focus our efforts.

The journey from there has been nothing short of a roller coaster. We somehow went from sending Tommy to a JTT clinic a few times each week to hit red balls to traveling to tournaments throughout Northern California and competing against some of the top junior players in the country. Going into competitive tournament tennis, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Unlike most sports kids play, tennis needs to be 100% managed by the players (and presumably their parents when the players are young). Because it is not a team sport, you cannot drop your kid off with his team and coach and return for pick-up a few hours later – your biggest involvement, making sure she shows up to the games on time. In this way, tennis is way different. The parents need to do EVERYTHING. From figuring out where the player goes for practice, who the coach will be, registering for tournaments, setting up a fitness regimen, and the list goes on and on!

For me, the process has been bewildering and, at times, frustrating. There is no blueprint and opinions differ greatly, from tennis parent to tennis parent, about the best way to develop the junior player and nurture their talent. On top of that, the stakes are high as the cost of playing tennis and hiring coaches can be very expensive, so you want to feel you are getting some kind of value for your money.

I scoured the internet each time I had a question or did not know how to address a specific challenge Tommy was facing, but I have yet to find a good resource that does a good job of explaining the steps on the journey. Therefore, I am starting this website to help other tennis parents on their journey with their junior tennis player. I have seen firsthand that it can sometimes feel like a bumpy ride, but for many of us it is also the most rewarding rides we have ever been a part of!