Archive: Jul 2007

1. Let’s get it straight

   July 20, 2007 11:52 am Leave a Comment

   By Jeff Brack
   July 2007

   

   USTA Official, Dan Annese, oversees a junior match

   USTA Officials are your friends. They are not there to upset you. They are not there to distract you. They are not there to change the course of your match. They ARE there to ensure that the competition is fair and the sportsmanship is respectable.

   Don’t believe me? USTA Officials and Referees are the unsung heroes of competitive tennis. You’ve heard all of the complaints – “That official’s blind” or “He singled me out” or “She wasn’t even paying attention.” But, how many times have you heard someone say, “Boy, I’m glad that official was there. We really couldn’t decide what the score was.” Occasionally, I have seen a player or parent shake an official’s hand and say, “Thank you for taking the time to be here.” And, they certainly deserve more of that.

   Many of us do not take the time to consider the official’s point of view. Regardless of what you might think, these people are not forced to be present at a tournament. If they didn?t want to be there, they wouldn?t be. USTA Officials, in many cases, are retired adults that love the game of tennis so much, that they want to be involved in any way they can. They find great satisfaction in being able to contribute to an event, being a valuable member of the tournament staff and watching others compete. It certainly is not for the money. When all is said and done, they don’t make much more than gas money. Tennis officiating is basically a volunteer duty. So, if they are there, it is because they want to help.

   To the parents of junior players: I know sometimes it may seem like an official has it in for your kid. Anytime a call goes against your player, it’s going to feel like that. I know many officials and have repeatedly gone through the certification classes myself. The USTA is very specific about being over-officious? they prohibit it. These people do not desire to hand out any more penalties than are absolutely necessary. They want you to have fun in a fair and decent match. But the rules are the rules. If you get called on a foot fault, trust me, it was. “Roving” officials do not have the time nor the inclination to camp out at one court. There are exceptions, of course. At times, some of us may require a little more “attention” than others. But on the whole, these “keepers of the peace” are tasked with overseeing multiple courts at a time – a big job for anyone.

   Really, I think what needs to be considered is that tournament officials are not the “Rule Nazis” that post-match discussions often make them out to be. Remember, most are frequent players themselves and know what it’s like to be in YOUR position. They are trying to be as objective as possible, so try to consider what it’s like to be in THEIR position. The efforts of these volunteers keep the rules straight and our events respectable. Their mere presence holds everyone?s behavior to a higher standard.

   Imagine an event without them? Now imagine the next time you finish a match, making the effort to shake an official?s hand and thank them. It’ll demonstrate character and even better, you’ll make their day.

   “Friend at Court” is the title of the United States Tennis Association’s published rules of tennis. The title refers not only to the book itself, but the individual that volunteers the time to be a resource of that information when we need it most. Friend at Court indeed.

2. SURF your way to better ground strokes

   July 10, 2007 11:51 am Leave a Comment

   By Jeff Brack
   July 2007

   

   Quite often the greatest obstacle on the path to improvement is thinking. Specifically, when you try to focus your attention on too many elements of your stroke at the same time. It can be confusing and frustrating.

   You’ve been told to turn sideways. You’ve been told to get your racquet back. You’ve been told to follow through. Add in weight transfer, balance, posture, bend knees, yadda-yadda-yadda – and you’ve now made a mental mess of what seemed like an easy concept.

   The answer is SIMPLIFY. In this case, SURF. Two valuable concepts that we share with surfers are lowering our center of gravity and using our arms for balance. We share them for the same reason- stability. Watch any good player and you’ll wonder why you never thought of it yourself.

   If you get into the classic surfing stance, you automatically turn perpendicular to your target, racquet is back, non-racquet arm is extended forward, feet are separated, center of gravity is low and eyes are directed straight ahead. You are now perfectly positioned for a forehand. You did all of this, and you only had to think… SURF.

3. IMMEDIATE PLAY…

   11:50 am Leave a Comment

   The only way to enrich our infrastructure and increase tennis participation
   By Jim Reffkin
   July 2007

   

   EASY AS CHILD’S PLAY – Rowa Brack showcases the “Spinner” foam ball

   Great news! Thanks to USTA’s recent marketing efforts, we are now having a huge number of new players trying our game. Assuming our goal is to increase participation, we should not miss this opportunity to “capture” the thousands of beginner adults and juniors now taking lessons. In order to do this, we must emulate what all recreation sports have successfully done: We should adapt to the needs of the new consumer with innovative formats of play and introduce modified equipment. With few exceptions tennis has not.

   Due to the variety of ages and skill levels, tennis has always been an extremely difficult sport to learn, a challenge to instructors, particularly beginners where there is a tremendous retention problem. All major sports have dealt with this problem early on, unfortunately our sport has not had the vision, or the will, to find (or want to find) a solution to this problem.

   There is hope. Slowly we are coming to find out that we can adapt, and that we now have industry leaders that do have a vision, do have the resolve to introduce change. It took years for the establishment to embrace: match tiebreak, supersets, college format doubles, short sets and time definable non-elimination match play. And now we finally have both the equipment and programming to dramatically improve the learning curve of beginners – foam balls and starballs – both allowing IMMEDIATE PLAY tennis.

   Look around, we are beginning to copy other recreation sports that have huge entry level numbers. We see our new tennis programming becoming what softball and kittenball has been to baseball, allowing tennis to finally compete with the major recreation sports.

   In my estimation, IMMEDIATE PLAY tennis is the only way to enrich our infrastructure and grow our base of players; it’s programming that embraces beginners – both adult and juniors. Unfortunately, the existing 2.5 Adult and Junior Team Tennis leagues do not service the beginner and advanced beginner. I suggest we duplicate for beginners, with the same resources and resolve, the most successful USTA Program ever – Adult Leagues.

   At the Reffkin Tennis Center, in our beginner IMMEDIATE PLAY instructional programs, we use nothing but foam and star balls, our goal is to make sure absolute beginners continue after their lessons. If we used regular tennis balls, these same players would in no way be ready for existing USTA or traditional club programming and would go on to other recreation activities. We have one chance, they want exercise and “actual play,” they do not want no-rally ball chasing.

   As we all know, during the tennis boom of years ago, we dismissed the importance of creating programming to sustain play after initial instruction. Today, we must create a solid “infrastructure” of beginning adult and junior players, and the only possible way we can create this substantial base of new players is with the new foam and starballs.

   At the Reffkin Tennis Center, we annually introduce tennis to hundreds of players with introductory group lessons. It is obvious to us, if we want them to continue in tennis, we must introduce immediate play in the very first lesson. Don?t expect them to wait until they are NTRP 2.5. We must immediately introduce them to structured opportunities: beginner cardio tennis; pick-up tennis; non-elimination short set tournaments and hybrid team tennis leagues – all of which can use foam and starballs before even thinking about using regular tennis balls.

   I have spent many, many years introducing a variety of innovative formats, and after years of rejection by nagging critics, these new formats now have solid traction in almost all of our USTA Sections. I believe IMMEDIATE PLAY programming will become even more important, it will become the much needed bedrock of our sport, and as important as USTA League Tennis has become today.