Question About Girl’s High School Tennis?
Just last night I took my daughter to the first tennis match of the year for our local high school which is a smaller country school in a smaller class, 3A, but we are near a very large city, Kansas City actually. I wanted her to see the playing level she needs to be at in a couple years. She is twelve and in seventh grade. Since I took custody of her, I had her in private lessons all summer and just joined a racquet club this past weekend, where she’ll start her first six week clinic.
I was amazed at what I saw yesterday at this match. All the players, varsity and jv, were just tossing the ball a foot above their heads and tapping the ball with their feet planted on the ground for a serve. Here my daughter already has a full serving motion and knocks in around fifty percent of the balls in play from our hopper.
The players were hitting balls over the fences, straight into the air and landing back next to them on their side of the net, and so on. I’m afraid the way my girl is dedicating herself she’ll be way more advanced then what I saw last night. Would a coach hold her back and force her to play this summer picnic badminton style play? or would a normal coach jump for joy if they landed a great player coming in as a freshmen. I basically told my daughter that it looks like the majority of these girls probably wanted to play tennis when they arrived in high school, their parents bought them a racquet, and this is the only way they can probably serve and get the ball into play right now. Let me know if this is typically the case at other schools? Thank you for any replys.
A lot of what your daughter does has nothing to do with a coach.
My daughter played tennis in a high school of about 1800 students and most of her time was spent on a backboard and with me just hitting the ball and perfecting her strokes. She read a lot about the game too. By her senior year she made #3 on the team. She did not start playing until her sophomore year.
Just look at the Williams sisters and who their first coach was.
March 6th, 2010 at 5:56 am
This may be the case in some schools, but many High Schools have pretty good tennis teams where you have to be fairly good to make the team. In some schools, though, anyone who can play at all will make the team. I guarantee that any coach will be happy to have your daughter on the team if she continues to advance for the next couple of years. She will also find plenty of competition in league play, district championships, and the state tournament.
Retired former coach.
Edit: Despite what some of the other answerers said, most of the really good High School tennis players have had some private coaching or belong to a tennis club or both. Also most of the top tennis players have had a lot of encouragement and even a bit of pushing by their parents. Think of people like Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi, and Chris Evert.
References :
March 6th, 2010 at 6:46 am
A lot of what your daughter does has nothing to do with a coach.
My daughter played tennis in a high school of about 1800 students and most of her time was spent on a backboard and with me just hitting the ball and perfecting her strokes. She read a lot about the game too. By her senior year she made #3 on the team. She did not start playing until her sophomore year.
Just look at the Williams sisters and who their first coach was.
References :