I stumbled across your site by accident while trying to find tips to help my 11 year old daughter (12 in April).

She first picked up the racquet about 18 months ago and fell in love with tennis. We aren’t rich, but managed to get her a coach - he was quite young and she started to hit the ball over the net quite nicely.

He suggested that she enter some tournaments - so we entered her for some - it was a rude awakening.

She hadn’t been taught to serve and was playing against girls who had already been playing for 4-5 years… She lost every match 6-0 6-1. Out of 40 matches she won 4.

We decided that it was pointless putting her in matches until she could serve - so stopped entering tournaments and changed coach. She has played in a few tournaments recently and has done quite well - but her serve is still a huge problem.

She double faults regularly - sometime 2 or 3 a game. She is also finding it difficult to cope with the power of some of the other girls.

My question is - should she actually be competing in tournaments now…? Isn’t it better to wait until you have full confidence in your shots before competing?

Her coach seems to think that she will magically find her serve in a match situation - but this isn’t happening and it is eroding her self-confidence very quickly.

Thanks for the email and good question.

What you describe is a common problem with those kids who start a little late (compared to other top competitive juniors) or don’t practice that much (maybe just 2 or 3 times per week).

Let’s first talk about competition: My FIRST question when parents bring the child to me for practice is: “What are your goals?”

If you just want the kid to learn tennis and enjoy when she is an adult, then DON’T take her to the tournaments. She doesn’t practice enough and good players will destroy her.

And you’ll NEVER be able to convince your child that it’s because they practice more.

She will feel that something is WRONG with her. And hate to see that in kids hearts.

It’s not true but that’s the belief that will form eventually.

What many parents also say is that it’s up to her - whether she wants to play tournaments and how much she wants to play.

My answer is, that the child has NO IDEA about the consequences of this or that decision. YOU have to make one.

Serious competitive tennis or not?

If yes, then you have to practice a lot. Not necessarily tennis all the time but many hours per day of various physical activities that will develop skills needed for high level tennis.

And regarding her serve: yes, take time off and practice the serve in non-competitive situations. Eventually she will have to use it in matches too.

When you mention her confidence, then in reality it’s like this: the CHILD knows that she can hit well in practice but cannot hit well in matches.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to become totally confident in training and then believe that it will work the same way in a match.

Again, eventually she will have to trust her shots in a match too, so once her coach decides that her strokes are consistent enough, she can play a few tournaments to test them in real situations.

At this age of course you still have at least 6 to 8 years of tweaking and improving the strokes.

Related posts:


• How Are Juniors Training Tennis In Europe And Why Are They Better Than Americans?
• Choosing A Good Tennis Coach For Your Child
• Dealing With Gamesmanship And Mind Games
• Can I Become A Pro Starting At 14 Years Old?
• Private vs Group Tennis Lessons

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Tennis Parents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.