High School Tennis players Rankings

If you follow ParentingAces on Facebook and/or Twitter, you may have seen the article I posted last week – Tennis May Reward Top Players To Play For High Schools – from Gazette.net. Bonnie Vona, Manager of Competitive Tennis for USTA’s Mid-Atlantic section, told the publication that “there is a movement toward ultimately awarding USTA ranking points for high school matches.”

I spoke to Bonnie a few days ago to find out how far along in the process USTA actually is. It turns out, not very.

While Bonnie told me that the intent is to entice more high-level juniors to play for their schools while at the same time encouraging high-school-only players to try their hand at USTA sanctioned and non-sanctioned tournament play – both of which are very good intentions in my book – it turns out that the underlying impetus may actually have more to do with boosting USTA membership numbers, thereby increasing her section’s quota for national junior tournaments under the 2014 rule changes. That’s a great outside-the-box way to help the Mid-Atlantic section’s juniors who are trying to make the cut at the national level, and I applaud Bonnie for finding a tactic to help her section’s bottom line while also bringing more young athletes to the game long-term AND helping the top junior players get into the national tournaments.