Eddie Herr International, Easter Bowl, The Junior Championships at Wimbledon, and Kalamazoo: all hallowed junior tournaments steeped in prestige played by the top juniors every year. For years these courts have been the proving grounds for young players looking to create a name for themselves as they prepped for a career on the pro tour. Names like Andy Roddick, Marin Cilic, Bernard Tomic, Sam Querrey, Gael Monfils, and Jack Sock have all held various trophies from these critical junior championships, and although these tournaments are still valuable predictors and preparers of future professional players, many of the top young juniors in today’s game are finding themselves making another stop before trying the professional tour.
College tennis is becoming a prime destination for the world’s top juniors looking to hone their bodies and skills before leaping into the world of professional tennis. What once was an abnormality is now becoming a standard occurrence as the elite juniors are entering college to play on the top NCAA college teams in the United States. College tennis has always prepped players for the pro tour; however, usually these men coming out of college were late bloomers, not high profile junior champions who were entering college to develop their games specifically. Jared Palmer, Chris Woodruff, Mikael Pernfors, and Steve Johnson are some of the more successful NCAA Champions to transition to the pro tour. John McEnroe himself claimed an NCAA Singles Championship for Stanford back in 1978. However, during the 90s and early 2000s most top juniors were jumping straight into the Futures and Challenger tours. But like everything, the game of tennis has evolved, and this new, more physically demanding version of tennis has required juniors to closely examine how they will end up as successful pro players. Just in the past few years, high profile juniors like 2014 Junior Wimbledon Champion Noah Rubin (Wake Forest); 2014 USTA 18s Champion Colin Altamirano (University of Virginia), and Tommy Paul (University of Georgia), fresh from a strong showing in several US challengers, have all chosen the college route.
Rex Ecarma has been head coach of the University of Louisville men’s tennis team for 25 years, and has noticed a distinctive change in the quality of juniors entering collegiate tennis. “Twenty, twenty-five years ago, the number one, the number three, juniors in the world, they were not going to go (to college)..were not going to go–no way–not even a thought. Now you have a Wimbledon junior champ, you have Wayne Montgomery at Georgia, a top 10 junior in the world. You have the top juniors in the world going to college, and not just the top Americans; they are coming from all over.”
Manuel Diaz, long time national championship winning coach of the University of Georgia Bulldogs, points to several factors as to why many of the top juniors are now choosing collegiate tennis over turning pro. He points out the fact that younger players are finding difficulty in cracking the top 100 in rankings.”We are seeing right now, less and less, say 21, 22 year olds making it into the top 100 ATP Tour rankings; sport is cyclical, and this is the trend with our sport as tennis has become more and more demanding and more and more physical. It is very difficult for the young phenomes to be populating the top echelon of our sport.”. With many of today’s professional tennis players peaking now at 27-30 range, the physical demands and maturity requirements of the game have changed. Teenage players lack the physical strength to compete consistently with the men on tour, needing time to grow into their bodies: add muscle, flexibility, endurance. Younger players also need more exposure to playing this type of player so their minds can grow into the game as well.
The changing physical dynamics of the game have lead to pro success taking longer to establish; by adding time to this journey, expense is also added. Ecarma points out that a top junior wanting to try the pro tour has to think about the cost of doing so. “If you’re a top junior, and you want to play on tour by yourself, you’re going to need a personal coach, you will need a trainer, you’ll probably need a person to help organize your schedule, etc…the cost of having that “team” around you is going to be a minimum of $60-$70,000 dollars. If you don’t have a federation paying that, the family has to.” The cost analysis for many young players reveals a scenario of two choices: fight for a spot in main draw Futures and Challengers where prize money isn’t going to cover expenses, or attend a well funded, well managed college program for free and work towards a degree that can be used after a pro career. Ecarma points out that although a federation or family might not have the funds or willingness to pay for these choices, universities can. “Universities pay for two full time coaches; universities pay for athletic trainers; universities pay for doctors; universities set up all their practices, their matches; universities provide all their gear, racquets, and strings…and that isn’t counting paying for their education.”
Beyond the expense of the tour, Coach Diaz points out that as college tennis has become deeper and the quality of matches risen, it has presented itself as a place for the top juniors to work on their game. “A good college tournament, quality wise is as good as some challengers and definitely good as a futures event…college tennis has become a great training ground for these kids to develop physically, mentally, and emotionally.” Coach Ecarma echoes the words of Coach Diaz by stressing the emotional and mental benefits of competing in college. “To me it’s a lot more pressure, playing for you team, than it is going from future to future to future living out of your trunk. These kids learn how to deal with pressure… these kids have time to mature in college, and you have more of a young man trying to compete out there, rather than a boy.”
Just as education systems around the world have shifted to a college prep, job training focus, so to is junior tennis transitioning. With well funded university programs offering resources to these top young players, as well as the chance to earn a degree that provides a safety net if their professional adventure don’t work out, we will most likely continue to see many more of the top younger players in the world venture into the NCAA as a way to prepare themselves for the ultra competitive world of professional tennis.
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