{"id":5269,"date":"2017-11-21T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=5269"},"modified":"2017-12-21T14:51:15","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T19:51:15","slug":"sock-stephens-vandeweghe-us-player-development-trending-upward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/11\/21\/sock-stephens-vandeweghe-us-player-development-trending-upward\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Down: Led by Sock, Stephens, and Vandeweghe, U.S. Player Development Trending Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tennis player\u2019s progress is not always a straight line\u2014 more often it\u2019s marked by peaks and valleys.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the overall trend for Jack Sock has been upward\u2014 perhaps something like a 45 degree angle\u2014 since he turned pro in 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n

The past two months? \u00a0The career trajectory has become visibly steeper.<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Down: Led by Sock, Stephens, and Vandeweghe, U.S. Player Development Trending Up<\/h1>\n

Sock blazed his way into the ATP Finals with a victory in the Paris Masters and reele<\/span>d off 7 straight wins in 3rd-set-decider matches before going down fighting in the semis to eventual champion Grigor Dimitrov.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reality of his game is starting to emerge as more than its reputation\u2014 a style that\u2019s always drawn heavy comparisons to Andy Roddick, his fellow Nebraska native.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sock hits with more spin than Roddick did, and he\u2019s better at the net.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is just one American success story from the 2017 tennis season. \u00a0It\u2019s a phenomenon that is jumping up and nipping at tennis in the backside.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the women, Sloane Stephens won her first major at the US Open, proving it\u2019s not just Serena\u2019s sport<\/i>\u00a0for the Americans anymore. \u00a0CoCo Vandeweghe propelled the United States to its first Fed Cup in 17 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is this real, or just a bump?<\/span><\/p>\n

One way to assess that question is to look at the junior levels of the sport. \u00a0A team is only as good as its farm system.<\/span><\/p>\n

On a conference call last week, USTA General Manager of Player Development Martin Blackman presented developmental coaches with some uplifting metrics (see below):<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The chart represents where U.S. players of both genders showed up in the upper tiers of each level 7 years ago versus where they are now.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be fair, tennis is a global sport. \u00a0The U.S. avails itself of coaches from around the world to help develop its players. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, player development in the United States appears to be on an upward trajectory of its own.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A tennis player\u2019s progress is not always a straight line\u2014 more often it\u2019s marked by peaks and valleys. But the overall trend for Jack Sock has been upward\u2014 perhaps something like a 45 degree angle\u2014 since he turned pro in 2011. The past two months? \u00a0The career trajectory has become visibly steeper. Top Down: Led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2038,"featured_media":4648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,166,9,4],"tags":[807,430,118,2246,2245,1733],"class_list":["post-5269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-itfjuniors","category-news","category-wta","tag-american-tennis","tag-coco-vandeweghe","tag-jack-sock","tag-martin-blackman","tag-u-s-tennis","tag-usta"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2038"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}