Wow, what a ride being a tennis parent! With all the time, money, and effort we invest in our young talents, it's a serious emotional rooler coaster we're on as we follow our child's ups and downs along the way.

A Different World:

One thing we have to remember at all times is that even though we may all be standing in the same physical space, we and our children are living in a different world, with a totally different perspective. For example,

My assessment of one of the major problems of developing top level talent over the long haul - and by long haul I mean from a talented youth through to talented professional - is the obscurity of the line between proper tennis technique and tennis talent.

What I mean by this is, it's very hard for most trainers, coaches and parents to see the difference between a shot which was made because proper technique was employed, and a shot which was made because the talent kicked in to provide the appropriate adjustments to get the shot made. The end justifies the means often results in folks avoiding a hard look to verify that the technique is rock solid.

This may seem nitpicky, but at any level of tennis results are generated because of an ability to produce quality shots CONSISTENTLY. But let's say a forehand could be played with 100% technique at best, and 0% technique at worst. Let's also say that a shot played at 80% is considered a good shot. So our hypothetical 12-year old "Timmy Tennis" let's call him, plays 10 out of 12 good forehand shots in a series of shots. 2 of these were played at an 80% level of technique, 3 were played at 70% level of technique and talent adjusted for the missing 10% to make it a good shot, another 3 were played at 60% and talent added 20%, and 2 were played at a shoddy 50% technique with a 30% pitch-in by Timmy's Talent to save the day. The remaining 2 shots were played at 30% technique and Timmy couldn't muster enough talent to save those two.

The results show that Timmy Tennis has got 83.3333% good shots with his forehand...great news, right? And pretty consistent, so it would seem. But the reality is that Timmy actually performs his forehand at an average of 59.1666% level of technique. His talent is thus hiding a lack of consistency in his technique.

There are very few trainers who have an eye for technique which is sharp enough to distinguish talent from technique in this way, especially in the face of "good" results, and especially if the missing elements are subtle. The problem comes when 90-95% tennis is expected in order to produce results, and with an average technique level of 59% Timmy Tennis cannot rely consistently on a 30-35% talent bump. Then it's too late to start uncovering - and solving - all the hidden problems, and the talented junior falls off the path to talented professional.

It's a hypothetical story, but one that is clearly a pervasive reality if I look around at MOST of the young players especially in the years 10 to 14. The moral of the story is, anyone with a talented young player...must find one of the very few coaches who is able to make the distinction between talent and technique and hold the line very strictly.

So while Talent is a blessing which we are all happy to receive, be careful because it can also be a career-ending sleeper of a curse.

Another fun thing we did during that dinner. We made a statistical assessment of just how difficult it is to break into the Top 100 in the world, which is roughly the point where the financial rewards of being a tennis player start to balance favorably againsts the costs, and tennis becomes a feasible or at least self-sustaining profession.

We started our assessment by listing all the countries which currently produce top 100 tennis talent consistently. The list of countries includes (in no particular order):

Belgium

United States

Russia

England

France

Spain

Germany

Czech Republic

Croatia

Serbia

China   (this was a  bit of speculation which turned out to be correct. This was before Jie Zheng made the semi-finals of Wimbledon 2008)

Argentina

Australia

Poland

Switzerland

Italy

So the list of countries which can be regularly counted on to produce top tennis talent totals 16. We threw in an additional 4 "wildcard" countries to make a total of 20 - this is because every year the top 100 always contains roughly 4 countries which 'unexpectedly' produce top talent, but don't do this regularly (this was Serbia a few years ago, before it turned into a regular talent producer. this is romania now. this is the ukraine, which in a few years can also be included in the pool of consistent talent producers).

With a total of 20 countries each year contributing to the top 100, it means that on average, per country, the top 5 players of any of these countries can expect to be in or near the top 100 in the world. This will fluctuate from country to country, and year to year. For example Russia contributes well more than its 5 players to the top 100 - on the WTA tour currently, Russia has contributes 5 players to the top 10 alone, while Poland or Croatia sit under 5. Another factor of course are the surge years, where certain countries produce more than their normal share for a few years on end (more on this later) arguably because the internal concentration of talent pushes the collective group within that country to a higher level. This is true of Belgium, and it's true of Serbia, which are small countries that produce high ratio of top talent considering the small size of their populations.

Ok, so we've established that you've got to be in the top 5 of one of the consistent talent producing countries. Now we wanted to translate that into success in the juniors, to make understanding the difficulty of this challenge more tangible. So we kept calculating...a professional tennis career spans roughly 10-12 years. Men can realistically expect to perform well from the age of 20 possibly until 30. A woman can realistically find success already at 18, and expect to maintain a career until somewhere around 30 or 32. All in all any tennis professional is competing in a pool of players that roughly comprises a 10-12 year age range.

In the juniors the pool in which players compete have 2 year age ranges. 12 and under, 14 and under, 16 and under, and 18 and under. If we see the professional pool as an extrapolation of the junior tennis system, then it is in fact a 10 year age range pool which we might call 30 and under, and it is a pool which is 5 times larger than the 2 year junior pools. 2 years x 5 = 10 years. Mathematically speaking then, only the #1s in the 2-year junior pools will make it into the top 5 of the professional level 10 year pool, within a certain country.

The strange math we invented then to calculate this is: #1 in junior 2 year pool = Top 5 in professional 10 year pool. Because 2 x 5 = 10 and we need only 5 so we take only 1 out of each 2 for 1 x 5 = 5, thus our 5 top players nationally.

To explain this reasoning a bit less mathematically, and more tennis-like, consider a player who is #1 in 18 and under in her country. This year she competes only against girls who are 18 and girls who are 17. Next year she will be 19 and compete against  women who are up to 28 (just to keep it easy with 10 years) so it'll be harder for her to be #1, but it's safe to guess that she's of the caliber (all other variables being equal) to sooner or later enter the top 5 of that professional pool.

Now if she happens to be Russian, and is able to enter the top 5 of her own country, then it's a safe bet she's top 100 in the world. (At the current moment it would means she's top 10 in the world, but that's a different posting to address that story ;>)

Mircea and I both know that there are so many other variables and unpredictable human dynamics which have an effect on short term and long term results and bla bla bla bla bla. But the purpose of this exercise is to give some kind of mathematical way of conceptualizing just how difficult it is to break into world top 100. The long and short of these calculations is that a junior player - in one of the tennis talent producing countries - needs to consistently be #1 in his or her 2-year tennis category in each category through the years in order to realistically be considered a player with top 100 potential internationally.

Any player who is less than #1 in the juniors a has tough tough tough road ahead, or better hope that they are competing in a talent bubble country, such as Serbia, Belgium, and Switzerland recently, or a talent depth country like Russia or the U.S. where number 2s also have a solid realistic chance - just because that country regularly supplies more than 5.

I personally believe that the world can expect a follow-up bubble of talent out of Belgium with the birthyear 2000 girls group, specifically as a result of the success of Justine and Kim Clijsters and the extra competitive pressure her Justine's network of tennis academies has put on all the players in Belgium starting with birthyear 1999-2000.

So once again you may hate my rudimentary math - or not like to hear its result. Sure... odds are there to be defied, and of course the human dynamic will always win out over cold hard statistics - in the short term - but in the long term the cold hard facts are probably true more often than not...a kid's got to be a consistent #1 in the juniors or the chances of going pro are a serious longshot.

This is the D'Anjou Family motto for 2008-2009.

We've been seriously busy with our move to Belgium. Lots of Administration, Lots of logistics, lots of travel among everything else. Now that major components of the move are in place, I'm really looking forward to a summer where I can just play lots of tennis with Cyan, and help her accelerate her game to the next level.

I can tell Cyan is ready to accelerate. I can see it in the way she begs to stay on court the last few weeks, even when the practice is over. Cyan hasn't played any tournaments in a while and you see she's starting to feel the itch. Cyan is a winner, and a competitor, and to be honest she just wants to play lots of tennis.

In two weeks Cyan will be officially moved to Belgium and we will do just that, play lots and lots and lots of tennis.

Ha, this is very funny. Young Irina, without knowing it, has turned into the de facto nemesis within the group of tennis parents/kids on the young and talented under 9 tennis circuit in Belgium. This is natural because she has recently won a series of tournaments in the under 9s while she is only 7, but more importantly she does it with a frustratingly consistent defensive style of play which is distinct from most of the other young talents in the same circuit, in that most of the young girls who are very successful in Belgium win with an atacking style of tennis which is just sharp enough to put them above the crowd...that is, except for Irina. I mean people take a loss reasonably when the kid on the other side of the net is blistering winners left and right. Then there's no question the better player won, but with Irina, the ball just comes back to the middle of the field, and no matter how hard you try and put it away, she keeps bringing it back, until inevitably, your put away shot sails wide, or gets brought down by the net. When you lose an entire match "perceivably" on your own errors, then it's downright frustrating and much harder to give fair credit to the moving wall on the other side of the court.  

Now that I'm working on a project in Belgium, just up the street from Set Wahis tennis club - one of three tennis clubs recently purchased by Justine Henin, making up the 6th sense tennis network - I decided to visit Set Wahis after work and watch how Irina trains.

A few significant points are worth noting immediately:

Irina does not train defensively! I mentioned in an earlier post that Irina's game would evolve because her fundamental strength - movement - provides the solid basis for evolving the rest of her game. This was clearly the case. Irina worked on putting balls away to the corners of the court, and moving the ball around strategically. There was a high emphasis on applied tennis, so actual situations which are encountered in a game, combinations, practice serve by serving and then playing out the point. There was never a moment which went too long on a very specific technique without quickly applying it to an actual gameplay type situation.

Club Justine focuses in general on such an applied method of training, which I am convinced is the new more effective generation of tennis training, as opposed to the rigorous old school method of drills, drills, drills and more drills. Drills have their place, but severely minimized in proportion to applied technique and gameplay.

To make a long story short, Irina's game is evolving and judging by the pleasure she seems to have while training, those who see her as a nemesis will be frustrated for years to come. And she trains every day. The other kids will just have to work on improving their movement and defensive play, while she works on improving her attacking play. But fade away because she's not developing the right basis for technique as some are predicting? I don't think so...

I had dinner with my new friend Mircea an his wife in Belgium the other day (well it's been about 2 weeks now already, but I meant to make this blog update post earlier...)

Mircea is from Romania and we met during one of the week tennis stages at Club Justine in Limelette, Belgium. His daughter Antonella is the same age as Cyan, and both play at a comparable level of tennis. Since then we've both made the significant decision to move our families to Belgium and locate our tennis operations at Club Justine in Limelette. The main reason for the dinner was to touch base and exchange valuable information regarding the move, as Mircea was in Belgium for just a few days to visit schools and look at real estate for homes.

Wow. what a big decision. What a nice dinner. And what a nice friend Mircea will make. We are both tackling the same challenge at the same time, and doing it together will only make us both stronger. We will try our best to get the two girls in to the same school, and ideally the same class if possible, so actually we will all share this new experience and the journey which it introduces together.

Thang Tran was also present at the dinner. Thang is also a good friend and the father of Cyan's friend, Demi Tran, also a great young talent from the Netherlands. Thang may not make the move to Belgium immediately, but Demi is already member of Club Justine and will certainly play lots of tournaments in Belgium where she faces more competition than in NL. So Demi and her little sister Lian also make up part of this little club of talented tennis girls which is forming with Club Justine as a base of operations.

I am looking forward to this new shared journey with Mircea and his family, and I am sure that regardless what the ultimate tennis results are for the girls years down the road, the result will always be a success because we are doing our best as parents to create a happy, productive and healthy environment for our children where they can live, learn, and love life and learn to get the best out of themselves.

Cyan won another 1st place finish today, on second Easter day, just after her 1st place finish yesterday on Easter Sunday. Once again Cyan was placed in a mini-pool, "because there weren't enough courts," and then after discussion with officials we got her properly placed in a 3/4 pool, the way it should be. Ultimately this was certainly the most difficult of the pools Cyan has played in in recent weeks, and she even ended up taking a loss to one boy - most likely the result of Cyan's trouble adjusting to hard balls on a 3/4 field, instead of the lower pressure balls used at all the other 3/4 tournaments for her age category.

Because she ended up splitting the results of the first round of matches evenly with another boy, an additional final had to played to determine the ultimate winner. This was an exciting match to see, because at first Cyan was 2-0 behind her opponent in the final, then all of sudden she started playing her game and coming back. The deciding game at 2-2 was on Cyan's serve, and Cyan stepped up to the plate by serving up an ace as the first point of the game. This followed by two very aggressively played groundstroke winners brought the score to 40-0 for Cyan. Cyan closed out the win in style with a blistering ace to the backhand side.

Cyan's game is starting to improve significantly, and more impoortantly she's starting to apply her talent to games and close out games inher name using the technique she's learned.

With Cyan will have to continue to work on her backhand, and continue to significantly develop her serve which turned out to be the deciding factor in her successful tournament runs both today and yesterday.

As a follow-up to her 1st place finish last weekend in Velp, Cyan produced a fantastic performance this weekend in the KNLTB Gelderland organized 3/4 tournament in Bemmel, NL. After some significant confusion regarding Cyan's initial placement by organizers in the mini division of the tournament, organizers eventually rectified the confusion by having Cyan play in both the mini section and in a 3/4 pool against all boys. The result was Cyan playing a match in almost every round, and going undefeated against all her opponents in both pools.

Cyan's game is clearly starting to come together bit by bit. Her overhand serve is more consistent, and therefore reliable. There is still not much speed on the serve, and certainly no placement, but even so, in the face of competitors who are still using an underhand second serve, with the consistency of her overhand serve Cyan is now able to win at least one or two points per service game on the serve alone. This of course serves to build Cyan's confidence in her serve, which is the fuel for future progress with it.

NET GAME: Cyan has now started to develop her net game in matches. She goes to the net roughly 4 times or so per match, and of those net approaches she wins 3 of the 4 points. Once again an element we will continue to support, as we know this is only way to decisively take out an effective defensive player.

Cyan won her pool of 4 girls quite easily in Velp winning all 3 matches. She started slowly with a 2-1 win against a girl she consistently beats at tournaments. Cyan mentioned herself that she was surprised that the girl's backhand had improved.

Cyan defeated her second opponent 5-0. The 3rd was toughest, a 10-year old with no technique but with the size to get all the balls back over the net. Cyan's serve was on, and she finished with a 5-2 score in games.

No trophy (to Cyan's disappointment) but instead a medal with 1st place written on it. Oma, Opa, Dafne, I, Fred, Liaan, Julian, and even Kevin at the end were all present for the match. We are all proud.

Cyan reached the semi-finals of the Bollettieri Cup in Belgium this weekend. It was a nice result considering Cyan is 7 years old and the tournament is 9 and under. On top of that the level of young tennis talent in Belgium is very high.

There was a lot of tough competition at the tournament. Cyan lost in the semi-finals to a 7 year old mini-adult who is a head taller than Cyan, and Cyan is usually one of the tallest girls around in her age group. The eventual winner of the tournament was a little Spanish speaking 7 year old, Irina Cantos-Siemers, who interestingly enough won two tournaments this past weekend with a defensive style of moving very quickly and blocking the balls back into the court. This to the frustration of all the other very professionals young girls who have reached the top ranks of young Belgian tennis with aggressive attacking style games. Their attacks don't seem to work against Cantos-Siemers, who uses her speed, bouncy character, and attention-ful early anticipation of the ball to get to every ball in time to bring it back into the court consistently and securely. Under no circumstances does she ever attack, even if she herself gets a soft ball in the middle of the court, she opts for the safe return to middle of the playing field. Rallies easily reach above 20 shots back and forth, and much more often than not, it's her opponent who makes the first mistake.

Irina is only 7 years old, while many her highly ranked opponents are almost 9. While many of the other parents feel like this safe approach displays little technique and ill prepares Irina for full court tennis to come, I beg to differ with their frustrations. Irina is also constantly in development, and I believe her excellent match anticipation, fantastic movement over the court, and outstanding concentration which allows to play consistently without fault for so many points, serve as a fantastic basis for her game to add additional, more aggressive aspects as she grows and her game develops. Remember she's also not sitting still...

Most importantly, watch Irina's game got me to thinking...how can Cyan defeat a girl with such an effective defensive tactic? At this point Cyan's game isn't consistent enough to win over such relentless consistency. Cyan can handle rallies of 5 or 6 shots at the most, and then something's got to give one way or the other.

The way I figure it there are a few choices. 1. Develop a similarly defensive tactic, and learn to be the one to hold out the longest. 2. Be more consistent  and sharper with the attacking game, reducing the unforced errors while keeping heightening the pressure on the defensive player. 3. Add a net game.

1. Seems unlikely to work, since the style by nature lends itself to the kind of personality that can hold out the concentration and have the patience to wait 30 shots into the rally to win one point. Most kids don't have that, Cyan certainly doesn't, or else we would have long noticed the tendency to play this way already.

2. As unlikely or moreso than option 1. By definition an attacking game means taking shots which are higher risk and thus have a lower percentage than defensive shots returned high over the net to the middle of the field.

3. Highest chance of success within the under 9 age group. A kid who rushes the net will make some mistakes, but creates more angle for her attack. The angle created by standing at the net is indefensible by even the fastest most athletic of players. The point is shortened, forcing the defensive player to make a lower percentage passing shot, particularly difficult for someone who is used to playing only in the middle of the field. Alternatively the player could attempt a lob which is also lower percentage and hard to execute effectively without hitting the ball out of bounds, or too soft so that it gets smashed.

The net game comes with its share of risks, because the player has to be extremely athletic an display fantastic reaction speed, but with some practice, more often than not, the player with a reasonable degree of skill attacking the net will be able to neutralize the chronic defense player.

We spent the holidays training with Cyan at Club Justine in Belgium. Cyan joined a couple of the tournaments there, and did her best but she's still got experience points to build up in matchplay.

Sorry to those who might be offended by my frankness, but it's my blog so I tell it like it is: Belgium is currently way ahead of the Netherlands in their preparation of young players for the next generation. None of the kids we've seen who currently would be considered the top in the Netherlands, at any age group, will ever be able to make any headway on the international scene compared to the current pool of kids we've seen in Belgium.

The Belgian kids hit harder, move way better, are more tuned in strategically, and also seem happier playing tennis.

This is because the program in Belgium is completer, starts earlier, and captures the hearts and minds of the tennis playing kids. Kids who want to be top players themselves simply because the tennis environment in Belgium is so positive, so encouraging, and so immersive. This last point makes all the difference in the world...ranking list. It's also the reason the Netherlands will not recover from it's current slump in producing tennis talent. It would take a few breakthrough superstars, and 2 generations to change the culture around tennis in the Netherlands to one that is positive, encouraging, and immersive. If tennis were football, the Netherlands would be at the top, because the money is here, and the techical talent is here, but the country is not behind the sport and it's tangible all the way down at the club levels.

It's a new year, 2008. This year Cyan turns 8 (on the 26th of April). 2008 will be the year of the tournaments for Cyan. Until now, Cyan has been playing in sporadic tournaments, and booked some successes as well as the necessary failures which are the drivers of learning. This year though, 2008, Cyan will be playing a tournament every weekend if possible and longer tournaments through the week during vacations. We've already got Cyan's schedule booked every weekend with tournaments through March, in both Belgium and the Netherlands.

And right on time. Tournaments are very important for Cyan's tennis development, because it's the chance for her to apply what she's learned in training to a real-life situation, and this is a skill which is not innate but developed only through experience. More importantly, the matches help sharpen Cyan's concentration, and make her realize for herself the importance of focusing her skill at just the right moments to achieve the results she wants to achieve, which for her is winning trophies. When Cyan plays a match and ends up 2nd because her mind drifted off for the first few games, for example, her training throughout the coming week is much better, as she's working to a better result in the tournament coming next weekend. If she gets played of the court because another kid slams the ball into the corners, then we notice that she adjusts her own play, and starts doing what we've always been training her to do, and slamming it into the corners herself. The experience of playing tournaments wakes up Cyan's own motivation and sharpens her resolve to apply what she's learned. This is because a tournament every weekend gives Cyan a tangible goal which is within the realm of her kid's world, which is something she can realistically reach for on a timescale which is comprehensible to her kidsize (thus shorter) timeframe.

Plus she's ready. Cyan has now got the tools in house to score serious results within her age bracket and a few years above her own age. So the application fits her current skill level. This year will be predominantly 3/4 field matches, and when her serve is more supple and consistent, and her movement across the court is better, then she can try a few full court matches towards the very end of the year as preparation for 2009.

Cyan won her first tournament on Sunday 16 September 2007... It was KNLTB sanctioned 3/4 tennis tournament which was played in Woerden, the Netherlands which is quite close to Utrecht and south of Amsterdam.

The 8-year old boy who Cyan defeated to win the tournament was recently crowned champion of his club and in Cyan's own words, "It was a difficult match." That's true because Cyan started off serving into the sun, and was immediately broken in the first game. After the switch, Cyan returned service and immediately broke back setting off a run of three games which led to her 3-2 victory.

The major victory in our eyes as parents was the fact that Cyan didn't lose her spirit after losing the first game and even though she experienced it as a touch match, she kept on fighting and did her best to come back from behind...successfully.  Small scale in the eyes of others, Gigantic scale for our family!

I'll be framing the medal which is being sent to our house, as well as the winner's ribbon, photo of the day's winners, and tournament flyer. To keep for posterity as the first moment that what has already amounted to years of hard work crystallized in the form of a tangible first place finish. No 2nd place like so many times before, but 1st.

(Amazingly enough, this date is also the birthdate of my late brother Christopher...a monumental date of victory which I find more than ironic or coincidental...)

http://tennispsychology.com/tennis_psychology_tips/tennis_tip_6.php3

http://tennis.about.com/od/instruction/a/sportsthathelp.htm

http://www.effortlesstennis.com/fundamentals.html

http://www.playerdevelopment.usta.com/content/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=114686&itype=7418

http://www.usta.com/healthandfitness/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=59136&itype=6835&icategoryid=591

Here are some links to articles on the development of concentration as it relates to sports:

http://www.mentalskills.co.uk/articles/featured_article.php?docid=3

I found this part interesting:

Research has shown that we are selective and use cues or stimuli in a sequential manner, unfortunately this process has only a limited capacity in the amount of information it can deal with at a given time. Other theories suggest that the information we use is dealt with at two levels. Firstly at an automatic level, where we are able to utilise relevant information and deal with it without apparently thinking about it. This is believed to be the result of extensive practice of related skills; skills that we are able to perform naturally and without any conscious thought.. The second level we work at is the controlled level. Controlled processes are limited by the capacity of the brain to deal with the information that is available to us. When the capacity is exhausted performance declines. Evidence suggests that the automatic processes are able to operate in a parallel fashion, and because of this they are quicker than the controlled processes. Again there is however a drawback, they have the disadvantage of being relatively inflexible because the routines and motor programs that operate them have been so well learnt.

Doesn't this seem to mean that a player could makes things easier for herself by practicing enough routines and patterns through the years so that as many performance combinations as possible are worked into the automatic, non-thinking (and thus faster) level? It seems to me that the more activity that can be relegated to the automatic level, the less stress is placed on the controlled processes, leaving that conscious and controlled mental space to work out the complex and/or new situations/emotions/strategy with a minimum of interference.

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/psych.htm

http://www.thesportscoach.com/preview/home/mentaltraps.cfm

In the past I have discussed the importance of teaching young tennis talents proper professional tennis technique from as early an age as possible, and I compared learning tennis technique to learning a language. The earlier a child learns the 5 tennis strokes properly the more natural and fluent these strokes will be for the rest of their tennis lives, just like learning a 'mother language' in early years results in a more natural fluency as opposed to languages learned later in life.

For kids under the age of 10, an extremely important element to their tennis development, an aspect which is overlooked by many, is the development of the player's athleticism in general.

By athleticism I mean physical coordination, ball bounce anticipation, balance, play anticipation, speed, reaction time, the ability to process multiple moving objects at once, timing, etc. Athleticism is your mind being in tune with your body, being in tune with the sport or activity at hand. Athleticism = mind + body + sport. *

Development of athleticism comes through activities which are not necessarily specific to tennis. Obviously tennis training in and of itself develops athleticism, and it develops athleticism which is specifically relevant to tennis which is even better. Cyan does one hour of coordination drills with the KNLTB once per week, and these are quite effective, but a solid basis for athleticism will not come from one hour of coordination drills per week. 7 days a week of focused one hour coordination drills might have some effect over the long haul, but what 7-year old kid is really going to put her heart into a daily dosage of physical coordination drills for one hour every day? Not Cyan, and probably not your kid either. Kids (and adults) are motivated by new experiences and new challenges, and...other kids. This is why a mix of team sports and active play in general is an excellent way to work on your rising tennis star's athleticism. Unstructured active play is fun, and develops basic athleticism elements such as running speed, paying attention to multiple elements (other kids), and the spirit of competition. Structured team sports are good because context is added giving the player a specific framework in which to apply her developing coordination. But most importantly...mixing sports provides those new experiences and new challenges which keep your player's brain "turned on" while doing them, and this is the single most important factor to your child adding to her athleticism quotient on a consistent basis over time.

Also, so many of the lessons learned in the other sports can be re-applied to tennis, so introducing a healthy portion of other sports (as long as you are confident that the tennis technique is being covered sufficiently) only makes the tennis lessons to be learned that much easier.

For tennis I recommend soccer, basketball, and baseball as the top 3 alternative sports for building athleticism in the early years. Alongside this I do think specific coordination building activities on a regular basis, such a jumping rope, ladder drills, etc. are essential mixed throughout the week.

Athleticism = mind + body + sport. * The third element of athleticism, sport (or any real world activity really) is what differentiates athleticism from mere coordination, which is simply mind in tune with body. Coordination = mind + body. Coordination means the mind works in tune with the body. What makes it athleticism is that the mind works in tune with the body to accomplish a specific goal which is relevant and timely to the sports activity.  Another way then to define athleticism would be to call it Applied Coordination. An example should clarify this. The ability to see a soccer ball, run to it, and kick it into the right bottom corner of the soccer goal is Coordination. The ability to see the soccer ball, run to it, and kick it into the right bottom corner of the soccer goal - just past the fingertips of the diving goalie - is Athleticism. Athleticism is relevant.

The thing I missed the most at Sanchez-Casal was the direct involvement of the parents.  This is a major difference with Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Paris, where the scale is smaller and there is a tangible family feel.  Parents at Mouratoglou play an obviously significant day-to-day role in the career of the tennis youngsters there even if it's just the title of "emotional coach", and at Sanchez-Casal the opposite is true. Most of the resident kids there are alone, with their parents living at home and picking up the tab.  In this way Sanchez-Casal seems very much like an elite boarding school where children of means are sent and then come back as professionals, and I'm sure that's what happens, but it's a style I think that is suited to a particular type of player - a very independent self-motivated one. Not every kid is strong enough or yet adult enough to go it alone and still make the most of it, nor do I think that going it alone is a pre-requisite to becoming a top tennis talent.  In fact I think the opposite, that the family unit is the most important factor to lasting tennis success and for my family I will always choose for the system that allows me to be as microscopically close to Cyan's tennis development as I can possibly be.

The fact that there is no family housing availability in the immediate vicinity of the tennis facility (only dormitory bungalows) reinforces the feel of keeping parents at a distance. 

I suppose the best way to describe Sanchez-Casal Tennis Academy is as a gorgeous elite tennis university.

Cyan was invited to come back to program to spend an entire day at no cost, which we did, and Cyan had an extremely productive day of tennis with the other kids who were there for the week/s program. We could see she was visibly inspired by being surrounded by other kids who all take tennis just as seriously as she does.  We noticed it in her strokes, and the added attention span while doing drills and receiving instruction.

Sanchez-Casal has an international high school on the premises.  We visited with the director of the school, who was very accomodating considering we had made no appointment and he made it very clear that the Schiller International School is serious about giving its students an education, and not just facilitating the tennis ambitions of the players there.  Make no mistake though, Schiller is very much a tennis school, with the windows on the three sides of the building looking out over the very tennis courts where the players follow their daily training (the fourth side of the building...has no windows.)  All the teachers are up to date with the tournament results of the players, know their rankings, and know how their students are performing in practices.  They realize that this has a significant effect on how the kids will perform in class. Even though the high school is only 5 hour days, the students are expected to carry the responsibility of planning outside work, as well as giving advance notice of upcoming matches for which they must travel and miss a day of school.  If they don't do this on time in advance, they miss the tournament.

The powers that be at Schiller International School are also aware that most of the kids (98%)that come through the tennis academy will not have a successful professional tennis career.  For this reason the school has relationships with United States based college counselor services that can find university fits for the graduating students and get them scholarships to U.S. universities, since the U.S. is overwhelmingly the biggest source of college scholarship money.  100% of kids who graduate from Schiller International are able to secure scholarships to U.S. universities of at least 60%.

From the moment we were face to face with Paul, things moved smoothly.  He immediately addressed Cyan, and asked her if she wanted to join the group of kids, Cyan's age and up, who were training. Cyan ran along to join the group and we followed along while Paul told us about the programs for young players there.

Spain is different than other countries when it comes to tennis training.  There are always lots of trainers walking around watching the tennis activities of the players, giving tips to the direct coaches or directly to the players themselves.  In this way the tennis training has a very village like feel, like every trainer is your coach, and every player is in your training group.  As far as level, the trainers are very quick to identify players with matching skill levels and group them. 

The scoop which we got from Paul Sedano is that Sanchez-Casal is opening a new location, starting this summer.  Sanchez-Casal II I call it and it will be based in Naples, Florida at a gorgeous tennis facility there with 37 clay tennis courts.  It's starting in July of this year (2007) and Paul Sedano is moving to Florida to be director of the new tennis center.

This means that Sanchez-Casal II will probably be positioning itself as the clay court specialists in North America, bringing with them their Spanish experience and providing a mostly clay court tennis facility.  Paul says he realizes they will be up against lots of resistance moving to the States, and just a few hours south of Bollettieri's in Bradenton, Florida, but I suspect the clay court angle and the Sanchez-Casal name will set them off to a great start.

Cyan was not scheduled to play at Sanchez-Casal that week, but since her schedule at Elitennis was 9-12 we went by to visit Sanchez-Casal tennis academy in the afternoon.  Even though our purpose was to look around and get information, we were welcomed by the Director of Youth Programs for Sanchez-Casal, Paul Sedano, whose customer service was excellent.  He immediately invited Cyan to partipate with the kids who were there for the week program as they did "vizualization" drills with their eyes closed.

Odd was that there were even more kids running around playing tennis at Sanchez-Casal than at Elitennis which is specialized in the younger age group. Odder still was that the official tennis academy representative told us that there was - in no way, shape, or form - any kind of program for kids under the age of 12 at the Sanchez-Casal tennis academy.  Since on the way in we had walked by literally scores of under 12s running around with tennis rackets in hand and tennis bags on their backs, we knew something didn't figure.  The lady was clearly quite busy, so I can only assume that she hadn't had a chance to look out the window of her upstairs office and see all the young kids running around down there.  Or maybe when you live and work in a tennis mecca such as Barcelona, 7-8 year old tennis players and 12-13 year old tennis players all start to look alike.

Safe to say we had to work our way through a few layers of Spanish communication issues and other organizational crossfire before getting to the right person.  We might have given up after being spewed the identical text which we had read ourselves on the Sanchez-Casal website, and then being handed a printout of said text to take along with us.

Herein lies the advantage of visiting a place in person...Dafne and I are both stubborn go-getters who never give up.  Luckily there was Vanessa (pronounced "Ba-nessa"), the fantastic receptionist who spoke excellent english, and who felt guilty about having had us wait and then sending us up and down the stairs to little avail, so she took it upon herself to contact the Director of Youth Programs directly.  Paul Sedano is exquisite in the art of customer service, but at the same time knows what he's talking about with respect to tennis.

I've been back in NL after spending a week in Barcelona for three days, and I've been putting off writing an update to the blog about the Barcelona trip.  This is not by design, but because there's so much information swimming around in my head now after the trip to what could be considered the tennis mecca of Europe...I just don't where to begin with the update.

But three days is a bit long to wait for an update, so I'll just start, and if it sounds a bit random or takes 5 separate posts to get it all down, then so be it.

Elitennis.  This is the academy that we booked for the week.  We chose Elitennis because their online marketing positions them as specializing in talented but younger kids, age 8-12.  In reality all the kids there were 10 and older, but 6-year old Cyan could still hold her own, and the trainers at Elitennis adjusted very well to accomodate the age difference.  Cyan made friends there and had a great time.

(the picture to the right is a bird's eye view snapshot of Elitetennis, from Google Earth)

The philosophy of Elitennis is very close to that of Cyan's trainer Zwen here in the Netherlands.  The founder of the tennis academy Enrique Guldberg (from Argentina) believes that bringing up a top tennis tennis player means bringing up a top athlete first and foremost and letting the technique develop naturally out of the athlete's own instinct.  Work primarily on things like balance, hand-eye coordination, racket tricks with the ball - especially those that develop an understanding of various types of spin, and lots of dual attention coordination games.  Essentially develop someone that you could drop into any sport and they would excel.

After seeing Cyan play Enrique is willing to work with kids of 6 years old..."if it's a talent like Cyan." So if you're planning to spend a week in Barcelona, it's worth considering for your young child, if you've got a kid who is playing serious tennis.  The Elitennis program is not for young recreational players.

10 minutes up the road from Elitennis is the well-known Sanchez-Casal tennis academy.  Sanchez-Casal "officially" only starts working with kids from the age of 12 and up, so 8-12 positioning of Elitennis is smart strategically to fill that gap right under the Sanchez-Casal age limit...Cyan's schedule at Elitennis was 9-12 in the morning, so one afternoon we went to visit Sanchez-Casal just to see it and to get some information.  Sanchez-Casal tennis academy was very impressive...

I'll continue later:

Youngtennis.com maintains upload dates for any photos and videos that you upload.  If you regularly upload photos and videos representing your tennis game and tennis experience on an ongoing basis, then years down the road Youngtennis.com will serve as a "Living Journal" of your tennis progression through the years.  You'll be able to look back on your strokes and how they've progressed, your clothing and hair styles, your physical development over time...  all the kinds of things that will be fun to look back on after you've brought the Wimbledon title home and you're in that nostalgic moment of reflecting on how it all came to be.

The moral of the story?  Upload photos and video to Youngtennis.com, and do so regularly!

I think one of the biggest challenges in raising a talented tennis kid is finding a group  of similarly talented tennis kids for the kid to grow up with.  To really reach the absolute top of tennis, it's ideal to start at an early age and train effectively almost every day for at least 10 years in a row.  Without fully understanding the ins and outs and the whys of such an intensive longterm commitment (which no young kid can fully understand), I think almost every kid on earth is bound to run into a faltering of commitment, and I'm sure more than once during that long haul.

Even a kid who loves to play tennis, will at some point find it less fun, when they are drilling balls and practice routines day in and day out.  It's up to the people guiding these young talents, usually their parents, to create an environment that allows the kid to bear the discipline of the routine, and even embrace it.  I think the #1 most effective way of doing this is by finding a peer group of tennis players (ideally of the same age) who is following the same journey.

The trick to this is that talented tennis kids aren't being born in any one geographic region of the earth.  By definition of talent, it can appear anywhere and at anytime, and generally has no respect for convenience.  So the pattern that we tend to see with young talented players is that their tennis development, in the early stages especially, is a family affair, and the kids usually have to play above their age group to find reasonable competition.  There's a certain isolated feeling which builds as they train increasingly to reach higher levels, and becom increasingly isolated from kids their own age, who aren't investing the same high level of commitment...at least not to tennis.  Fitting into a close social group is more immediate and more important for a kid than the longterm conceptual idea of maximizing their ultimate full potential and reaching the highest levels of achievement in sport.  All that is great later on, but for a kid it's just to abstract for them to sink their teeth into on a daily basis.  Having no peer group in tennis is most likely one of the major reasons for "burnout" during teenage years.  The kids just get tired of the isolation, and that makes maintaining the necessary discipline and attention span unbearable.

I believe the perfect solution for this is a tennis academy, or tennis school, which combines academics and tennis within one program.  This way the friends the kid makes at school all understand each other's journey, because they are all doing the same.  Kids don't feel like  they have to say 'no' to playdates because their friends from school all have tennis training every afternoon.  It is just normal, and not weird.

It's no different than academic achievement.  Achieving a master's degree level of education, takes decades of consistent daily commitment to education, and no young kid understands going in the full value their education will be once they've completed it.  The thing that gets us through the rigorous discipline is peer groups who are doing the same.  Elite students are grouped with other elite students and together they take on the rigor.  This same approach can be applied to tennis.

When Cyan was 4 years old we found a few other kids of the same age to form a lesson group with her coach, Zwen, and I believe that having a motivated group of talented kids of the very same age did wonders for motivating her in the early years.  Now, many of those kids have left the area or left the country, and we are now in the process of finding other families with talented tennis kids of Cyan's age, who are in it for the long haul, so we can maintain a peer group for Cyan who understands what she is going through because they are doing it themselves.

I think with the right peer group in place, a talented kid can handle an amazing amount of discipline and intensity in their training schedule day in and day out.  Find the talented kid other talented kids, who they get along with and can grow up with, and it will make no difference if they've got to train for 10 years, or even 30, because their favorite people are around them all the time.  Kids want to be where there friends are, and if that's out on the tennis court doing drills, then that's where they'll want to be all day every day.  I know from experience that finding such a group and making all the circumstances work, is a lot easier said than done, but I'm convinced it's the healthiest way to raise a rising tennis talent.

Ineresting article which breaks the career development of a tennis player into 3 significant phases, and discusses the role of the coach in each of these three phases:

http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/news/articles/2007-01-20/200701201169277466968.html

Comparing time spent at Mouratoglou Tennis Academy, with time spent in Atlanta at the Tennis-In-Motion program run by Ilona and Donald Young, and the experiences and advice of being part of the Dutch National Tennis program, it's quite clear to me that the earlier the better for teaching a talented kid professional tennis technique.

Both of the elite professional tennis programs promote teaching the techniques that youngsters will use in their later top level tennis careers, from day one.  Many national programs and tennis schools promote "mini-tennis" and easier strokes with the idea of giving a child early encouragement through quick success, with the underlying intention that the strokes & grips, etc. can be "fixed later."

I think the main difference between the philosophies of such national or tennis school programs and that of elite tennis academies is that the elite programs are targeted to the "talented" individual while a national or school tennis program is tailored to the broader group. Early success with an easier to master stroke may encourage children earlier, but a talented child picks up the correct strokes quickly enough, and never has to re-learn.  Professional technique becomes a natural part of that child's stroke repertoire, as effortless for them as a native language.

It is the naturalness of these strokes (among other points) that later becomes recognized as "talent" and results in a which came first question:  If a kid is trained early enough to make proper technique a natural part of their repertoire, is then the naturalness in their strokes which we see at a later stage "talent" or is it "training" ?  And does it matter?

I think the best comparison is in fact language.  From before we are born we are being trained in the language that will later become our native tongue, whatever that may be.  We are spoken to, hear the sounds, see the facial expressions and body movements that are associated with certain tones and certain words and phrases, and on top of that we are given direct one-on-one training by our parents, our 24-7 personal language trainers.  Within two years most of us are speaking, and certainly by the age of 5 the language is our own.

In the case of my daughter, Cyan has been raised with two languages, English and Dutch.  Cyan is now 6 years old and speaks both languages fluently and without accent.  In a room Cyan recognizes who speaks which language and switches effortlessly between the two.  People who see her do this are often amazed.  Now the question: Is Cyan's effortless mastery of two languages "talent" or "training"?  And does it matter?

Language research shows that children can learn multiple languages without accent up until the age of 7.  After that a person can learn a new language to fluency, but in most cases will retain an accent influenced by the native language.  This is evidenced by my Dutch, which is fluent, but will always retain an American English accent. Bringing this back to tennis I believe this is what happens when we teach a child an easier tennis stroke with the idea of "fixing it later."  Sure the kid can learn the proper stroke at a later stage, and even attain fluency, but the strokes will always have an accent leftover from the "native" tennis strokes learned when they were young.

My conclusion:  I agree with the philosophy of the elite academies.  Assuming you've got a healthy kid who is motivated to learn, and you're teaching your child to play serious tennis for the long run, teach correct professional tennis technique from day one, and get it right by the age of 7.  That way they have all the years after that to build on their "accentless" technique, and playing high level tennis for them will be just like speaking their native language.

On Saturday we'll be headed out for a week in Paris, at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy there.

Cyan has been invited to train at the academy for a week, during which she will be evaluated for possible entry to the school starting in September of 2007.

http://www.mtateam.com/

Mouratoglou, best known for producing top ten tennis star Marcos Baghdatis, has recently started a special tennis school for young tennis talents - rising stars he calls them, which begins a focused tennis and school curriculum starting at a younger age (6 years old) than other famous programs such as Bollettieri in Florida (10 years old).  The program is considered controversial by some because of the younger age, but by others it is seen as groundbreaking because its success could redefine the way tennis talent is scouted and developed in coming years.

It is very exciting for all of us, because young talents from all over the world in Cyan's age group (6) will be together the entire week, which is just the kind of environment we have been struggling to find for Cyan since our family's tennis adventure began some years ago.  We are looking forward to see how Cyan's gets along with the other kids, and of course how her tennis game holds up in comparison to young talents from other parts of the world.

Check out the link above which explains all about the Mouratoglou tennis school program and their philosophy. For me the tennis school is like a page right out of my own vision.  I look forward to being there to see how much the reality of the school matches the vision presented.

Youngtennis.com is launched! Tennis players, tennis lovers, or those curious about the sport...you are all welcome here at Youngtennis.com. I am proud as co-founder of Youngtennis.com along with my wife Dafne to be able to offer some of my own talent back to a sport which has offered me so much enjoyment, wonder, and personal development over the course of my entire life and which continues to do so.  Youngtennis.com is meant to be something for all people involved in the game from the young players with center court wishes, and those just playing for fun, to the extensive and dedicated support network of parents, coaches, organizers, tennis fans, and everyone else intimately involved in the making of a wonderful sport.

I fall into the category of fanatic tennis Dad, and proud of it.  I started my daughter Cyan playing with a tennis ball from birth, and from the age of 2 with bouncing and catching the tennis ball.  Officially she's been hitting since 3 and at age 5 she was selected for the youth selection team of the Dutch National Tennis Association.  Seeing the pleasure and confidence Cyan gets from playing tennis as well as the personal and athletic growth she makes on a daily basis, is an amazing reward for me as a father.

Youngtennis.com is my gift to my daughter Cyan who is a 6-year old rising tennis star and the most wonderful 6-year old on earth.  I'm giving her everything I possibly can for her to be the best she can possibly be, because one of the most important lessons tennis has taught me is that when you give something your all and strive to be the best, no matter the result you are always the winner.

Youngtennis.com is for parents like me, who want to find out more about how you can best stimulate and support your own rising tennis stars and have answered or are answering the same questions I have asked and have yet to ask.  Come here to share how you are doing it, and see how others are doing it.  Youngtennis.com is for coaches who have knowledge and insight to share, and even more to gain by learning from others who are tackling the same challenges all over the world.  This is the place to learn and share your expertise.  We've made it extremely easy to upload and playback videos, an excellent way to see how people are doing it elsewhere, and compare and swap out techniques.  Youngtennis.com is for players because ultimately the sport of tennis is a journey, and here is a place where you can share your experiences along the way.  Start a blog, create a group for your tennis team, upload your match videos, pictures you've taken, anything and everything that relates your tennis experience is welcome here.

Dafne and myself very much hope that Youngtennis.com makes it easier for all you to get the information you need, let folks know about your tennis career, put you into contact with playing partners or people who can help you, or simply refill on inspiration.  Whatever it takes for you to be your best, we hope to help you find it here.  Enjoy the site!