As a director of tennis at clubs and programs for more than 20 years, I’ve seen all the sides of tournament play … as a player, coach, tournament director and USTA official. Unfortunately, the number of players participating in tournaments these days is lower than in year’s past. Part of the issue is players…
When Shawn Mitchell Yon was in the first grade at P.S. 295, he was introduced to the game of tennis through a program run at Roy Wilkins Park in Queens. “I was one of the few kids selected to try out for the program,” he recalls. “The school transported us to the site and…
The local tennis community boasts some of the top coaches in the world, and with this wealth of talent available, New York Tennis Magazine took the opportunity to pick the brains of some of these coaches. These instructors share their thoughts on a variety of tennis topics and issues, ranging from junior tennis to…
Earlier this summer, SPORTIME Amagansett hosted the fifth annual Johnny Mac Tennis Project (JMTP) Pro-Am. The tournament brings together 128 players, including many former professional tennis players, for a day of fun and competitive tennis, with the goal of raising money for the JMTP. “It’s just a ton of fun for a good cause,”…
To excel in sports, considerable attention is paid to factors such as coaching, nutrition and fitness, but there is one area that often gets overlooked: VISION. Studies have shown that elite athletes have superior vision: they see better, wide peripherals, better depth perception, and better eye/hand coordination. In short, better vision means better performance….
There is a dirty little secret in the cloistered world of competitive junior tennis: Cheating and gamesmanship are rampant—and nobody is doing anything about it. For many children and parents, the first exposure to the junior tennis circuit can be a shock because junior tennis is one of the few sanctioned sports that has…
Since its inception more than two years ago, the USTA’s Net Generation initiative has made its mission to get more kids playing tennis, and has attempted to reach this goal through fun and unique events throughout the year. A major aspect of this initiative takes place at the end of the summer during the US Open,…
As it pertains to running a good clean group lesson—with juniors in particular—being organized with your time allocation is extremely important. Let’s be honest: If you allow them, kids can and will completely derail your lesson plan within the first minutes of the class. We have all likely received crazy requests from our students…
When he was around seven-years-old, Julian Joaquin Vasquez can remember his aunt giving him an old tennis racket and he begin hitting balls against a wall. “I hit for about an hour, and then when we were supposed to leave, I didn’t want to at all,” recalls Vasquez. “This made my parents realize they…
Everyone knows that one player who is able to elevate themselves out of the level or category they “should” be playing at from a technical perspective, i.e. stroke mechanics into an entirely different level, but not many seem to understand why or how? I will be discussing the intangible element of sport, most specifically,…