To all parents of junior tennis players ages 10 and under,
As many of your know, this past March marked the one year anniversary of CCV’s full compliance with the
USTA’s “10 & Under” tennis initiative. The successes this program has brought to our Club are many, but I think the
largest one has to be the visible increase in confidence that our children as a whole are demonstrating.
In years past, when more “traditional” instructional methods were used here at CCV—our players (ages 7
through 10, in particular) would typically just take their weekly clinics, and that would be it. Now, just a little over one
year later, a majority of our junior players are not just participating in weekly instruction—but are playing in one of
CCV’s ten junior league teams, traveling around town to USTA tournaments, not to mention reserving their own courts
and playing with their peers! The independence that our junior tennis players are feeling from being able to organize
their own matches, call their own lines, and experience winning and losing, are all life skills that will serve them well as
they develop into young ladies and gentlemen.
Very briefly, for those of you that might not yet be familiar with our “10 & Under” tennis program, we now use
different tennis equipment for our various age groups. This includes not just racquet size, but the actual ball we use (red
ball for ages 5 through 8, orange ball for ages 9 and 10) as well as the size of the tennis court (36-foot court for red ball
and 60-foot court for orange ball). To be perfectly honest, tennis finally figured out what other sports in the United
States did years ago—that children cannot successfully use the same equipment that adults do. Six year-olds do not play
basketball with an adult size ball on a 10-foot rim, nor should they try to learn tennis on the full size court with a regular
(yellow) tennis ball.
All of this growth, however, cannot help but bring up new issues and topics for discussion. One great question I
get from parents all the time is, “when should my child ‘move up’ to the next level”? The easiest way to answer this
question is that the level of equipment your child is using (ball type, court size, racquet size) is not a progression based
on skill, but a progression based on age. If you are the parent of, for example, an 8 year-old that has been playing for a
couple of years already—it still benefits your child tremendously to practice, play, and compete with a red ball on a 36foot court. Not only will they experience more success this way, but their skills will just be that much more polished as
they prepare to “age up” when the time comes.
Parents, you can help us by not only explaining this procedure to your children, but practicing with them using
the right equipment. When a child has their tennis instruction and match play with, for example, a red tennis ball on a
36-foot court—and then practices with you with a yellow tennis ball on a 78-foot court, the mixed messages are very
confusing to them—and they often feel that they are “doing something wrong” by continuing to play with the correct
age-specific equipment.
As a final note, please remember that our pro shop has a limited number of demo racquets in each junior size,
so please do not plan on using Club demos as a primary source for junior lessons and matches. Our pro shop can advise
on correct racquet size, but USTA rules are 23-inch racquets for 8U division, 25-inch racquets for 10U division. Thank
you for your help with this and your support for junior tennis in general at CCV. As always, please let me know if you
have any questions, and I look forward to seeing you on the courts soon.
Sincerely,
Rob Oakes
Junior Tennis Coordinator