By: Steve Smith
Tennissmith – Tennis Intelligence Applied

Quick answer: Yes, way up.

Long answer: Beware of playing up, it usually is a major mistake.

Juniors do not, for the most part, play seniors anymore.  Here was the scenario in the 70′s.  Kid, age 12, shows up at the courts and has to wait for a game.  Hits the backboard and then the ‘Mushroom’ who has a court, asks him to play.  The ‘Mushroom’ gets his name from the big bucket hat he wears.  He also has a band on his elbow and a potbelly.  The ‘Mushroom’ is as slow as dirt and cannot break a pane of glass with one shot.  Even though the junior has the ultimate shoulder bag with all the latest gear and is dressed to the nines, the ‘Mushroom’ beats the kid.  Kid has no chance and the old guy is going on 60+ with his age and 60- with the mph on his serve.

Shepherd Mead wrote a book, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  He also wrote a book, How to Succeed in Tennis Without Really Trying.  In his tennis book he, of course, covered strategy.  To summarize, he stated that there are two types of players: Stretchers and Spoilers.  The veteran club player does not play offensive tennis.  He has, what is mistaken as, a bag of tricks.  But his tactic is to keep the ball deep and when he has the chance, to bring the kid in.  The kid at the net is like a fish out of water.  So, if the kid does not self destruct with his Hawaiian forehand grip off the old guy’s low bouncing balls in the rally, he or she is certain to dump the volley, that they attempt as often as they tell their parents that they really do not need a cell phone.  Kids try to stretch their skill level, get ahead of themselves, and play ‘up’ like they do on TV.  The experienced player knows Brad Gilbert’s book without having read it, he spoils the often bratty kid with shots he does not like.

The junior-veteran match is playing up.  Have your kid make a call, preferably on a landline, and ask a senior to play.  It will turn into a life skill for your kid to converse with an adult.  It will also be a great, inexpensive tennis lesson.  Plus humble pie is the best food for their game.

Ivan Lendl, a former number one, when asked about playing up said that if each week, each player played an inferior player, that our game would be much healthier.  Just imagine how much tennis would be played.

Young girls have it the worst.  Older juniors do not want to play younger juniors and lose.  Boys do not want to play girls and lose either.

Even with the adults, tennis cliques exist big time.  In the U.S. the NTRP should be dropped.  God bless Eve Kraft.  She did so much for tennis.   But her 7.0 system that was almost doubled into 14 categories, has made for very small draws.  Bring back the A and B draws.  Bring back the club ladders.  Bring back letting juniors play adults.  By the way, it was not all Eve’s fault.  So, many pros who kill their students with kindness, telling them what they want to hear because they want their students to sign up for another lesson, rated an entire nation of 2.5 players as 3.5 players.  Let’s have large draws and let’s play matches that do not always require an out of town tab.

There is no accelerated process.  Everybody has four clocks: your chronological clock, your psychological clock, your physiological clock and your tennis clock.  You cannot microwave tennis.  Billie Jean King, another number one, is right on.  Tennis development is delayed gratification.  Instant gratification does not exist.  Years ago BJK wanted boys and girls to play together until at least the 12′s.  She has been right on so many issues.

Tiger Woods in golf was not on an accelerated clock.  At nineteen, he had seventeen years of intense athletic and competitive training.  Nadal followed the same formula.  The 10,000 hour rule is the 10,000 hour rule.  There are no short cuts.  Tennis development is not a Disney sports movie.  It is not 90 minutes.  It is 90 million balls.

Pete Sampras won the US Open at 19.  He also grew up watching his parents struggle as immigrants making it in a new country.  He went daily to the Jack Kramer Tennis Club.  The late Jeanne Austin ran the pro shop.  She set up matches for the kid’s at the club and one was her daughter, Tracy, who became number one.

It kills me when I hear parents say Pete played up.  Think of his tennis clock.  There are so many other factors that parents do not understand when they have their kid play up.  Pete could not beat his older sister, Stella, for the longest time.  Playing at the Kramer Club in the 70′s and 80′s with a group of juniors that started with Vic Braden, and finished with Robert Landsdorp, was a plus.  Plus kids back then basically took privates, hit the wall and played pick-up, arranged matches.

Pros make more money teaching groups and therefore kids get ‘programmed’ out.  Juniors are always drilling and not playing, not playing period, let alone playing up.

In regard to tournament tennis, a kid should not play up until they are dominating.  Jimmy Connors’s answer to your question; always play your age group.  And if you are winning, always play your age group.  But add different tactics to your game.  Can you beat a player by serving and volleying?  Can you play an approach off the second serve and come in?  Jimmy’s birth year, 1952, arguably is the best age group ever in American tennis.  Connors, Tanner, Stockton, Gottfried, Solomon, and Dibbs all became top ten in the world.

If your kid plays up, they most likely will stay back and play one-dimensional tennis.  Physically they cannot do anything but scramble.  Their only offense will be to counter-attack.  Actually, in my opinion, it should not be the decision of the player and parent to play up.  It should be an organization’s decision.  You have to prove yourself at one level before you sign up on your own accord for another.

A Connor-ism that is a point of principle.  Play where the pressure is.  There is no pressure in always playing up.  There was no love lost between Connors and Lendl.  One thing that they shared with each other is that they were almost fourteen before they could enjoy a win over their Mom.  The Bryan Brothers are from the same club on that one.  The macho male ego is challenged when you lose to your Mom.  As Gloria Connors said to Jimmy, “If I can hit the ball down your throat, I will, and I’m your Mom.”  Playing up does not always making you tough.

Tennis, especially now, does not have the numbers.  Numbers are healthy.  Look at basketball. Not too many freshmen, ever, play varsity.  It is rare for a sophomore to skip JV’s.  I suffer every time a freshman tells me they are number one on their high school team.  Too many kids do not play high school tennis.  They skip out because they are supposedly too good.  But an interesting stat is that only three percent of high school players in America, play college tennis.

Unfortunately, there is so much playing up now that one has to join in.  But only join in a little bit.  Play anybody and everybody.  Have your kid make calls.  Play the ‘Mushroom’.  Play the lesser player, the player with skills inferior to yours.  The favor will be returned and you will get challenges.

Remember your game will get you ranking points but your ranking points will not get you game.  The turtle wins the race.  The rabbit goes in circles.  Inch by inch it is a cinch.  Grow like a flower and not a weed.  Do not rush the process.  What is the rush?  Most tennis juniors are going nowhere fast.  Playing up rushes the ego and not the process.  It is where you finish not where you start.  It always amazes me when kids have not won, at all, anything in their own age group. Yet they play up.

In a phrase, for most, playing up is messed up.