An integral part of our tennis coaching programme is helping children progress from taking lessons to playing matches and competitions.

It is common place in football and other team sports for almost every child who trains to be regularly involved in matches and competition from the outset, so why not tennis?

We aim to make tennis competition the norm, not the exception. This is perhaps a greater challenge in an individual sport, where success or failure is seen as resting entirely on young shoulders.

Finding the right competition

The traditional view of a tennis tournaments is often of a knockout competition where the player is at the mercy of the luck of the draw and if this goes against them it will be a short, potentially miserable experience, with the danger of disillusionment.

Tournaments are now more accessible than ever. Our tournaments and the majority of LTA Youth Matchplays (especially in the younger age groups) revolve around round-robin competition with children being given multiple matches and each player, whether the winner or not, is celebrated and provided with a certificate and prizes.

We want every child to have a variety of opponents and get the opportunity to learn and adapt against multiple opponents within the same tournament. Team competitions are also a great way of sharing the individual burden and our team competitions will start shortly.

In most cases, the greater the player’s competitive experience, the better their results are likely to be, but, so long as the player feels supported and encouraged whilst taking part they will learn more from competition than any lesson. Further, it is the playing of the matches and the reflection on those matches (by player, parent and coach) that should form the basis of future lessons and practice. Ultimately, tennis coaching is (or in my view should be) teaching the full game of tennis, not simply isolated forehands or backhands. In order to learn the game, the player must play the game.

Few other sports expose players to so many highs and lows within a single match as tennis. Through tennis matches, players develop not only numerous tennis skills but also essential mental skills including resilience, perseverance, problem solving and decision making.

In our most recent tournament, our youngest competitor was 5 and playing in his first competition. Whilst a challenge, the achievement of each point won was celebrated and I have no doubt he will have greater success in his next competition due to having played in his first.

The same has been true of team competition in my experience, the sooner tennis teams enter competitions, the sooner they will are likely to be successful.

Ultimately, if a child can serve (ideally overarm) but failing this, use an underarm to start the point, hit a forehand and backhand over and in, he / she has the skills to start competition.

A child is not a Christmas Turkey and I do not believe there is a specific time when he or she is ‘ready’. Through playing the game (and competitions) the child accelerates their learning and therefore I encourage children to enter competitions as soon as possible.

Up-Levelling Competition

As children develop, not only do we want them to compete we also encourage them to challenge the level of competition they play at.

Our internal tournaments are a great starting point but we also encourage children to play in LTA graded competitions. The entry point for these events is Grade 6 and again the format is typically round-robin.

The Yorkshire County Championships is also a competition that we encourage children to enter. The format in the younger age groups is again typically round-robin and gives children a broad range of opponents from some of the best young players in Yorkshire to those new to tennis competition all within the same event.

At the time of writing, our next competition weekend is on 2nd March, with the age range from 6 & Under to 16 & Under is on Saturday 2nd March.

Please email optimaltennisleeds@gmail.com or call John on 07896636173 if you would like to discuss your child entering any of our competitions.