Development Paths
The week before any Grand Slam, there's always a lot of discussion about what's the best way to assist talent development, and it often focuses on the country where the Slam is taking place. And while a couple of stories from South Florida newspapers don't amount to a tenth of the articles about the subject that surfaced in London papers last month, they do raise some interesting points. The Sun-Sentinel's Charlie Bricker (you'll be seeing many a link to his stories in the next two weeks) talked with John Roddick and Scott McCain about whether college is a viable option in this article entitled Levine will provide test case.
The Palm Beach Post's Charles Elmore looks at the philosophy driving the USTA's new training center at IMG/Evert's in Boca Raton. He makes some of the same points that Peter Bodo made in his post on John Isner, namely that winning in college builds confidence, a vital ingredient for success on the professional level.
Bricker seems surprised to learn that the High Performance Department of the USTA reports to the USTA Board of Directors, which, of course, makes it subject to the politics of a biennial change of leadership. Current USTA Chairperson and President Jane Brown Grimes vows to look at that, but I'm assuming there will be no decisions on that until a new USTA chief executive is named.
8 comments:
does anyone know who was invited to the USTA academy at Evert?
Didn't Phillip King regret going to Duke?
Does anyone know when the US Open Juniors Qualifier tournament draw will be posted?
Huge wins for Donald and Isner today. Congrats to them both! I hope Young/Gasquet is on Weds night in prime time. Levine is not showing much this summer. Obviously a tough draw, but this is about the fourth straight time that he runs out of gas at the end, either getting blown out in the final set (or today, last two sets) or defaulting. Wonder if he's not in full health.
I just saw Isner play for the first time today at the Open, and I was very impressed ! He is a huge talent !
He's got it all .
I hope he does well ! I can't wait for the next round .
Oh, and not to mention he's got a college degree, which is even more impressive . Way to go !
Hard not to root for Isner and all he's done for college tennis. But, for the record, he is a few classes shy of his degree.
Did Isner really graduate? Normally at these big state schools they take 5.5 or 6 yrs to finish. Can't believe he did it in 4. Any confirmation on this?
I saw the matches today. Isner has talent and has a big game. He can do some damage and is always dangerous on the fastcourts. He need to improve his backhand and his volleys. Levine is a grinder who had trouble maintaining depth on his groundies. Approaches were short and he definitely needs to improve his serve. He's got alot of work to do.
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