Jose Higueras Calls Out USTA For Cutting Player Development Budget; His Email, My Perspective

Two weeks ago, renowned coach Jose Higueras, a former USTA Player Development employee and consultant, sent out an email highly critical the current USTA CEO and board as it relates to Player Development. I have had several conversations with Higueras about these issues in the past several years, including one in late February, and he had promised he would be writing down his thoughts and distributing them, so I was not surprised to see the email, nor was I surprised at most of its contents. Here it is in its entirety, my comments follow below.

Dear Members of the American Tennis Family,

I hope this message finds you well. My name is Jose Higueras, and I am writing to you with a deep sense of urgency and concern about the current state of American Tennis, particularly regarding the decisions being made by the USTA Board and CEO leadership.

Allow me to introduce myself briefly. I hail from Barcelona, Spain, and I have dedicated my life to tennis. Despite humble beginnings, the support and sacrifice of my family and community allowed me to pursue my passion for the sport. Over the years, I've had the privilege of not only playing professionally but also coaching and contributing to the development of tennis players, both in the United States and internationally.

As a proud American citizen, I am deeply invested in the success of American Tennis. However, recent decisions made by the USTA leadership have left me gravely concerned. Despite transformational progress from 2009-2019, thanks to strategic continuity with the USTA Boards and the same CEO during that time period we were able to execute a three-way partnership with USTA Sections and the Private Sector, that was led by Player Development that resulted in the best professional results that the U.S. has seen since the mid-90’S. The current leadership has veered off course, deliberately cutting funding and staffing for the Team USA pathway and American players, while they waste millions of dollars on boondoggles like unnecessary building renovations at the USTA Campus in Lake Nona and a million dollar holiday party. 

COACHING AMERICAN CHAMPIONS

I was an Independent Contractor Master Coach for the USTA, at various times between 1988 and 2000, working with many players, including Pete Sampras, Michael Chang (1989 – Roland Garros Champion), Jim Courier (2 x Roland Garros Champion / 2 x Australian Open Champion), Todd Martin and Robby Ginepri and many, many others.

2008-2019 EVOLUTION OF PLAYER DEVELOPMENT

In 2008 when I joined USTA Player Development full-time many countries had already been funding player development structures for over ten years, and American tennis was falling behind the rest of the world. In 2008 the Board decided to increase funding and staffing for Player Development and in 2008 the General Manager of Player Development for the USTA, Patrick McEnroe, hired me. I was in my second year of coaching Roger Federer, when I accepted the role. It was a difficult decision, not because of the job, which I knew would be challenging and rewarding at the same time, but because I had seen the USTA change directions many times over the preceding twenty years, and I knew that without fifteen years of strategic continuity we could not finish the job.

It’s important that tennis enthusiasts throughout the U.S. understand that Player Development is not just for a small number of juniors and pros. The USTA’s Player Development function provides an invaluable service for the entire American Tennis community. 

The great juniors and young pros that have filled the pipeline for the last six years, are a result of Player Development’s focus on designing and consistently working with thousands of junior players, coaches and parents through a systematic structure (camps, programming and education), and 3-way Partnership (PD/Sections/Private Sector) that was our Team USA Junior Pathway from 2009 to the end of 2019. The impact of the service is to raise the standards for coaching education, parent education and player training; to create standards of excellence in all of those areas, to maximize the talent and ability of everyone in the ecosystem. 

The service that Player Development provides is the development of thousands of juniors, collegians and pros, and their coaches, at every level, who serve as an inspiration for the kids and families in their towns, cities and Sections. 

Here are the areas in which Player Development establishes standards, best practices and great resources for the entire American Tennis community:

·  Tennis teaching, training and coaching that is developmentally appropriate (age and stage) 

·   Strength & Conditioning

·   Mental Skills

·   Performance Analytics

·   Athletic Training / Physio support

·   Parent Education

·   Character Development

·   Coaching Education

To our American professional players: 

The USTA Board and Senior Staff Leadership do not believe that your success and your achievements grow the game in the U.S. even though every other Federation in the world, believes the opposite. 

As a result of the last four years of Board and CEO decisions, the depressing truth is that the next generation of Gauffs, Stephens, Keys, Kenins, Bradys, Fritzs, Tiafoes, Pauls, Opelkas and Sheltons (and many others), will receive very little coaching, programming or grant support from the USTA, and at a time when junior development is becoming more expensive every day, most of them (their families) won’t have enough support to fulfill their potential or make it to the pro ranks. The same thing goes for our top American players who aspire to play high level college tennis, there will be almost no support for them.

In the years from 2009 – 2019, PD was impacting and directly supporting over average 1500 players a year, 1500 parents a year and 1500 coaches per year, for a total of 4500 x 11 years. Approximately 49,500 individuals directly impacted by USTA Player Development! This doesn’t take into account online resources, webinars etc, which are available to the entire American Tennis community.  

The terrible decision-making began in 2020, with a restructure that targeted PD, taking over 30% of our budget and staff. Next came PD merging with Community Tennis, blending two groups which support each other, but have very different goals. 

Then for four straight years (2020-23), Brian Vahaly and Vania King were  destructive voices on the Board, disrespecting our team and leading the charge to cut the PD budget almost every year. Vahaly has gone out of his way to hurt PD and disrespect our team and coaches, despite being completely ignorant of what we do. Usually, the elite athlete representatives on the Board are our strongest allies and supporters, advocating for Player Development and American players. During my last two years (2020-21) none of the elite athletes on the Board ever reached out to congratulate our team on anything.

Every step of the way over the last four years (2020-2023), the last two CEO’s and Boards chose to do the opposite of what PD Leadership advised them to do. If the decisions of the past four years are not reversed soon, in ten years, American Tennis will be irrelevant on the world stage. Most importantly a reinstatement of the $2.5M budget cut (for programming, staffing and grants), and a return to the strategies of 2009-2019 are needed immediately.

The five elements that drove our success were:

1.  A comprehensive camp structure administered through a three-way partnership with the Sections and Private Sector, and based on our USTA Teaching & Coaching Philosophy.

CEO / Board decision: THEY CUT FUNDING FOR CAMPS AND ELIMINATED THE FOUR STAFF POSITIONS IN THE PLAYER ID DEPARTMENT THAT RUN THE CAMP PROGRAM

2.   National Coaches to manage and support our juniors and our pros. In a country the size of the U.S. the minimum number of National Coaches needed to be able to service the top competitive juniors, collegians and rookie pros players is at a minimum 17 National Coaches 

CEO / Board decision: THE BOARD CUT NATIONAL COACH STAFFING TO THIRTEEN COACHES

3.   Grant support. As tennis training gets more and more expensive, we need to be able to give grants to players, especially between the ages of 14-20 when the costs are skyrocketing.

For the average family of a committed junior player, ages 11-15 it costs between $1K and $2K a month for basic tennis training (group and private), not factoring in tournament travel costs (hotel and flights). Almost all of the recent cuts have come out of the Junior space. It’s a disgrace.

CEO / Board decision: THE BOARD CUT OUR GRANT BUDGET

4.   High Performance Coaching Education. The Board and CEO talk a lot about the importance of Coaching Education. For eleven years in a row we were supporting, educating, training and mentoring 1500 coaches a year.

CEO / Board decision: THE BOARD / CEO CUT TWO HEADCOUNT FROM OUR COACHING ED DEPARTMENT 

5.    Lastly, this CEO talks a lot about fiscal responsibility, strategic priorities and a grassroots focus being the cause of the cuts to PD, yet the organization wasted more than $3M (my low estimate) on boondoggles last year: two building renovations on the Orlando Campus in 2023, a million dollar+ Holiday Party and a steady stream of new hires, the majority of whom have no tennis background or knowledge.

IN THE YEAR THAT THE BOARD / CEO DECIDED TO MAKE THE PD BUDGET CUTS, THE USTA BROUGHT IN MORE THAN $250M IN UNPLANNED CASH (on top of $300M from the US Open) FROM THE SALE OF CINCINNATI AND THE GREAT FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF US OPEN 

Less important, but also disappointing is the way I was treated after dedicating fourteen years of my life to this project, in service to American Tennis.  In my last three years associated with the USTA (2020-22), I never received a word, text or email of support or thank you from our CEO / Board leadership and when my contractual association with the USTA ended at the end of 2022, I did not receive one word, text or email of thanks or gratitude from the CEO / Board Leadership. Thankfully I worked for the players, for the coaching community and for my amazing colleagues in Player Development but the lack of acknowledgement and gratitude for my service and for the work of our PD team reflects a disturbing lack of respect and leadership.

 The result is that as I write this letter, we have missed four years’ (2020 – 2023) worth of a ‘once in a generation’ opportunity to build on our success even more and take our place at the top of the international game, at every level. Recently as some of these facts have come to light the USTA has also tried to silence the media. 

Here is one stat that sums up the transformation of our junior player pathway: 

From 1995-mid-2008 Team USA had two Junior Grand Slam Singles Champions 

From mid-2008 to 2023 Team USA had twenty-two Junior Grand Slam Champions! This is why we have so many good pros today.

THAT IS AN 11X INCREASE IN JUNIOR GRAND SLAM WINNERS! 

Since 2008, I have been actively involved in USTA Player Development, witnessing firsthand the positive impact it has had on thousands of players, coaches, and parents across the nation. Through comprehensive programs, camps, and educational initiatives, we have nurtured talent, raised standards, and inspired a new generation of players.

However, over the past four years, I have watched with dismay from the outside as the USTA Board and CEO leadership have made decisions that directly undermine the progress we've worked so hard to achieve. Budget cuts, staff reductions, and a lack of strategic vision have jeopardized the future of American Tennis.

Despite overwhelming evidence of the success of our programs, the current leadership has chosen to ignore our advice and dismiss the importance of investing in Player Development. This shortsighted approach not only threatens the development of future champions but also jeopardizes the accessibility of tennis for all aspiring players, regardless of background or financial means.

It pains me to know that future generations with the talent of Gauff, Stephens, Keys, Kenin, Fritz, Tiafoe, Paul, Shelton and many more will have little or no support, due to lack of support and resources. American Tennis has seen a remarkable transformation in recent years, evidenced by the unprecedented success of our players on the international stage with more players in the Top 100, Top 50 and Top 20 (and Top 10 on the women's side) than any other country. Yet, this progress is at risk of being undone by misguided leadership decisions.

I urge you, members of the American Tennis community, to join me in demanding accountability from the USTA leadership. We cannot afford to stand idly by while the future of our sport hangs in the balance. Together, we must advocate for the reinstatement of funding, the restoration of proven strategies, and a renewed commitment to the development of American Tennis talent.

In closing, I want to emphasize that my intentions in writing this letter are driven solely by my love for the sport and my desire to see it thrive in the United States. I’m happily retired and enjoying all of the things that I love, especially my family and I have no personal agenda other than ensuring that future generations of American tennis players have the same opportunities to maximize their potential and pursue their dreams that we were able to provide from 2009 to 2019. The cost of junior training is getting higher every day, while the USTA wastes money and allows toxic Board members and an uninformed CEO to drive decisions that will make American Tennis irrelevant on the global stage and ensure that the percentage of American players getting college scholarships will continue to decline.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, and I hope you will join me in this crucial endeavor to safeguard the future of American Tennis and reverse these terrible decisions.

Sincerely,

Jose Higueras

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I have covered junior tennis for close to 20 years now, and have always paid close attention to USTA Player Development. I do not have access to the information that someone like Higueras would have and am, in my role as a tennis journalist, an outsider, who has a different perspective from the majority of people who have regular contact with Player Development, such as private coaches, junior players and their families, tournament directors. Whether that adds to my credibility or detracts from it, I can't say, but I have had many private conversations with those constituencies over the past two decades, and the substance of them has changed in those years.

From 2005-2010 I heard comments from private coaches that the USTA was "stealing" their players and that the USTA was only interested in helping those who were identified from an early age as top prospects, while ignoring late bloomers. The USTA provided little support for or acknowledgement of college tennis as a viable developmental pathway, and there was a perception that USTA PD wasn't listening to private coaches or juniors and their families, especially those outside of Boca Raton Florida, where the USTA operated its national training center.

That began to change when Patrick McEnroe took over Player Development, and when Dave Haggerty ascended to the position of USTA Chairman of the Board and President. (The USTA structure, which elects a new Chairman and President every two years, has always been a problem in the continuity of any initiative, but PD did convince subsequent Chairmen to continue the Team USA concept). The realization that many junior players thrive at home with their private coaches began to gain traction, and once Martin Blackman took over for McEnroe as General Manager of Player Development in 2015 and the USTA National Campus was opened, the plan to incorporate more players and coaches into the structure began to coalesce.

Talent identification, with frequent regional camps, helped pinpoint players who would benefit from training blocks in Lake Nona; national coaches would provide me with information on a player who I spotted at the Eddie Herr or Junior Orange Bowl that I did not know; that had not always been the case in previous years.  It wasn't only players who were invited to Lake Nona, but private coaches and parents as well, and lines of communication were open that previously had not been.

I'm sure there were players overlooked or not financially supported; while that is unfortunate, it's inevitable in a country as big as this one. But I do think there was, and is, a comprehensive effort to cast as wide a net as possible, and much less of the "we know better" attitude that anointed a few young players as worthy of the bulk of the USTA's attention and funds.

Andy Roddick and Jon Wertheim's new podcast Served (Higueras email segment is 42 minutes in) is the only place I've encountered a discussion of the Higueras email, other than this overview from The Athletic, and Roddick approaches it from his perspective and experience with the USTA as a junior.

Although he seems most upset about not receiving the email when Higueras first sent it, Roddick raises good points in discussing it and acknowledges that it's a complicated issue that he doesn't have a simple solution. He and his producer broach the financial side of it, which is why this finally has come to a head. Years of budgets cuts, the last two after wildly successful US Open Championships, don't make any sense at all, unless you believe Player Development has little reason to exist. 

Wertheim appears to favor this view, and it's fair to wonder if just attracting more young players to the sport and running tournaments for them is all the USTA needs to do. (Roddick appears to believe that Player Development as a concept is important). As someone who sees regularly all that national coaches and the head of men's and women's tennis do, I don't believe that Player Development is expendable.

USTA PD is now down to 13 coaches, six for men, six for women and one that splits his time between both, and that means each one is doing more traveling to tournaments, trying to watch more players and discuss their matches with them, talking with more parents and private coaches, working longer hours, doing as much as before with less money and manpower. 

There is a huge store of institutional and professional wisdom among the Player Development staff, including mistakes made and learned from, that is being taken for granted by those who don't see or know all that they do. That is in danger of being lost as the pressure to do what they know can be done isn't being done due to the financial challenges they face. As Higueras's email indicates, the breaking point is approaching.

I am always going to side with those who are out doing the work, not those making decisions in boardrooms, and although I don't have a firm grasp on the USTA's financial situation, I'm skeptical that the USTA has a better use for the money cut from the Player Development budget than coaches, grants and camps. I understood the need for cuts after Covid, to continue them now seems unnecessary and short-sighted.

Roddick closes the segment of the podcast about Higueras's email with these thoughts.

"I don't think [USTA] investment in the game has been lacking, I really don't, let's not take a s**t shower and call it a day. I think there is nuance to this conversation, specifically, what is the best avenue to make as many good players as possible. Do we go wide? Do we go deep? For a while it was 'we're going to be stock traders and predict our best four', and frankly, they f***ing missed a lot, a lot. So maybe that's not the best avenue, maybe it's a volume play, I don't know. 

"But I like this conversation, because hopefully it gets to what the next version is of Player Development. I applaud Jose Higueras because most of these conversations take place in secrecy or person-to-person, emails. Him saying it out loud, even if I disagree with a lot of parts of it.......he just did it. Even if we don't agree on everything, I agree on intent, I agree on passion, I agree on all of us wanting as many great American players forever and a day. Do I agree with the way they've gone about it always? No....but I like that everyone is saying the quiet parts out loud. I like that, I like transparency...and transparency shortens the runway to an answer and to a solution."

I'd love to hear any thoughts from readers (Colin posted a good comment in yesterday's post about the challenges faced by junior tennis players outside Florida and California), whether they have experience interacting with Player Development or not. I know there's a lot I don't know and I'd be interested in other perspectives. You may use any name you wish to post your comment, just do not use the anonymous option, as it makes a dialog impossible.