Tennis Development in OZ
I have been involved with some juniors in tennis since the late 80’s. Obviously in Australia we have fallen back since many countries have jumped on the tennis bandwagon since money came into the sport. One issue that keeps coming up is the lack of comprehensive conditioning these kids in OZ get and the one sided development they get from tennis coaching. They often are so weak and sloppy. Fit yes but no conditioning. Often a bit of speed ladder work and a few kms and the odd push up is added. Often some kids miss the multilateral devleopment needs required for fitness because they specialize early. Some should be playing football and netball and swimming whilst developing their tennis skills. The double whammy that occurs is that coaching does not address specific fitness devleopment needs but moreso that it takes a long time to get to elite status unless one is a real superstar or child prodigy. So parents pouring money into kids at 12 might have to wait till they reach 23 before they crack the top 800 in the world. Rankings for men average 25 at any one time and 24 for females at others. There is a bit of change from year to year but I found that on average 22 year old females break into the top 100 each year and 27 year old girls fall out. Is that the crucial window? Can people wait that long and does tennis have systems to keep players bubbling till they are 21. Again I am not talking about superstars here. They play early and retire late. They are the exception. Rather I am referring to players like Molik who pushed their way into the top at the ages described. All just theories and interesting but food for thought. I have added some stats in this word doc. below and again they are there to show trends and may have small errors because I am not a statistician.
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loris bertolacci 
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