Broken Serve: The Valley’s Lack of Homegrown Tennis Talent
PHOENIX — The Valley’s struggle to produce professional tennis talent stems from many factors affecting the local tennis scene.
Maricopa County, the fourth-largest county in the United States by population, has struggled to produce homegrown tennis talent. With ideal weather year-round, tennis should be a hot spot for talented players to train. There are many factors that lead to the Valley struggling to have professional tennis players from Phoenix.
Tennis is played all around the Valley, with the ease of finding a public court available to use. There are some hubs for tennis with some USTA official facilities, such as the Phoenix Tennis Center. The Phoenix Tennis Center is one of the premier public tennis facilities with many resources available to players, such as various coaches and equipment.
Phoenix Tennis Center head professional Joe Ragland has played tennis at various levels and has been based in the Valley for a while.
The USTA is the official governing body of tennis in the United States and has a regional office in Phoenix, Ariz.
According to Ragland, the USTA has an office here in the valley with the focus to develop all levels of tennis and not just juniors.
“They do have a lot of junior tournaments, but their junior tournaments are more targeted for intermediate and advanced players,” Ragland said. “ Not the advanced players that are going to take you to a professional career.”
The lack of advanced tournaments and academies in the valley creates a limit to where a player can compete at the highest level for their age group. This then forces the player to go out and travel across the country in order to play higher-level tournaments.
In order to make the sport more appealing and competitive in the valley, there needs to be an initiative from an organization or group of well-experienced people in the tennis industry.
Ragland said the valley needs to have a consistent year-round academy focusing on developing highly skilled players, instead of having camps once in a while, focusing on the talented players in the valley.
The Valley has plenty of hard courts to play on with many being available to the public. Additionally, there's a sufficient amount of courts with lights allowing for night tennis with cooler temperatures.
On the other hand, there is a limited amount of non-hard court tennis facilities, which reduces the ability for players to train on various surfaces.
Although there are a limited number of other surfaces to play on, Arizona Biltmore is home to one of the clay tennis facilities.
Head professional at the Arizona Biltmore, Brendan Easterling, said many tennis players around the Valley don’t get enough practice on other surfaces like clay.
Practicing on different surfaces allows players to understand how to work with the surface and not against it. Being proficient in various surfaces allows players to be successful on multiple surfaces.
The Valley would benefit from more clay courts, especially with the lack of rain throughout the year. With the lack of rain in the Valley, clay courts are easier to manage without having to worry about the closure of facilities due to rain.
This surrounding area also lacks another important resource for a successful pipeline to professional tennis. The absence of advanced academies in the area contributes to the scarcity of professional players from the Phoenix area.
Retention within the sport of tennis varies between regions, with some having lower retention numbers compared to others.
According to the USTA, player retention among returning and first-time players has increased in their Southwest region (Arizona, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas). The retention rate for the region is 86%, the second-highest region retention rate for the USTA.
Although the retention rate is on the rise for the region, it still doesn’t point towards a rise in professionals from the Phoenix area. Some tennis coaches in the Valley, like West Valley Tennis head professional Michail Pervolarakis, attribute many different factors to the major difference seen in the amount of homegrown talent in the Valley compared to tennis hot spots like Florida or California.
“It could be a mentality thing, or it could be a financial thing, because parents need to invest a lot of money in their kids, in order for them to have proper training, and all of those resources that are needed,” Pervolarakis said. “ It’s also the combination of finances with the lack of academies and coaches that work with high-performance juniors.”
After interviewing and getting to know the tennis scene in the Phoenix area, I have to say there are many factors that impact the lack of professional tennis players from Phoenix, Ariz. The tennis scene seems to be trending upwards in the Valley, with the sport garnering more interest from locals.
The improvements in showcasing tennis talent in the Valley with the ATP tournaments, like the Arizona Tennis Classic. Having local professional tournaments allows for the sport to get more attention with local, especially junior players.
