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USTA Standouts page is now updated!

2/29/2016

I've made mention of this in a prior post, but I finally have the photo formatted to be displayed for Kayla. Three years ago I started recognizing players who make reach the following milestones:

Top 15 in West Michigan in your age division, or
Top 150 in the Midwest in your age division.

Recently, Kayla's ranking rose into the top 15 of the Girls 14 division. She joins Nick Schnobel, Mark VanderStoep, and Chloe Karp as the 4th player to accomplish this since we've started tracking. Recently she has moved up to the girls 16's division, where she will work on building a ranking in this more difficult age division. Congratulations Kayla and good luck. CLICK HERE to view the updated page.

Also, a special shout out to Ryan Lancaster for helping format the photo below, and a shout out to his wrestling team, which just finished a very strong season in his first year as coach. Ryan, you are doing a solid job with the boys.

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Fun post because it's a snow day and I have some time:)

2/25/2016

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Because there are many talented players here at West Ottawa, winter time is often a time when I get calls from college coaches wanting to learn out about some of our players. It's a part of the job I thoroughly enjoy. Last year we had a solid class on both the men's and women's side, so I received calls about several of our players. As you may imagine, I got a more than a few regarding Nick Schnobel. Most college coaches, I should point out, are very professional, talented, and positive people. An example of one of these terrific coaches would be a guy like Adam Ford of Hope. Adam runs a first rate program, and fortunately, there are others like Adam out there. I love it when our players head their way.

One college coach, however, said something that really got under my skin last winter. This is what he said: "So, I understand that Nick has WMU as his favorite right now. Will you help him realize that he'll never be able to start for Western. If he comes to (insert his school here) he could actually see the court in a match at some point in his college career?" Wow, it was nice talking to you too coach...great recruiting pitch...not!!!!

I was just checking out the Western website now. I would like to point out that Nick not only made the team, but is often a starter...as a freshman. So I thought, hmm, is this just because Western is down this year? Did a little digging, and nope, they are currently 8-3 in duel play. So I thought, well maybe they only played bad teams? Hmmm, nope, last I checked Notre Dame and Iowa are pretty big names. And they beat Purdue recently...so, a MAC school beating a B1G Ten School, that's probably pretty good, right?

As of this post, Nick has 19 starts and a winning record.

What should a talented high school tennis player take from this:

If you are a talented tennis player looking to play in college, then really take some time to learn about who the coaches are. Remember, you're not really playing for a school, you are playing for and with people. And the people are what make or break the experience. Today I saw Adam Ford working with several of his men and women at Dewitt. For the first hour, he was totally dedicated to giving an awesome one-on-one hitting lesson with one of the men. As I was leaving, he was facilitating what appeared to be a player lead and research based session on character development. Wow, that's a great coach. I imagine that Western's coach is having a similar positive influence on Nick right now. These people are out there, and they are the kind of people you want to seek out in college and in your career someday.
If several smart people are telling you that you should or shouldn't do something...you ought to sit down and really consider what they have to say. However, if you run against a negative person saying you can't do something, just smile, wish them well, and then continue to be awesome.

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How The USTA System Works - A Case Study

2/9/2016

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Participation by West Ottawa players in USTA events is likely the highest of any school in West Michigan, with over 20 players competing. Because of this, I'm starting to get recurring questions from players and parents. Questions like "how does the USTA decide which players to give seeds to in tournaments? ...and... How do I earn points and raise my USTA ranking?"

These are valid questions, and definitely worth understanding. In this post, we will examine more closely how the USTA system works. Because it is usually easier to learn though examples, we will use Kayla Lebster as a case study. Kayla is a talented, hard working player who is beginning to experience USTA success, so she is a great person to learn from. If this topic is of interest to you, then read on, because here we go...

How do you earn USTA points? Every time you win a match in a USTA event, you earn points. The number of points you earn depends on the following two factors:

How far you advance in the tournament, and...
What level of tournament you are entered into.

Obviously, advancing further into a tournament will earn you more points. Furthermore, you have the potential to earn more points when you enter into higher level tournaments.

USTA tournaments are labelled Level One through Level Five, with Level One being the highest level. The most common level for players to compete in are Level 5 Tournaments.

Let's do an example.
Step 1: How to earn points. Last summer Kayla competed in a level 5 tournament at the Dewitt Tennis Center. Click Here to view her results. You will notice that Kayla advanced to the finals of this tournament.

Now that we know how she did, let's see how many points we expect her to earn. Each year the USTA puts out a points table where they state how many points you earn for a given finish in a tournament. She was the the finalist of a Level 5 tournament, so CLICK HERE and see what we she ought to have earned. If you concluded that she should earn 38 points, then you are using the chart correctly.

Step 2: How your West Michigan Ranking is determined. The USTA system takes the total points you earn from your 6 best tournaments over the last 12 months. So, if you play in three tournaments, it will obviously just add up all of the points from those three tournaments. If you played in ten tournaments over the past year, then it would drop the worst four, and keep the six highest point totals.

Let's get back to Kayla to see what that looks like in real life. Click Here to see the West Michigan Rankings for the Girls 14 division. You will notice that Kayla is currently the 12th ranked player in West Michigan in the Girls 14's division with 162 total points. Wow, great job Kayla, you are awesome!

Now let's dig a little deeper. Click on Kayla's name on the ranking list you just went to in the other tab. This will list every USTA match that Kayla has played in over the last 12 months. It lists who she beat/lost to, what the score was, and how many points Kayla earned for each tournament.

Do you notice that there is a girl who Kayla has played twice and beaten 6-1, 6-1, and 6-2, 6-0, yet that girl is ranked quite a bit higher than Kayla...what gives!?!?!
Well, let's use what we have learned so far to figure out why that is the case.

Kayla played in fewer than six tournaments over that 12 month period. The other girl, however, played in 10, and she gets to take her best six.
You will also notice that the other girl played in two elevated tournaments (levels 1-4), whereas Kayla played in one elevated tournament. As we recall, elevated tournaments = greater point potential.

With everything that we have just learned, what conclusions would we draw about Kayla's USTA career? In my opinion, Kayla is off to a strong start, and she still has a huge opportunity for growth. She could quickly improve her ranking simply by playing three more tournaments and getting to the six that the USTA will count. On top of that, if she were to seek out more elevated tournaments, then her earning potential grows by even more. Kayla has put in a lot of work over the past few years, and she has herself in a strong position right now.

Why should I even care about my USTA Ranking? Depending on your individual situation, the honest answer is that you may or may not care. For those who do care, here are some reasons why:

You want to be seeded in tournaments - Seeds reduce unlucky draws by protecting you from playing the best players early in the tournament. If you are unseeded, you can get "unlucky" and have to play the #1 seed in your first match. Seeded players never face the other seeds until later in the tournament. Isn't it interesting how life often allows us to create our own luck?
You want to play in Elevated Tournaments (Levels 1-4) - Elevated tournaments generally accept a set number of competitors, often many players want those spots. Suppose a Level 4 tournament is offered and has 32 spots available, but 50 players enter. The tournament will simply select the 32 individuals with the most points who signed up. The other 18 players are out of luck. So, players who have six quality results on their record stand a greater chance of playing in elevated tournaments. You can imagine how this creates a snowball effect for a player. Points allow you to get into bigger tournaments, which lets you rack up points even faster.
You are interested in playing tennis in college - I want to start off by saying that you DO NOT NEED a high USTA ranking to play college tennis. If you are a solid tennis player and are flexible about what school you attend, there is a college tennis team for you. West Ottawa has a former 3 doubles player starting for a college team, and a former 4 doubles player serving as a team captain for another. But let's make no mistake, a strong USTA ranking can do a lot for you. If you are interested in playing at any Division 1 and most Division 2 schools, USTA success is a virtual pre-requisite. Those coaches are looking for your USTA results against the top players in the Midwest. To get those results, you need to be in those elevated tournaments where all the top players are battling it out regularly.

What are some notable USTA benchmarks? The most important benchmark is simply improvement. Any time you are moving up, you should be really excited about that. And honestly, just playing USTA tournaments means you are one of the more dedicated, and likely better players in our area. But in an attempt to come up with something more concrete, on this website I recognize players who meet the following two benchmarks. I think they are notable and deserve recognition.
Benchmark #1: West Michigan Top 15 Ranking - If a player gets ranked in the top 15 of any of the age division lists, it is a pretty safe bet that this player is or will shortly be one of the best players on their varsity team. These players will often get admitted into elevated tournaments when they enter.
Benchmark #2: Midwest Top 150 - When a player starts earning rankings in the Midwest Top 150, they will typically start getting looks by larger colleges. The chance of scholarships definitely increase for these individuals.

Click Here to to see the players who have met these benchmarks. Note: Kayla will be added to this page soon, since she has recently cracked the Top 15! It is a short list right now, but I hope it will grow with the large increase in USTA participation from our players.

Hopefully this helps those who want to understand the USTA process a bit more fully. If you are one of the many families who have participated in the USTA events over the past year, thank you so much. I'm tremendously appreciative and excited about the commitment level of our players right now. And a special thanks to Kayla for allowing me to use her as an example in this post.

Ok, enough of this reading business. Get out to the tennis courts / weight room and keep improving!!!

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Grandville USTA Tournament

2/8/2016

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Parents and Players,

Over my 9 years coaching at West Ottawa, I've gone to A LOT of USTA tournaments to watch my players compete. This was one of the most enjoyable tournaments I've ever gone to watch. Here's a basic progression of my USTA tournament experience throughout the years:

Phase 1 - The first 9 years:

Every tournament would have between 1-4 kids entered total.
1 or 2 of the kids would be USTA regulars, who knew the process and were very high level players. These were the kids that would eventually go on to play college ball.
The rest of the players would sign up on a whim to try it out, get crushed, and then stop entering into future tournaments. There would basically be a small revolving door of a few players who didn't understand the USTA system, try it out, then drop out of it.
I would constantly encourage players to enter these tournaments more, but it never really materialized into much. I would leave thinking "There's so much room for improvement, but I don't know how to make it happen".

Phase 2 - The past 2 years:

Key players in the program (you know who you are) started to pick tournaments and promoted them to their teammates, rather than me be the one pushing it.
We started regularly getting 8-20 players in a USTA tournament, depending on the time of year and distance needed to travel. Our participation in USTA events is now literally the best of ANY TEAM in West Michigan.
Many of the players are inexperienced, but they understand that it takes time and they are patiently sticking it out and improving steadily

Phase 3 - LAST WEEKEND AT GRANDVILLLE:

Our players looked as talented and experienced as the players from ANY SCHOOL. We are pushing far through the draws. When we are the seeded players, we almost always play to or exceed our seed. And when we are unseeded, we are regularly upsetting the seeded players. We are playing aggressively and smart. The tournament director pulled me aside on Saturday evening to compliment how good ALL of the West Ottawa players looked. We had more players entered than any other school, and the quality from top to bottom was terrific.
Basically, by sticking together as a group, we don't have the revolving door of players dropping out that we had years ago. It took a couple years, but our group is maturing. There's lots of players who can potentially break out in any given tournament these days and have a strong result.
A special shout out to Drew Dykens, who made it to the Finals of the Boys 14's in his first ever Level 5 Tournament. He had to beat a seed, plus two other very solid tennis players just to get to the finals, and he just about beat one of West Michigan's top juniors in the finals.
Another huge shout out goes to Kayla Lebster, but the details of why will come in an upcoming post I'm working on. In short, she's met a pretty cool milestone recently, and we are going to take an in depth look at what we can all learn from it.

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Middle School Girls Tennis begins August 21 from 5-7pm at the Middle School Courts. Sign up below!

USTA Standouts page is now updated!

Fun post because it's a snow day and I have some time:)

How The USTA System Works - A Case Study

Grandville USTA Tournament

Dewitt Information

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