A lot of young tennis players when they start getting involved in national ranking tournaments have the dream of travelling the world as a professional. This is a great goal to have as there will be many benefits for choosing this path, regardless of whether they achieve their goal.
Few players are ready to begin pursuing the professional pathway on graduating from high school, which is why the US college tennis option is fast becoming the most popular way to go for the world’s best eighteen to twenty-two-year-old tennis players, both male and female. Below are some statistics that should encourage players to hold off pursuing the professional pathway until they’ve graduated from college.
- The average age of players in the top 100 is twenty-eight for men and twenty-six for women
- The average amount of time it takes from first professional tournament to breaking into the world’s top 100 is four years
- The number of players under the age of twenty inside the top 100 is usually less than 10 each year.
The game has become a lot more physical than it was prior to the 1990s when many of the world’s best players were in their early twenties. Players in today’s game are playing much better tennis later in their careers and are not rushing to get on the tour.
How good does your child need to be after high school to go pro?
Below are some guidelines that suggest your child may be ready to bypass college tennis and head straight on to the professional circuit after high school:
- Male players: UTR 14+ | Top 400 ATP | Top 5 ITF juniors
- Female players: UTR 11.75+ | Top 150 WTA | Top 5 ITF juniors
Justin Gimelstob, an American former professional, suggests parents should be able to answer yes to at least two of these three questions if their child is thinking of bypassing college tennis:
- Is your child able to compete at the highest levels, ie have they beaten players in the top 100?
- Are they receiving a significant endorsement opportunity or some kind of financial incentive that they must take advantage of at this point to turn pro?
- Would they dominate college tennis, ie would the competition just not be there?
Even if you can answer yes to all three, it is still a difficult decision to make due to how good the college experience is for both a player’s tennis and academic studies, giving them a safety net if they don’t achieve their pro-tennis aspirations.
A player who has just graduated from high school will usually be playing at a level that is a long way off their potential and a long way from being able to compete on the professional tour. To have any chance of being successful on the ATP or WTA tour, players will need to have the following UTR as a minimum when they’re starting at the lowest rungs of professional tennis:
- Male players: 13.5+
- Female players: 11.25+
This is a high bar for an eighteen-year-old straight out of high school. Contrast this with, as an example, a male player who goes to college with a UTR of 11. He will have four years to get his UTR up to 13.5+ which is very achievable with the support of a high-quality college tennis program.
As with any further education or career decision, you and your child need to give serious time and consideration to budgeting and planning. This will help your son or daughter understand how to pursue professional tennis as a career. While it can be a rewarding path, there are many pitfalls, so take the time to understand these and navigate your child’s way around them.
By Ryan Henry, Managing Director of Voyager Tennis and Ex-Pro Tennis Player
