Junior Tennis refers to tennis games where the participants are under the age of 18 and under the care of a parent or guardian. Some players who qualify as "junior tennis" players also play in main adult tours, though forms signed by their parent or guardian are required for this.
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The ITF
The ITF conducts a junior tour, which allows juniors to establish a world junior ranking and give them a chance to get an ATP or WTA ranking. Most juniors who enter the international circuit have to do so by progressing through ITF tournaments, Satellites, Futures and Challenger tournaments before entering the main circuit, the latter three of which are also participated in by adults. However, some juniors, such as Australian Lleyton Hewitt and Frenchman Gael Monfils, have catapulted directly from the junior tour to the ATP tour by dominating the junior scene or by taking advantage of opportunities given to them to participate in professional tournaments.
Rankings
In 2004, the ITF implemented a new rankings scheme to encourage greater participation in doubles, by combining two rankings (singles and doubles) into one combined tally. Junior tournaments do not offer prize money except for the Grand Slams. Juniors may earn income through tennis by participating on the Futures, Satellites or Challenger tours. Tournaments are broken up into different tiers offering different amounts of ranking points, culminating with Grade A and the junior Grand Slams - the most prestigious junior events, which also offer prize money.
Notable participants
Several notable tennis players have taken part in one or more junior tennis tournaments. These players had achieved the top 6 percentile in their province/state. These players include:
- Stefan Edberg (SWE)[1]
- Nur Elneser (VZA)
- Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS)
- Clay Thompson (USA) SuperChamps-2003
- Thiemo de Bakker (NED)
- Martin Kližan (SVK)
- Caroline Wozniacki (DEN)
- Dušan Lojda (CZE)
- Jonathan Eysseric (FRA)
- Nicolas Santos (BRA)
- Brian Hoang (USA)
- Urszula Radwańska (POL)
- Alexandre Sidorenko (FRA)
- Ksenia Milevskaya (BLR)
- Luka Belic (CRO)
- Donald Young (USA) SuperChamps-2006
- Petru-Alexandru Luncanu (ROM)
- Kei Nishikori (JPN)
- Zachary Elizondo-Mascio (ITL-USA) SuperChamps-2007
- Coy Dobson (USA) SuperChamps-2006
- Kellen Damico (USA) SuperChamps-2004
- Daniel Nguyen (USA) SuperChamps-2004
- Chitransh Mathur (IND)
- Elnesser Samar (VZA)
- Ricardas Berankis (LTU)
International tournaments
The ITF has developed international junior tournaments; the boys tournament is named the "Junior Davis Cup by BNP Paribas", and the tournament for girls is named the "Junior Fed Cup".
Junior Tennis Academies
- Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy
- Roddick Total Tennis
- Vitas Gerulaitis Tennis Academy
- Evert Tennis Academy
- Al Kruse Tennis Center
- Austin Tennis Academy
- Weil Tennis Academy
- ITA
- Van Der Meer
- Extreme Tennis Academy
- Smith Stearns
- Smithsonian Tennis Center
References
- ITF Tennis
- Junior Tennis
- Official Guide to Professional Tennis, 2005
Footnotes
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
