A Rookie Tennis Professional’s Cheat Sheet

Written by: Staff on 24th March 2012

A Rookie Tennis Professional's Cheat Sheet |

(Above: Austin Karosi a recipient of one ATP point while playing in Singapore. Austin is also a great friend of the site – 10sBalls.com )

By: Craig Cignarelli

Every year, a host of tour aspirants enter the professional tennis circuit in search of the critical “first pro point,” tennis’ modus operandi for ranking professional players. For some, this is the holy grail of their development, the crowning achievement that will allow them to sit fireside two decades hence and relate tall tales of tennis success to their sycophantic offspring. For others, it is the initial stride on the long march to prominence and prosperity. If this is you, read on.

Unless you happen to earn a wildcard into a higher-level contest, most players will begin at the $10,000 women’s events or 15K men’s futures events.

While a handful of these tournaments transpire in exotic destinations – think Jamaica and St. Lucia – most low-level events occur on poorly paved, unkempt high school courts where even your more aggressive cleaning lady might blanche. Often there is a sporting event or music concert nearby where patrons frown upon phrases like “Quiet, please.” Andy Gump is a universal sponsor and the tournament stringer generally sports sagging jeans and has the sort of hairless chin that makes it obvious he’s just recently weaned himself off Saturday morning cartoons. Digestive smells are frequently present.

If the tournament director is magnanimous enough to offer food fare, expect imitation peanut butter, three-day old bananas, and the kind of deli meats you just know are gonna require a plumber visit. Local umpires do their best, meaning they try to conduct themselves professionally – remembering basic rules like “lines are in” and it’s generally not productive to nod off during tiebreakers – often unsuccessfully.

Qualifying players start arriving two days before the event. Most players have journeyed here at their own expense and travel accommodations constitute the primary expense for rookies. Assuming the tournament hotel proves livable (about half the time), they’ll consolidate funds and formulate plans to deceive the guest desk and try to squeeze six players into a closet-sized room. Many conscientious chambermaids have screamed in horror at the morning tableau of sprawled athletes piled atop one another in mid-slumber. In order to save money, other players seek local housing, assuming Ma and Pa Smith or Hosakawa will provide homemade meals and a forgiving pillow. The generosity lasts about as long as the local family can stand the swelling stack of stinking shirts and fetid footwear. Then they just offer upturned noses and unfriendly grunts.

To get a practice court, it is first-come first-served – or based on how successfully one flirts with the court attendant. Rules state four players per practice court and most tournaments will limit you to thirty minutes at a session. If you happen to misfire, sound out a warning so opposing coaches don’t have to make a urologist appointment. To sign up, simply go to the registration desk and place your name on a court sheet at your desired court time.

Most tournaments will supply practice balls for a deposit, and assuming the juvenile delinquent behind the desk hasn’t had an attack of the munchies and wandered off for a burger, you’ll get it back. Some tournaments will not provide balls at all, so it’s best to transport at least two cans in your bag and contend with the TSA folks’ suspicious stares.

On Friday night, after the dramatis personae sign-in, the tournament referee sits with two player volunteers and pulls names to make the draw. Once completed, the referee creates the match schedule. Junior players used to actual match times should take note: Pro tournaments list schedules by series number. Thus, a player who is listed as third series on court 5 must be ready to go on for the match as soon as matches one and two on court 5 have been completed. The procedure is to gauge your warm up for sometime near the middle of the first set of the match right before yours. If it finishes in two sets, you are ready to go. If it goes three sets, you can do another 5-minute hit before you go on. Rookies beware: Asking for time for lunch or a bathroom visit before play is unacceptable at the pro level. Many times young players assume a match will go ninety-minutes and later find out that one of the players rolled an ankle and retired in the first set, and they end up defaulted for not being present and ready to play. Lenient umpires may give you time to drain your bladder. Stringent ones will grab you by the back of your hair and Neaderthalically drag you onto the court.

At lower levels, WTA and ATP points are only awarded for winning a main draw match. To qualify for the main draw, it is likely you’ll have to win 3 or 4 rounds. Main draw players often attend the last round of qualifying and giggle as qualifiers endure three set marathons under hundred-degree sun just to get a shot at them. If players get through, they are generally exhausted and consider it a massive achievement to join the ranks of the main draw competitors. Most of the time they are so depleted they get their asses handed to them. Somewhere along the path to the tour events, they’ll look back upon these events as training grounds for real tennis.

Main draw selection is done by ranking. Officials place the twenty-one highest ranked players into the main draw and fill the remaining spots of the 32-player draw with qualifiers and wildcards.

As play progresses, the tournament desk will have a greater supply of practice balls available. Most events will let you and your coach take a box of balls out for drilling, and you are on the honor code to return them. This too, is a first-come first-served issue, so if you intend to use the boxes, you may need to arrive an hour earlier than your scheduled practice time to secure them. Oftentimes coaches finish and hover over the boxes like protective mothers. Feel free to borrow the balls and try to ignore the snarls and growls.

It is an ITF (International Tennis Federation) rule that tournaments will provide water for players during competition. This means there may be no water on the practice courts. Additionally, the rule says nothing about purified water, so it is possible that the water provided is closer to what you’d find in your local pond than from your faucet. You’d do well to prepare in advance by buying bottled water beyond what you think you may need for warm up, competition, and post match re-hydration. This is a daily ritual for most players and the local convenience store is the equivalent of a watering hole, predatory glares included. Stay alert, as some stores run out of water quickly.

As for the competition, you’ll hear twenty international languages that make courtside-viewing sound like a menagerie, fifteen inventive and electrifying curse words to describe unforced errors, and sufficient grunts and screams to make phrases like “German Porn” dominate your thoughts. There are enough bad line calls to make Stevie Wonder hoist an eyebrow, pre-schoolish tantrums, and a significant number of coaches who appear epileptic in their efforts to communicate with their players. You’ll see indescribable athletic feats from transnational sportspersons who’ve dedicated their lives to tennis and now battle for superiority on the paved plain. Practice is uncontaminated by the pollution of experience, and though these lessons are pricey, they should be cherished.

So that’s a basic cheat sheet for rookie tennis players. Now it’s up to you to put in the five hours a day, for the next decade, so you can start chasing that elusive “first point.”

You can find Craig’s blog at http://bewareofdogmadotnet.wordpress.com/