Quote:
Originally Posted by Soianka
I read an article by Stan Smith? (I think it was Stan Smith) a while back where he was talking about that he had a hunch that there was another path to creating a world champion tennis player. That a junior could be generally athletic and start playing tennis later like age 13-15 and maybe not complete in junior events, etc.
I guess the point is no one really knows what can be done until someone does it. The Williams Sisters did blaze a new path by not competing at the high level junior competitions in their later teenage years. Can someone become a great player without playing official junior tournaments at all (but rather just practice matches)?
So far, no one has exactly done that. But I personally think it's possible.
I guess we will see what happens with the careers of these youtube girls in the next 4 or 5 years.
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Venus played till 12 years of age a couple of months before 13 took 2 to 3 years off and got back to it at 15 years of age.
So my question is how much did they really do outside of the juniors?