Mini Orange Tennis Video

[urbanati]

Hi,

I am new to the forum, but I have been lurking here for ages,
I made a video of my son playing a tournament.
What is your opinion about his style/technique/ level?
He is 8 and a half years old.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaErzXIPdEk

[TCF]

==========================

[urbanati]

He is sometimes in blue and sometimes in red, he is the one who wins alll the points
Thank you for your response.

[TCF]

==========================

[NLBwell]

I like his movement.

[barringer97]

Kid looks good, really moves well and he seems to have good feel for the game. Is he serving some underhand? If he is, that's a no-no, IMO. It seems like he might be too focused on winning instead of hitting the proper serve. No one cares about Orange Ball wins, but his serve will be with him for the rest of his tennis career.

My daughter is around the same age and we did an Orange ball tourney a couple of weeks ago. Never again, complete mess.

For us to play Green Dot (or higher) USTA tourneys here in NorCal, they are forcing us to play Orange Ball for a season (or win 4 tourney's). You can't register unless you pass their lame test.

It was awful. It was all day, my daughter lost interest, it was boring and we didn't want to be there. Parents were, in general, ok, but you had a couple of weirdos. She won her round robin flight then we left, but this was after three hours. If she stayed, they winners of the other flights would have then played each other in another Round Robin, then after that, everyone was going to play doubles. It was going to be an (after travel) 8-9 hour day.

Way, way too much for an 8 year old.

The only benefit that it had was just playing with other kids, but since we are members of a pretty solid tennis club, we don't really need it.

I'm pretty sure that I am now going to wait until she is 10 so we can start playing normal tourneys, until then, she will be hitting with me and other members of our club.

[Bash and Crash]

I definitely enjoy seeing the kids hit the ball like that, instead of them playing with regular balls and rallying 20 feet over the net. Nice movement, solid technique so far, and nice point play. I would move along to green ball and add in regular ball training. Keep up the good work and keep it fun, those strokes are better than many in the 12's playing with regular balls.

[urbanati]

Actually he is training with (very) used yellow balls, or green balls. At his age group we only have the orange tournaments or if he plays a bit higher, the green ones on normal court. He is quite good at both, but he is not ready for playing with new yellow balls on normal courts against 2-3 years older opponents.

He enjoys playing tournaments very much and likes to win so he needs the orange tournaments for his self-confidence.

Thank you for your thoughts!

[Pro_Tour_630]

Originally Posted by TCF

I assume he is the boy in the blue? If so, not bad at all. Have him work on hitting a complete backhand with follow through. I would start getting his serve to a technique he will use when he is older.

As far as level. Orange balls are hard to judge, they obviously are a different game than regulation. My girl is the same age and plays regulation, as do most of the other 8-9 year olds down here....so I can't give much of an opinion on his level. Once they have to start covering a big court and positioning themselves for the high bouncing yellow balls, it allows you to truly see their levels.

TCF my 7 year old wizzed through red and orange, he plays regulation full court but the ball are so flat that they are similar to green in terms of bounce, a bit heavier only. Does he play regulation? technically No, if I use brand new balls they will bounce over his head. I am not going to use NEW balls until he is using a full 27 frame. Right now he started using his old brothers 27 frame and seems to be hitting well with it, so I might bust out the new regulation balls on him when he is 8. He still can not serve from the base line, having problems tossing, he just turned 7, so this is why sometimes he is on 60 foot orange balls. Orange taught him court sense and tactics, working and positioning the ball. Which ws great for six months but he moved on so quickly that now I see it as a hinderance rather than an asset to his development.

[Pro_Tour_630]

double post,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,