tennis practice time management for a junior

[batareikin]

School year is nearing its end and my kid will be switching to summer time tennis practice schedule.

During his school season my 11 y.o. was limited in time by other activities, so he could manage to do

1. 3 group practices (4 kids only) per week (2 hours each)
2. 2-3 private practices per week (1.5 hours each)

summing this up to 9 - 10.5 hours of tennis per week

Well, it could be more, but he is also doing swimming 2-3 times per week, so we had to choose a pattern that would let us to manage everything.

And now I am considering for the summer time to schedule 5-6 private practices per week in the morning, while still keeping his small group practices 3 times per week.
Coupling with swimming at least 2 times per week.

My question is about the amount of time other juniors are practicing per week. He is turning 12 in autumn. 13.5 - 15 tennis hours per week is not something insignificant. Is that normal for a growing kid?

As I plan to span those practices over different parts of the day, he will be able easily to cope with that. (9 am private practice coupled with 6 pm group practice one day, then 9 am private practice coupled with 3 pm swimming another day)

But my question is if these figures are reasonable?
Still wondering if it is ok for a 11 y.o. to do 18 hours (including swimming) of physical activities per week.

p.s. and he also plays tournaments sometimes, so this pattern breaks from time to time

 

[nyta2]

having been on the swim team in hs and currently play/coach hs tennis now... feels like the sched can lead to fatigue/injury, but depends on
(a) the intensity he's going at
(b) how good his technicque is (does he have coaches paying very close attention to his technique?)
for both.
from the outside looking in, seems the high level 12y are practicing (lessons & clinics) ~10h/w, then doing tourneys on weekends (2-6h- depending how far they go)
+doing say an 1h/d of strength/conditioning/recovery (rehab/prehab) work
also keep in mind that not all work (court or gym) is "hard" work, when i was working with my daughter, who is not a high level junior, i definitely had to be cautious of how she felt physically every day (as days becomes weeks, becomes months, the mental/physical grind/fatigue can catch up to you, and we would adjust what we were doing accordingly.
my $0.02

 

[batareikin]

(a) the intensity he's going at
(b) how good his technicque is (does he have coaches paying very close attention to his technique?)
for both.

(a)
tennis practices are really intensive. both group and private ones.
swimming practices are also quite intensive, though only 45 mins per session

(b)
his tennis technique level is still quite average. all his private sessions are lately mostly for fixing his technique.
swimming level is probably a bit above average

He still keeps up with swimming just because he is considering that activity as something that improves his endurance. therefore required for tennis. I'm not sure if his assumption is correct.

From what I see last couple of months the workload is slowly increasing in his tennis practices. now I am starting to think that he could have possibly progressed more in tennis if he reduced his swimming if not at all then to just a session per week.
Although not very often, but fatigue is something that he mentions from time to time.

Thank you for you opinion! The schedule I drew up earlier looks doubtful. We need to reconsider it. May be a temporary dropping some swimming in favor of tennis could be the case.

 

[Tennis2349]

My son is a similar age. Just turned 13.

The higher level kids play a lot daily during the summer. When he was in an academy it was 8-5 tennis. 8-12 drills and fitness. 1-5 match play.

Swimming does seem to make you a “different sort of tired” and not sure how much that sport helps tennis if tennis is the priority. Also always felt awkward playing tennis after swimming. Wouldn’t advice it before an important tournament.

I played soccer and tennis growing up all summer, and was very active by today’s standards. No injuries etc.