If you are winning and highly ranked you will get free or subsidized coaching here as well. And plastic trophy is very important for a 10 year old. You will see where your daughter put her first ribbon when she gets one.
Regarding laid-back Russian parents, great tennis culture and everyone playing with perfect technique you will have to provide a credible source. I suspect that it should be much worse than here.
Please leave Brooke alone. Being a great competitor who never crumbles is much more important than "left hand parallel to the baseline" stuff. This you really cannot teach. You should want to put your daughter into tournaments at some point just to find out if she has "it" or not.
You totally ignored the meat of my post....the fact that little kids tennis rewards bad technique with wins while every other sport bad technique results in loses or benching.
As I said before, Brett Klika, the author of that original piece, has performed much follow up research. My friend who coaches up in PA ., has been in email contact with him. From what he has found, the Russian system of U10s is a very aggressive proving ground where scouting is routine.....totally unlike the USTA U10s.
Now you and Pro Tour like to find exceptions to try and poke holes. I bet you could find SOME French kids and SOME Russian kids whose parents push them along the early win first path, just like here. But the facts are that their overall culture does not promote that.
You proved my point for me. The plastic trophy is super important....and the exact reason early tournament success using bad technique is the kiss of death for many, not all, but many USTA kids. The plastic trophy at age 6-9 is NOT as important to kids from other countries and more importantly their parents UNLESS they use proper technique.
I have said Brooke Austin is a wonderful girl and a great junior. But I am not alone in thinking her straight takeback and abbreviated strokes could make the difference in her being #15 in the world vs #215. Thats frank and honest evaluation of a player based on what I have personally seen. It does not make her any less of a great junior player. In my opinion, her coaches at age 8-9 should have corrected her technique. I think instead of playing 100 matches a year from age 8 she should have been made to concentrate on the technique that every top 10 men and women's pro uses. When your technique is unlike any current top player and every one of theirs is almost identical to each other as far as take back and stroke pattern....perhaps you are doing something wrong if your goal is to be a top pro.
I suggest you and Pro Tour find a way to talk to coaches around the world. Over and over again the same theme comes out. In America we celebrate 5 year olds who win a soccer match, grandma cheers, parents line the side lines. Technique be damned. In other countries that is not the case. The process is important at that age, not the results. And this effects the long development sports like tennis.
Again, both you and Pro Tour ignore again and again the fact that tennis is the ONLY sport where small kids can win if they use bad technique. And thats the crux of the entire problem.
I have coached for many years and have seen hundreds of kids. My friends have coached for many years and seen thousands of kids. We all come to the same conclusion....the kids who play early tournaments with bad technique in the majority of cases hit a brick wall when they get older. Not every single one, but the overwhelming majority of them. The kids who start of slower with tournaments and concentrate on technique, are usually higher ranked by the time they hit the 16s. There are those magic players who have great technique from their first tournament and they may be tops of the rankings at 8-10-12-14-16-18. But those are the special ones. The majority of kids would be better off with less tournies and more training.
