Author: Steve Jones
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Junior Tennis Tournaments in Alabama: A Parent’s Guide
If your kid just caught the tennis bug in Alabama, you're in a good spot to start. The junior tournament scene here is friendly, affordable, and big enough to keep things interesting without the cutthroat pressure you hear about in other states. Here's how to get your young player from their first local event to…
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The Slice: The Shot Juniors Neglect (Until They Need It)
The slice is the most under-taught shot in junior tennis. Coaches spend 90% of lesson time on topspin groundstrokes, so most kids reach 14 with a slice that’s either nonexistent or a panicked chop. Then they play their first opponent who hits heavy, deep balls, and they discover — usually mid-match, usually painfully — that…
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The Serve: The Shot Your Kid Fully Controls
The serve is the only shot in tennis where nobody interferes with you. No opponent rushing you, no bad bounce, no surprises — just your kid, the ball, and the toss. That’s what makes it both the biggest opportunity and the biggest frustration in junior tennis. A reliable serve wins free points and holds games.…
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The Forehand: Your Kid’s Money Shot
If your kid only ever learns one shot properly, make it the forehand. It’s the stroke juniors hit more than any other — most kids will run around their backhand just to hit one. A reliable forehand keeps them in rallies, wins them points, and builds the confidence everything else grows from. A broken one…
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Footwork: The Invisible Stroke That Decides Everything
Here’s something most tennis parents learn too late: at every level of junior tennis, the kid with better strokes often loses to the kid with better feet. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your kid’s forehand is in a basket-fed drill. In a real rally, if they’re not in the right place at the right time,…
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The Backhand: The Shot That Decides Matches
Here’s a pattern you’ll see if you watch enough junior tennis: at 10, every kid runs around their backhand to hit forehands. At 14, the kids who are still doing it are losing — because their opponents figured out that the backhand side is where matches are won. The backhand doesn’t need to be a…
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Venus Williams: The Trailblazer Who Didn’t Burn Out
Venus Williams turned pro at 14, reached her first Grand Slam final at 17, and won her first major at 20 — then stayed on tour for three decades. But the most interesting part of her junior story isn’t what she did. It’s what her father stopped her from doing. 1. Childhood: Compton courts and…
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Steffi Graf: The Father-Coach Who Built the Forehand That Ruled Tennis
Childhood Steffi Graf was born June 14, 1969, in Mannheim, West Germany, and grew up in nearby Brühl. Her father, Peter Graf, was an insurance salesman who played tennis himself and fancied himself a coach. When Steffi was 3, he put a sawed-off wooden racket in her hands. A year later she was hitting on…
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Serena Williams: The Kid Who Refused to Lose
Before 23 Grand Slam singles titles, before the world No. 1 ranking she held for 319 weeks, Serena Williams was a four-year-old on cracked public courts in Compton, California, hitting crates of old, dead tennis balls after school while her dad worked night shifts to be there. If you think your kid’s setup isn’t good…
