A Message From CEO Mike Jizmejian
This system was built on my many years of experience as a junior and college tennis player. I competitively played tennis throughout high school, college and beyond. Over the years, I have participated in tournaments in the role of competitor, club pro and director of tennis, club owner, tournament director, referee, event planner, and a father of junior and adult tennis players. I have also personally worked with over 100 sectional and nationally ranked junior players. Many players use tournaments as their primary conduit for testing their skill set and playing against other players who will challenge them to improve. Players of all ages and skill levels expect to enter a tournament to prove themselves, improve their game, and feel that the entire experience was worth the time and money it took to play. Unfortunately, I began to realize long ago that the majority of tournaments and organized tennis events do not speak to those desired areas, and instead limit the amount of development a player can receive from tournament play. That is a significant problem-after all, when I used to enter tournaments as a competitive player, one of the primary reasons I entered was to improve my skill level, but what I usually got instead was frustration. During my teenage years and early twenties, I played in 200 to 300 collegiate and tournament matches per year. I found that most matches were simply not challenging; therefore, they were not a productive investment of my time and money, and they did not lead to any significant improvement in my game. I still continued to play in as many tournaments as I could, driving as much as three to four hours one way in order to participate. Most of the time, when I played the first round match, I would either win too easily or lose too quickly. If I won my first round, the second round match was the same-won easily or lost quickly. Sometimes I would have a good match, meaning the match was close and challenged me to improve my game and push myself. Unfortunately, such matchups were few and far between. I wondered how this could be-I knew there were plenty of players out there who played at a similar skill level to my own. So why wasn't I being paired with them? Why was I either feeling too little pressure or too much pressure in tournament after tournament? Over the years, I noticed that the fundamental problems rest in the way tournaments are structured. Improper skill match-ups coupled with the extended downtime between matches cause most experiences to be unsatisfying and wearisome, rather than constructive and engaging.
When I began to run my own tournaments, I used the same tournament models that have been in place for years-typical elimination or straight-draw tournaments-and I noticed the same lack of satisfaction in the outcome of most of my tournaments. I came to discover that as many as 75 percent of the participants in traditional tournament structures are unevenly matched. That means only one quarter of players time receive any real value from the competition. The percentage is even less for top players; I believe only 5 to 10 percent of top-tier junior tennis players get a valuable return on their time and money investment.
Translation? Most players do not get to play after the first couple of rounds, the match-ups are abysmally lopsided, and the amount of tournament downtime is downright tedious for most participants and spectators.
I knew there had to be a better way.
The majority of the typical elimination or straight-draw tournaments require sometimes significant amounts of travel time. The average financial cost to enter a tournament is typically around $50, and the overall cost of the on to two day trip can be anywhere from $300 to $600, plus the value of the time parents spend away from home and work. Since such a large percentage of elimination and straight-drew tournaments are unevenly matched, they end up becoming a highly unproductive use of time and money for most player and their parents. Many parents tire of the long travel and expense for tournaments when the payoff is just not there. This system of tournament play we have created is the long-awaited answer for giving the junior player and their parents what they really want and need. Pairing players according to age and gender is just not providing players and their parents with what they are hoping to receive. That is why the JUNIOR TENNIS CIRCUIT model has junior players compete by playing matches that are much more closely suited to their unique ability level. The divisions are separated into five distinct levels, from beginner to advance, which is explained in levels of play section. If players win too much or lose too much, it hinders their potential development in all areas-from mental and emotional to technical skills, but when players are more evenly matched, they get much more out of their tournament experience.
The results of this tournament system are substantial:
1. Players enjoy greater skill improvement.
2. Junior players do not become needlessly frustrated by being eliminated after one or two matches.
3. Players win or lose the right amount of matches for their current skill level.
4. Players, spectators, and tournament organizers enjoy a much more relaxed environment.
5. Players have more play in less time (3 hours of total time versus days)
6. Less time is required at the hosting tournament site, saving you money.
7. Parents enjoy a reduced money and time commitment.
The costs are kept low, and the benefits are high! Learn from my past mistakes and successes to get most out of your tennis experience.