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Player transitions

MEMBER’S CONTENT Comprehensive analysis: transitioning players from red to orange and orange to green

 

Comprehensive Analysis: Transitioning Players from Red to Orange and Orange to Green

If you’re working with 10U players one of the decisions you’ll have to make quite regularly is to make the decision about when you’ll progress a player from red to orange or from orange to green. It seems like an easy thing to say, you just inform the player and their parents that it is time to move up. However, there is a lot more to it and I want to break down some of the details because although it seems simple to say it, there is quite a lot behind the statement and we just need to think about the kids. We need to think about the implications.

Transitioning Players: Traditional age-related transition criteria

Kids are traditionally progressed from red to orange and orange to green when they reach a certain age. The trouble with that is that age tells us nothing about a player’s ability.

Time and time again I see a kid who is struggling to make a rally on the red court moved to the bigger orange court. I don’t think that makes any sense. We’re asking them to move up before they’ve developed the skills they need on the bigger court.

Think about this; would you ask a child who can’t swim across the width of a swimming pool to swim the full length? No, of course, you wouldn’t. So, maybe it’s time to think about different progression criteria.

Court statistics – the red and orange court

  • Red court: 5.5m x 11m
  • Orange court: 6.5m x 18m
  • Area increase: about 90%
  • Additional serve length: 3.5m

Match implications

  • A wider range of transition shots are needed
  • There will be more volleys in the mid court area
  • More space for opposition players to lob and pass a small player on the bigger court

Basic court statistics – the orange and green court

  • Orange court: 6.5m x 18m = 117
  • Green court: 8.23m x 23.77m = 195.6
  • Area increase: about 67%

Match implications

  • The bounce of the higher pressure green ball drives kids deeper so they spend more time moving backwards and forwards on the court. We know that kids are not great at moving backwards and forwards.
  • The bigger court allows players to attack more – with the result that kids progressing to the green court now need to know how to defend; physically, mentally and tactically.
  • Kids feel vulnerable when they come into the net.
  • We must make sure that kids can serve over-arm with a fluid action.
  • It’s important that kids have got a continental grip so that they can put shape on the ball to build some advantage.

Court statistics - red and orange court

Video: Transitioning players from red to orange and orange to green

Conclusion

If we don’t equip kids thoroughly with the ability to adapt to the bigger court then kids will suddenly find this game very difficult to play. That’s not what we want. We could suddenly find that there is the potential for kids to drop out.

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Orange to green – what are the considerations for the step up to the big court?

Orange to Green: What are the Considerations for the Step Up to the Big Court?

I honestly believe that being a really good Mini Tennis coach is one of the toughest jobs in tennis. However, the quality of the player you see on the orange court is largely down to the quality of the work done on the red court. So, moving players from red to orange is a big decision, and we have to get it right. Here I’m discussing the issues and considerations when players are being moved from orange to green courts. Note that I’ve written several articles on moving young players from red to orange (I link to other articles below).

My first words of advice are to just stop and think again!

Conventional guidelines on moving players from the orange to the green court

Conventional guidelines from around the world dictate that players who are progressing well (assuming that they started at somewhere between 4 and 6 years old) are ready to move from the orange to the green court by the age of 9 years old.

Changes brought with age

At this age, children are very different from the ones who are moving from the red to the orange court. Of course, they are bigger, stronger and probably faster, and the game should be technically and tactically strong. Other changes have taken place too: we can expect players to be more mature, more patient, more reflective, better able to make simple decisions and able to choose and implement a simple tactical plan. These criteria combined show a player who is starting to take on many of the characteristics of a competitive tennis player.

Average physical height

The average physical height in relation to bounce height is also a key consideration. At age 9, the average height for boys and girls is approximately 133cms with bounce height of 110-115cms. By age 10, the average height of girls averages 1cm more than for boys (139cms to 138cms) with the bounce of a green ball ranging from 118-132cms.

In summary, age, court size and ball bounce height should increase proportionately to physical size as well as ability between the ages of 4 and 10 years old from the red court to the green court.

Increasing the court size from orange to green requires a player to cover a playing area which has increased in size by approximately 75%

Court width: the two steps out wide rule (two steps from a starting position to a cross-court groundstroke)

Adult tennis players should be able to split, cross and set on a cross-court groundstroke, allowing them to hit a ball off a balanced set up to drive into the shot and have tactical options. It is therefore right that smaller children should also be able to take the same 2 steps from their starting position to a cross court groundstroke. However, the shorter stride length of younger children makes this challenging, especially when the difficulties in maintaining dynamic balance when moving out wide are factored in.

Increase in court size

Court width increases from 6.5 to 8.23m, meaning that players have to cover an extra 86.5cms on each side of a green court. We should expect that players progressing from the orange to the green court are more dynamic and coordinated in their lateral movement, are able to cover greater distances more easily due to improved anticipation and reception, greater stride length and stronger legs but the task of moving efficiently and quickly will need to be developed for the green court.

Faster green ball

However, the faster green ball presents additional problems due to speed through the air and off the bounce, meaning that fast balls hit at angles away from the court present new challenges to green players. We should also expect players at green to have greater racket head speed and greater use of topspin, both of which lend themselves to more effective attacking shots when used correctly. It is therefore important that coaches progressing players from orange and green pay particular attention to lateral diagonal movements, good strong set ups with the outside foot and hip behind the ball, the ability to hit from wide and sometimes under pressure from out wide, and the importance of effective and quick recovery from wide positions.

We should also remember that players are getting taller, growing typically from an average height of 133cm at age 9 to 137 at age 10. Much of this growth is in the legs, resulting in greater stride length. As players get taller, so the centre of gravity becomes higher, often resulting in less stability. The nature of the increased court size will require players to have good dynamic balance and to play on the run. It is possible that players may experience loss of balance when running wide due to the shift in the centre of gravity. The ability to set wide bases and to play off the outside foot with correct recovery back into court is, therefore, an essential feature for players progressing from orange to green. Additional weakness in core stability (remember that the children in question are still very young), coupled with poor or shifting balance and movement at speed can result in technical and therefore tactical weakness out wide.

Court length

An increase in court length from 18m to 23.78m means that the court is 2.89m longer at each end. In many respects, this is a very significant increase, since it impacts dramatically on where players play a large number of their groundstrokes, and on how points are played out. Think about it logically. At green:

  1. Players should be hitting harder and with more spin. The extra court length means that they will also on occasions hit higher to achieve greater depth from the baseline. These factors combined with the greater pressure of the green ball compared to the orange one mean that bounce height, speed and distance of the green ball increase markedly.
  2. Our green players are only 9 and 10 years old, and many have not developed the ability to take the ball early or on the rise. Higher bounces and greater depth result in baseliners being pushed back more behind the baseline than before.
  3. It is therefore very common to see more rallies played from deeper positions on the green court than at orange and red, giving the impression that our players have almost regressed in their abilities. This is usually a temporary observation, typical perhaps of the first 3-6 months of the transition to the green court, and players should be helped to deal with these challenges. This is part of what some coaches call the ‘green slump’.
  4. A longer court and a deeper average hitting position behind the baseline means more court to cover when looking to approach; the distance to the net is further. Players will need to be more selective when choosing the ball to approach on, because many will either be too deep or too fast, or will need to be played from too deep. Identification of the slower or shorter ball and opportunities to approach become key abilities.
  5. Players who are commonly deep behind the baseline leave large spaces in the front of the court, so leaving themselves open to drop shots and approaches by the opponent
  6. Greater distance to cover makes it virtually impossible to get close to the net for a first volley. A phased approach consisting of an attacking groundstroke followed by a midcourt (high or low) transition volley and a further move forwards to close down the net is quite common, especially at early green. The timing, position and quality of the approach is also important because a longer court means a bigger target into which the opponent can neutralise with a dipping ball and more space over which to lob! Likewise, a wider court gives more scope for passing shots.
  7. If we now reverse the situation to consider our player facing an approaching opponent, the ability to play offensive lobs, passing shots and dipping neutralising or two-shot pass balls become key qualities, and can be trained at green level.

Typical solutions include learning to take the ball on the rise (a new skill for many at this age), and the acceptance that many balls (rallying and neutralising balls) will have to be played further behind the baseline because the ball characteristics still often dominate over the physical abilities of the player. At early green, it is not realistic in many cases to train players to play closer to the baseline, so the solution in many cases is to teach them to defend well and to recover quickly to the baseline (just inside or just behind) depending on the quality of their response.

The ball

An ITF approved green ball is the same size as a yellow ball, but with less compression. We can expect a bounce height range of 118-132cms. This increase in compression from the orange ball is hugely significant in a number of respects when considered alongside the increases in court dimension. In other articles, I have explained that the progression from the red to the orange resulted in a wider range of contact points. This is even more so when moving to the green ball, due to greater bounce height and ball speed. Remember too that as our players develop better athleticism, faster racket head speed and a more expansive game, so we can expect the same of opponents. Smart players can use the faster and higher bouncing ball on the larger green court to their advantage by controlling time and space. Do your players have the ability to read the faster incoming ball and do they have the ability to move and prepare quickly? Two additional challenges are:

  1. The ability to vary the length of the swing, shortening or lengthening the take back on the swing according to time and situation and the depth and speed of the oncoming ball; is this something you teach your players when returning first serves and aggressive groundstrokes, or when finishing from the mid court?
  2. The ability to take and control balls at a higher contact point (correct semi-western grips and contact points are key here), which allow a more offensive game and let the player play closer to the baseline and further up the court

The serve

In my earlier article, I explained that the serve requires a lower 80cm net on an orange court to allow the player to serve offensively. Coaches who ignore this effectively force a different trajectory, since the first priority for the server is to clear the net. An 80cm net, coupled with taller players and better serving technique should allow offensive serves, probably starting with the wide serve using a chopper grip, but eventually, including the flat serve down the middle. As we progress to the green court, several things change for the server:

  1. The baseline is further away from the net
  2. The net is higher

These factors combined make the offensive serve more challenging unless good fluid technique has been developed through red and orange. Second serves are usually even weaker and more pressurised, especially as the returner will most likely be looking to dominate with the forehand as much as possible. Although players will be taller on the green court than on the orange one, and they should have the better technique (better and more efficient use of the coordination chain), offensive serves are a challenge because of the net height relative to the height of the server at the green baseline. Statistics from Ebert (2012) show that on the green court a player is likely to win only 45% of points when serving, compared to 52% serving on the orange court.

What about the light green court?

In recent years, many coaches have recognised the size of the jump from the orange to the green court, because of many of the factors covered in this article. As a result, some have suggested and researched the idea of a light or lime green court measuring 21m, as a halfway stage to reduce the size of the jump from orange to green. Others, of course, oppose a fourth court stage at 10u because it is either too complicated or requires more lines to be laid out.

Measuring 20.77 x 7.19m, the light green court is measured to maintain the length v width ratio of 2.88 which exists on the red, orange and green courts, and most significantly, reduces the size of the jump from orange to green.

Don’t forget the player!

Good, learner-centered, coaching is about progressing at the pace of the player. Players need to believe that they can not only cope but continue to develop (and hopefully even excel) as they progress from one court size to another. The common ‘green slump’ shows that it is common for a player’s game to appear to stop developing, or even to appear to get worse, as they progress from the orange to the green court. This is especially common in the first 3 months at green. If you think about it, it’s understandable; the playing environment has changed (again) quite significantly. This is where coaching skills are really important; make sure that you work hard with the player and the parents to explain:

  1. That it is normal to find it difficult to adjust to a bigger court and a faster ball. Many young players experience it.
  2. That any challenges that the players face are temporary and quite normal.
  3. That performance is more important than results during this period, and that good quality practice, focus on good basic technique and time will ensure that the player will soon adapt.

Be positive, encouraging and supportive, and your players will come through it.

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“RORANGE” – How to transition players from red ball to orange ball

Moving players from red to orange is an important decision. It helps to understand what it means for the player to progress them to the orange court. In most clubs, the decision is basely only or primarily on age, but we believe that isn’t enough. The problem is that age is just that; age. Age doesn’t tell you anything about the ability of the player!

Why is the transition from red ball to orange ball so important?

Delaying a young player’s transition from red ball to orange ball may hold them back – but children who are moved up too early can find it hard to play in a court which is much bigger and where the ball flies much faster. Young players who are developing sound basic shapes, game understanding and an excitement about playing and competing can be replaced by unhappy children struggling with the game.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to get the technical foundations and the playing environment right to give your players a chance not just to continue to play, but to continue to improve for years to come.

Move at the pace of the player

Good coaches move at the pace of the learner. When the players are physically, technically, mentally and tactically ready to progress, they move them up. The danger comes when there are no clear criteria in place to know when the players are ready; and remember, the age of the child is not enough of an indicator. If we follow that logic to its conclusion, the court needs to grow at the pace of the learner too.

Just imagine that you decide to move your player from the red group to the orange court. In the week that they complete their last lesson on a red court, they will average approximately 127 cms in height (World Health Organisation statistics). They will still average approximately 127 cms the following week when they start on the orange court! But in the same period the court length has increased by 7 metres, and the average ball rebound height has increased from 95-110 cms to 110-115 cms. When we progress a player from the red court to the orange court, we are expecting them to play in a court which has increased in area by 94%.

Can you start to see the challenge for a young child?!

Reflect on the abilities of your players and on your own coaching. Is there more that they should be doing in the red programme, can they be doing it better, and could your coaching improve?

Red Foundations - Getting it Right From the Start

Managing the progression from red ball to orange ball

The key to successfully moving young players from red ball to orange ball is to stop and reflect on the issues thrown up by the change in the playing environment for our young players. Progression and moving players up is good, provided that it is done in the right way and at the right time.

The decision to move a player along from red to orange should be made by the coach, not the parent or the player! The decision also shouldn’t be simply about progressing players as soon as they pass their 8th birthday. In previous articles, I’ve talked about the physical, physiological and technical issues that have to be considered. These are your field, one in which you need to be the expert, so take your time and make the right call.

Strategies to phase in the orange court for red ball players

There are some things you can do to phase the orange court in, to ease the transition a little:

Gradual introduction to the orange court

Gradually introduce the progression to orange by allowing players to double up for a set period as they are preparing to leave the red programme. If they can play on red courts and orange courts every week for a period of time, it provides a more gradual induction.

Play both courts for a time

Introduce the orange ball at the end of red, playing at the ‘rorange’ level, so to speak! This will allow players to get used to slightly different ball characteristics. Make sure you do it the right way round – moving to the orange court with the red ball won’t work!

Extend the red court dimensions

Turn the players around so they face a different way. Your players will have grown up playing across the court on the red court. At the end of the red programme, try playing from the service line over the 80 cm net. From there you can gradually extend the length of the orange court, as you probably did at red.

Get parents helping

Parent education is vital. We spend so much time with the players but we ignore the ones who make the decisions, pay for lessons and drive them around. Good communication to parents is essential. If they understand the issues at stake when progressing players, they are more likely to be on your side. Work with them rather than without them.

Conclusion

Being a really good Mini Tennis coach isn’t easy. There are a lot of skills needed to help players develop well at an early age. Unfortunately, many coaches (and maybe parents too) just see the red stage as a quick phase to pass through on the way to the ‘proper’ game. That really mustn’t be the case.

There is important work to be done on the red court; you typically have 2-3 years with your players to prioritise strong technical and physical fundamentals on the red court, to get them rallying and developing a life-long love for tennis. The quality of the player you see on the orange court is largely down to the quality of the work done on the red court.

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Substantially revised from an article originally published on: Jun 3, 2016

How to Train Young Talented Tennis Players

Tennis 24/7 Kid's Club: How to Train Young Talented Tennis Players

In addition to coaching a lot of young talented tennis players, i2c run a lot of junior tournaments. So we regularly talk to a lot of parents who are not just confused but frustrated by the advice they receive about their child’s tennis. We are therefore delighted to be able to share David Mullin’s response to a parent letter regarding the tournaments that their talented child was being recommended to enter. The article was recently published at https://www.tennisconsult.com/how-to-train-young-talented-tennis-players/ and is reproduced on Tennis(24/7) with permission.

David Mullins represented Ireland in Davis Cup from 1999-2004 and worked as a College coach in the US, most recently at the University of Oklahoma. Dave can be contacted at www.davemullinstennis.com

David’s key points for parents of talented tennis players

  • At 8 years old a child’s personal development is more important than winning tennis tournaments
  • Sometimes coaches forget that life is more than just tennis
  • Goals for someone of this child’s age should mostly be centred around his technical development and his enjoyment of training and competition
  • The ITF recommends that junior players maintain a 2:1 win/loss ratio. So, when choosing tournaments to enter think about where your child will get competitive matches that will allow them to maintain this 2:1 ratio. Essentially, tournaments are “right” if they maintain that win/loss ratio.

How to Train Young Talented Tennis Players

I received this letter from a concerned tennis parent:

My son is 8-year-old. He plays tennis at an academy 4 times a week. The coaches are young and ambitious and the academy exists for about 3-4 years. My son started playing tournaments with 7y and started to win quite quickly. Everything went quite fast, before his 8th birthday he was given an adult racket (265 gr) and soon afterwards they changed from green to yellow balls.

In February he was advised to play U12 tournaments. First, he was able to win the first match but since spring he‘s loosing only, no matter who he is playing against. There is no following-up after the matches. I tried to discuss but was told that it‘s my fault he‘s loosing due to the fact, that I’ve chosen the wrong tournaments. He now started again after the summer break (4 weeks) and played another U12 tournament chosen by one of the coaches but the result (a loss) was the same). They advise now to keep on playing tournaments (the more the better) but to go back to U10. Since may he played tournaments 2-3 weekends a month (with no effect on his performance in my opinion).

Now they want to go on with this, saying that at some point he will start to win again. My son is a fighter and always wants to do everything (also in school) as good as possible. He‘s disappointed about his results in tennis but doesn’t want to show it. He‘s working hard. I fear, that the coaches do not know what they are really doing and that my child loses his self-esteem totally. Can you pls help?! The target from the academy for my son is to play top 5 in his age group in Switzerland. What would you suggest in this situation?

I know that many parents who have young talented tennis players more or less ask the same questions. So, I asked our tennis expert David Mullins to give his advice on the topic.

It sounds like your son has been on quite a “tennis journey” already and there is a lot going on. Due to your child’s talent and rapid improvement, it is possible the coaches have maybe lost track of the fact that your son is only 8 years old. I have no doubt they want what is best for his tennis development but ultimately his personal development is far more important and sometimes coaches forget that life is more than just tennis.

Having a target to be top 5 in Switzerland for his age group appears to be a very unnecessary goal for a player so young. The goals for someone his age should mostly be centred around his technical development and his enjoyment of training and competition. It appears that it has all become very serious very quickly. If he sticks with the sport there will be plenty of time for all that serious stuff!

In terms of what competition to play it doesn’t matter so much the age category but it does matter how many competitive matches he plays (meaning the final result is in doubt). If he is winning too easily or losing too easily then he may not be seeing many of the benefits that competition offers. The ITF recommends that junior players participate in about 100 competitive matches per year, and that the player maintains a 2:1 win/loss ratio.

So when entering him in tournaments, think about where he will get competitive matches that will allow him to maintain this 2:1 ratio. He also does not need to be playing 100 matches at his age, maybe shoot for 50. If he is losing a lot then he may start to compromise his technique and look for short cuts to win which will have longer-term implications.

Don’t worry about top 5 rankings or any other targets such as these, they are quite irrelevant at this point in his development. It sounds like he loves to play the sport and that is where the emphasis should be, not on some arbitrary number. If his ratio is backwards right now, 1 win for every 2 losses, then you need to find him so lower level tournaments where he can get this moving in the right direction as long as he is enjoying competition. If he is not enjoying it then take a break and come back to it later in the year, I assure you that there is no rush, and that it is much better to take a long-term view of these things rather than looking for a quick fix.

Thanks for the question, I hope it was helpful, if you need any further input you can just email me at davemullinstennis@gmail.com and I will do my best to help.

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The BIG move: red to orange!

This week I summarise the physiological challenges that a we need to consider for players when they move from red to orange!
As a coach, you know that the move from red to orange is a big deal. It isn’t not only the children themselves that are keen to move along; parents love to see their children making progress! But the issue is, are we rushing to move players from red to orange before they are ready?

Below is a high-level overview of what the change means to children. This post is an update of a longer article that we wrote in 2015.

Court area

Depending on which manual or guidelines you read, the red court is about 93% of the size of the red court That’s a lot more court for the child to cover, particularly if the child hasn’t grown very much during the season.

Court width

The small increase in court width from the red court to the orange court should not present many challenges for young players. However, movement requires coordination and therefore has to be taught and learnt. Young players need to learn to move laterally to arrive near the ball in a balanced set up. As coaches, we should spend a lot of time teaching players to receive the oncoming ball, move and prepare, strike and recover.

Court length

This is a big jump; the orange court is 3 – 3.5m longer at each end. This means that an awful lot suddenly changes in the way that a young child needs to play the game. Players will be facing:

  1. A longer court – The court is longer, so the player (helped by moving to a 25 inch racket) needs a longer and faster swing to propel the ball the additional distance to keep the opponent at the back of the court.
  2. Higher contact points – higher trajectories and greater racket speed (used to achieve the greater distance required) will mean higher bounces, which, coupled with the slight increase in compression of many orange balls, results in higher average contact points.
  3. More top-spin –the extra length of the orange court and greater racket head acceleration means that players will need to start developing topspin on groundstrokes.
  4. Greater distance to the net – the distance is significantly more than on the red court,  so young children are unlikely to find it easy to get close to the net.

The ball

  1. Orange balls are smaller so they travel faster. They have slightly greater compression than the red ball, so they fly and bounce a little faster too.
  2. At orange, as the players face more offensive opponents, the range of contact points widens, as players look at attack more and are required to defend more.
  3. Players will have to play from well behind the baseline when the opponent plays high and deep. Remember the easiest way to get the ball to travel the extra distance of the longer orange court is still to hit the ball higher! 

Height of the net

A red net should be 80 cms high. Given that the orange game is played on regular courts with lines added, many coaches forget to lower the net to the same 80 cms (or can’t due to an absence of net winders!). This affects the offensive possibilities with the serve and therefore the tactical intentions:

  1. Greater serving distance to the opponents’ service box – the new orange player probably hasn’t grown proportionally as much as the increase in the distance to the opponents’ service box and the height of the contact point on the serve.
  2. Opportunity for offensive serves – a net height of 80 cms allows players ready for the challenge, to create angles on wide serves, even when the extra distance of the orange baseline is taken into account. Children who aren’t technically proficient on the serve will struggle to build or attack with the serve. Worse still, if the net is too high, the player may try to find a false solution by turning back to a forehand grip on the serve.