USPTA GA Fall Newsletter

USPTA Georgia Fall Newsletter 2022 2022 Winter Convention We are looking forward to our next USPTA GA Winter workshop and Annual Awards meeting, which will be held on Friday, December 2, 2022, at beautiful Atlanta Athletic Club. We have a great speaker line-up of topics, as well as our headline speaker, Luke Jensen.

Our speakers include Dave Dvorak, Executing Large Events, Seth Redelheim, Cardio Tennis to the Max, Tim Smith, understanding how to manage and grow Pickleball and Open Play, and Luke Jensen, talking about Progressions with Juniors Start to FinishFrom a young age to an upper level collegiate/pro level player and Taking your League Teams from Competitive to Dominating.

We will also have a wonderful lunch overlooking the golf courts and awarding all the great efforts that our many wonderful professionals have put in this year in Georgia of USPTA Southern.

USTA GA is also offering a program to help uncertified pros became certified with a grant to offset the cost of the certification process. Please pass this information on to anyone you might know who is interested.

CERTIFICATION GRANT OPPORTUNITY PLEASE BECOME AMBASSADORS AND SPREAD THE WORD TO THOSE TEACHING PROFESSIONALS WHO HAVE NOT YET BEEN CERTIFIED. USTA-GEORGIA'S TENNIS PROFESSIONALS COMMITTEE IS OFFERING A SPECIAL GRANT TO THOSE NON-CERTIFIED TENNIS TEACHING PROFESSIONALS IN GEORGIA WHO SEEK AND OBTAIN CERTIFICATION EITHER THROUGH USPTA OR PTR. THE GRANT IS ONLY FOR NEW CERTIFICATIONS. ALL DETAILS ARE INCLUDED IN THE BELOW JOTFORM LINK APPLICATION BELOW. SPECIFICALLY, PLEASE READ THE GRANT CRITERIA AND BENEFITS OF CERTIFICATION AS WELL AS COMPLETING AND SUBMITTING THE AP-

PLICATION.

https://form.jotform.com/220894744804059

I'm the most successful bad player ever.

Andy Roddick

The key to the match might have been his serving. Maybe I should have concentrated harder on watching them go by me, I don't know.

Andy Roddick

Universal Tennis Acadmey’s (UTA) Spanish Adventure

Special Tennis Adventure

For many competitive tennis players, it’s a dream to train on the world renowned Spanish red clay, and for some UTA players it became a reality. In June, eighteen UTA players aged 11-18 traveled to La Nucia, Spain to train for two weeks at Academia Tennis Ferrer, the academy of former world no. 4 David Ferrer. The players were accompanied by their UTA coaches Noel Wadawu, Tim Noonan, and Liam Villante, but had trained under the eyes of coaches such as Juan Marti and Andrew Richardson, former coach of U.S Open winner Emma Raducanu.

Alongside UTA players were players from across the globe also training. Some were full time students and players of the academy, while others were also there visiting to train.

Training was Monday through Friday with two 3-hour sessions, morning and afternoon. Of the three hours, time was split between physical conditioning while the other half of time was on-court hitting and training. On-court training focused heavily on repetition of strokes whether by hand feeding or live ball control drills. Since Fridays were designated for point and match play, there was minimal point play during Monday-Thursday practices.

The tennis was not the only incredible experience of the trip, as the weekend contained different immersive excursions. Saturday morning began with a 10-mile bike ride through the town and mountains, with the evening ending with a catamaran ride out in the Mediterranean. Sunday started with a visit to Altea, a beautiful ocean village, followed by off-road adventures through the mountains in Land Rovers. Other excursions on the trip included zip lining through the forest and swimming under waterfalls.

After two weeks of training hard and experiencing the wonders of Spain, the trip was set to end on July 2nd. Little did we know, the adventure was far from over. A worker’s strike at Charles de Gaulle left the airport in a state of chaos, causing hundreds of flights to be impacted. Goodbye, Spain… hello, Paris! With no immediate flights available for the group of 21, we were afforded two nights and one day to explore the City of Love. Favorite sights included Notre Dame, Arc de Triumph and the Eiffel Tower. Despite some luggage troubles on the return flight, the group was happy to be home and ready to hit the courts again. Biggest tennis takeaway from the trip: How we move to hit the ball is equally important to how we hit the ball. The best movers are the best players.— Liam Villante

What it is controlled cool, in a way. Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat."

- Arthur Ashe.

"Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome."

- Arthur Ashe.

The Right Approach—Rick Willett People have asked how do you all formulate and execute the ideas to assemble engaging and educational workshops?

It all starts with how well a group of board members collaborate and utilize their experiences. We are very fortunate this year to have five members with varying backgrounds and a sense of creativity to undertake the overall theme of a workshop. First, we derive our proof of concept which is the genesis of organizing all the discussions and ideas narrowing them down to what will be the theme of the workshop.

We all come together to discuss how to develop a theme that is easy to remember and sequencing the presenters and presentations to communicate in different ways the points we are trying to get across. What becomes difficult is deciding on technical presentation or an entertaining presentation choosing a presenter that can adapt.

We found that it is productive to have a combination of both to keep your peers of tennis pros engaged, versus fighting your enemy which is their cellphone to text and distract.

Our spring workshop was the theme of Preparing for ALTA Season. Matt Grayson, director at Ansley, Liam Villante, high performance coach at Blackburn, and Paul Bartholomai , Southern pro of the year led each presentation.

We served lunch and kept it at 90 minutes so each pro could learn some new concepts and get back to their jobs.

Developing a proof of concept with many ideas, choosing the most relevant tennis talks is a tough undertaking. You are presenting to your peers who know tennis as well as you do, so one needs to be precise. The Summer Workshop is a joint one with USPTA GA and GPTA to assemble a group of topics that appeal to both tennis organizations.

Heat is a major factor at the Summer Workshop at the Atlanta Open on a hard court surrounded by a large parking lot. The Summer 2021 Workshop was so hot I brought many ice packs and GPTA brought a cooler of water. We also had several tents for everyone to huddle under to get some shade.

This summer was much less heat intensive with our mission statement being Accelerate Teams and Lessons with presenters Scott Honig, Patrick Noelke, Bill Anderson, Alex Walker, and Ben Hestley.

One of the major keys to a successful Workshop is marketing and promotion. We use email E flyers, texts, and just began with StringPing Pulled way back on Facebook. Social media is tricky because each portal has its popularity. Our board is more accustomed to social media, so it will be constantly evolving. All the preparation and paid off because both of our Workshops have been sold out.

I highly recommend you volunteer in tennis giving back to a sport that’s given so much to each of us.

USPTA Georgia Board Dave Neuhart—President Rick Willett—Vice President Carmen Garcia-Jersild Liam Villante Tim Smith