In 2022-2023, a Task Force of the Board of the NWTO completed a 10-question survey of 16 of the 17 Sections of the USTA (all but the Caribbean). The newsletter will be publishing the results of the survey, one question at a time. Learn more about this initiative here.

QUESTION 10:  What challenges do you see in increasing adult tennis participation and player satisfaction and how do you think the NWTO can work with your Section to increase more adult age-level tournament competition and/or adult playing opportunities and player satisfaction? 

Florida: USTA Florida would welcome any support. They would love to partner with NWTO in any way possible as they feel both organizations have the same goal and face the same challenges. Lifestyle plays a big challenge for younger women, especially those with children. That’s why the one and two-day tournaments are becoming so popular. Others don’t want to play against “elite” level players when they are only 3.5’s or 4.0’s. Florida has seen a steady growth in players from men and women, mostly in league play. Their goal is to keep them playing whether it’s league, NTRP or age-based tournaments.

Midwest:  Send them marketing stuff that is ready for them to distribute. Toby thinks they might be able to send direct emails to league registered players.

Intermountain: Would like to know more about the NWTO. The USTA does not distinguish the tournaments that it lists by NTRP or age-based play.

Southern California: Bridge the gap between league and tournament players:

• More tournament directors and organizations involved

• More activities from providers 

• Tournament Director education

• Benefits of adding more tournaments and particularly Level 7s

• Player promotion and education on what's available and why tournaments are great experiences

• Court space - organization involvement- getting clubs to run tournaments

Texas: They share common challenges: educating players about the playing opportunities of senior women's tennis, reaching the huge untapped potential of league players, and tapping players who are not engaged at all with competitive play.

Southern: Milly sees a need for USTA adult branding. As a former tour professional, she is looking at it from the standpoint of what type of events she might have interest in playing. As the mother of two small children, she is having a hard time picturing herself having the time to play week long tournaments. She is hoping that the new World Tennis Number (WTN) will help in tracking players so that players are not lost and that they can be recaptured when they have more time to play. This is one of the most reasonable comments I have ever heard from a USTA staff member! I doubt that USTA would share the data from WTN with our organization so I am not sure whether this info would be of value to us. I don't know if the USTA would be open to NWTO and NSMTA helping to develop an adult pathway similar to the junior pathway or not but it might be worth offering.

New England:  The biggest challenge on the tourney side is USTA league. Another challenge is getting word out that there are other events. They need to give tournaments more exposure.  Enhance what they’re doing and promote what they have. They would love the opportunity to promote New England events on the NWTO tourney schedule and site.

Northern California: Finding good facilities that adult age-group tournament players like going to... They have found that high schools or parks without good bathrooms tend to attract very few players in this space.

Southwest: Our conversation straddled the general issue of increasing adult participation in tournaments in the Southwest Section. Matt is very much in favor of this, even though he has seen problems with getting it going. In general, as a result of the conversation, Matt will be using the same age brackets in all adult age-based tournaments to simplify it, give more support to establishing teams to compete in Intersectionals and hopefully give more publicity to the rankings of adult players who are in this Section.

Northern: They are reaching a point in their competitive adult space that they won’t be able to continue to grow if they lose any more indoor courts. Getting late match times after 9:00 pm is getting very old for the players, and we lose players every year to this. They think there is growth potential in our social/recreation space and have put a lot of time and effort into this area. Their section has a Women’s Coaches group to help strategize getting more women’s coaches in the industry and I think that group and the NWTO could work together.

Hawaii: One challenge they face is the perfect weather they have year-round!  So there is plenty of opportunity for people to do outdoor activities and so they face competition with other sports, activities and things to do other than tennis.

Another challenge is the high cost of travel in Hawaii. 

Another challenge is that facilities such as private resorts and/or clubs with tennis courts do not necessarily find it financially feasible to host tournaments, and it is difficult for them to host tournaments.

As far as how the NWTO could work with us to support adult tennis:

• Share knowledge of what works in other sections, especially in the smaller sections. Help us not to “reinvent the wheel” by sharing “best practices”.  For example, what kind of events are being implemented that are/can be successful at smaller facilities of 4 courts or fewer?

• Share a marketing database. Include tournaments available.

MidAtlantic:  They don’t always know who the players are in order to be able to build a relationship and determine appropriate events. The other challenge is the providers who host are often hosting to meet the needs of their specific club, which often is NTRP, not age-division focused.

Missouri Valley: The tournament and league calendars are already very busy. The summer calendar is packed every weekend. There is one Section-level tournament scheduled in September. October-February play is sparse because of the weather. There is some indoor play.

After reading the above, do you have any recommendations or suggestions on how Adult Competition is best handled?  Please provide your feedback to Info @NWTO.us. We encourage you to reach out to your Section contacts with concerns or feedback:

Eastern – Lynn Buffamonti  buffamonti@eastern.usta.com
Florida – Christine Ducey  ducey@ustaflorida.com
Hawaii – Sara Yoshinaga  yoshinaga@hawaii.usta.com
Intermountain – Monica Haller-Bradley  mhaller@ita.usta.com
Mid-Atlantic – Rachel Kros  kros@mas.usta.com
Middle States – Mary Wurtz  Wurtz@ms.usta.com
Midwest – Toby Gaynor  toby@midwest.usta.com
Missouri Valley – Scott Howes  howes@movalley.usta.com
New England – Shawna Fors   shawna.fors@newengland.usta.com
Northern – Taylor Heltne  taylor@northern.usta.com
Northern California – Joanna Broda-Schnuk jbroda-schunck@norcal.usta.com
Pacific Northwest – Matthew Warren  mwarren@pnw.usta.com
Southern – Milagros Sequera Huss  sequera@sta.usta.com
Southern California – Anthony Shirley    ashirley@scta.usta.com
Southwest – Matt Gleason  gleason@southwest.usta.com
Texas – Veronica Nicholls  nicholls@texas.usta.com
Caribbean – Angela Vargas  adults@cta.usta.com

Learn more about this initiative here.

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