Carol Maclennan

The NWTO is on a mission!

The mission of the NWTO is to promote women’s age-level tennis, wellness and sportsmanship at the local, sectional, national and international level. In order to fulfill this goal, we need more support from the USTA.

With that in mind, last August the NWTO board created a special task force. This task force, headed by Nell Sale, was formed to investigate what each USTA section is doing to promote and support age-level competition. The task force is made up of Nell, Lou Armstrong, Teresa Merklin, Judy Dixon, Andrea Barnes and Betsy Kuhle as well as several volunteer section liaisons.

Initially the task force created a 10 question survey. The volunteer liaisons then interviewed their respective section’s adult competition managers. From the results, it is evident there is a serious lack of uniformity and great disparity when it comes to support for adult age-based competition. This appears to be an issue at all levels from local to sectional and up to National. Some sections vigorously support adult age-level tournaments while other sections have no adult competition other than USTA leagues. One clear conclusion after reviewing the surveys was learning that many of the section leaders and coordinators knew nothing about NWTO. To enlighten them about our organization and our mission, they will be included in the NWTO monthly newsletter distribution.

The next step is to decide how to best use the information gathered. Suggestions include enlisting the help of the National Senior Men’s Tennis Association, asking the USTA to create an adult competition pathway similar to the one they created for junior competition and finally, to engage a tennis legend such as Billie Jean King as an influencer on behalf of age-based competition. When I was first approached about joining the task force as a liaison, I was skeptical about our ability to make a difference. But as the project develops, my hopes are high that we can make a major impact on adult age-level competition. 

As Billie Jean King recalled when talking about The Original Nine, “We were in big trouble if we wanted to keep playing tennis. We weren’t sure about our destiny, but we knew it was in our hands for the first time” (Credit to www.wtatennis.com – Looking back on the Original Nine)

Adult age-based competition could be in big trouble if we don’t lobby for more support from the USTA and yes, I believe it’s in our hands!