USTA Northern Arizona hosted two events on Saturday June 29th at Prescott High School tennis courts. From 8-11 a.m. a “Train the Trainers” included 10 coaches from NAZ, and USTA’s Coach Developer Tracy Lawson led the instruction. Following the USTA orange and green ball curriculum, coaches had a chance to practice coaching using different progressions and regressions for working with young athletes.
On court training was first followed by a classroom session explaining why the curriculum is so important to get tennis athletes off to a correct start in their tennis journey. We had coaches from Prescott, Flagstaff, Verde Valley, and Lake Havasu in attendance in hopes that these coaches will be better prepared to work with their students.
The second part of the day was the Early development camp. With 11 kids registered, coaches were able to implement the EDC curriculum strategies with these players. Split by age and ball color, there were two groups. Orange ball training was led by Andrea Meyer and green ball training was led by Andrew Maurer. Both these coaches took the lead while Tracy Lawson took parents to the parent training in a classroom setting.
After the training, kids were given a break and met back up with their parents to prepare for some friendly competition. Again competing in their respective ball colors, all the kids were able to play shortened format singles matches. This allowed them to use their new gained skills or ideas into competition immediately.
Shout out to our NAZ participants who were awarded at the end of the day. Bryce Walker of Prescott took 2nd place in the orange ball competition. Liam Mackey from the Verde Valley was awarded the overall sportsmanship award. Thanks to all who participated and made this event a great success!