Competitors at Rafa Nadal Academy get UTRs
Craig Lambert
This spring, the new Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca, Spain will host a big tennis event for some of the youngest tournament players anywhere. From March 25 through 31, the Ten-Pro Global Junior Tour will stage the first of its seven 2017 events there, for preteens aged 10-12, the largest group aged 10 years or less.
Ten-Pro founder and CEO Goran Novakov expects 396 entries, with the largest draw including 128 junior tennis players and others with 32 or 64. “We are a small Grand Slam,” he says. “Everything that happens at a Grand Slam happens with us as well. We not only organize the event, but set up flights, hotels, food, and give the players all types of assistance. We make it easier to participate by having everything professionally arranged.” Like Grand Slams, Ten-Pro tourneys, launched in 2014, welcome male and female players, although unlike them, the competition is limited to singles.
Entering and traveling to a week-long contest of this type is obviously a significant undertaking for tennis families, and Ten-Pro makes sure the young athletes don’t have a “one and done” experience. “You play almost every day,” Novakov says. “Depending on the draw, you are guaranteed four or eight matches.” Consolation draws are a variation on the compass-draw format that aims for competitive matches after the first-round shakeout. All Ten-Pro results go to Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) system to help build the ratings of some of the youngest rated tennis players in the world. (To be sure, Ten-Pro events do not provide the level-based play seen at tournaments that use UTRs for selection and for constructing and/or seeding draws. Ten-Pro divides competitors by age and sex categories, not level of tennis skill.)
Ten-Pro’s 2017 lineup also has events scheduled in Holland (where Ten-Pro is based), Germany, Belgium, Turkey, France, and the United States. The second-largest tournament after the Rafa Academy event will take place at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Nice, France, from October 28 to November 4. This academy was founded by Patrick Mouratoglou, the French coach who rose to prominence as mentor to Serena Williams. The Ten-Pro competitions are one place you might first see the next Serena—or Rafa.
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