The UGLY Side

As you may know, we are now in our 5th year of participating at 25+ junior tournaments each year and we love it (honest, we really do) but I must now tell you about the UGLY side of our job. While researching "My One Suggestion To Improve Junior Tennis Is...," the #1 response from tennis professionals was regarding bad behavior on the part of tennis parents and, though we don't know precisely why that is, we can probably take an educated guess. We include this information here ONLY to accurately record our observations and please remember that THE LAST THING we want to do is generate any controversy whatsoever. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT.


Over these past years, our cameras have seen ugliness we never would have believed possible. Can you imagine that we actually heard a parent repeatedly and loudly yelling this (at the tournament staff): "He may be a cheater but he's MY cheater!!!" Or how about another parent who shouted across two courts to her son to stop playing because the ref didn't understand the rules of tennis. We also stood inches away from another parent who literally chased down a female official and emphatically pointed at that official and screamed 'GET OVER THERE - NOW!" It makes us sick to our stomach when we observe parents who accuse tournament officials of racism and preferential treatment. And we were flabbergasted when we saw an angry parent demand that the tournament director take immediate action to correct the game penalty that cost her child a match. This woman was so clearly out of line and everyone knew it...However, we observed the same identical thing just one week later with a different parent at a different tournament in a different state. To make matters even worse, the player's younger siblings are often standing nearby - watching, listening, and absorbing what they see. How can otherwise rational parents start out with such good intentions - and then those same people lose their perspective...? I am certainly not here to judge anyone but I have to wonder what in the world are they THINKING?!?!?


But nothing prepared us for the treatement that we observe after the match is over. We really wish parents would stop and think before they humiliate their children after they lose but we've observed and overheard comments like this way too many times: "We spend too much money on your training for you to play like that." And we just can't avoid the awful topic of players who are physically abused by a parent after the match. We've never witnessed it personally, but we have heard about it more than once. In fact, we were recently informed by the concerned parent of another child that a certain parent had punched his son in the face in the parking lot and the child was now screaming inside a parked car. It was so upsetting...but we couldn't do a single thing about it except mention it to the tournament director. Certainly we'll never look at that father in the same way again and my heart breaks for the unimaginable pressure that child must live with every single day of his life. HOW SAD...


I could go on and on (and ON)...but I think the point is clear: There are sooo many wonderful aspects of junior tennis; unfortunately, there's also an ugly side...A reeeally, reeeeally UGLY side. We see this ugly side ALL THE TIME...And if you've spent any time whatsoever at a junior tennis tournament, I bet you have too. So the question is twofold - What can be done about this and is anybody listening?????