Jumping Divisions Can Help Juniors Leapfrog Competition

Should I stay or should I go?

It’s a question a lot of the top junior tennis players have been asking themselves lately, and many are choosing to go--up into a higher age division, that is.

Last week at the USTA Girls’ 16s Super Nationals in San Diego, four of the top eight players were not there because they were playing the girls’ 18s in San Jose. And many of the best players in San Diego actually could have played the girls’ 14s in College Park, Ga. In fact, the champion of the San Diego tournament was 14-year-old Jamea Jackson of Fairburn, Ga.

Why such a rush to grow up? It all comes down to competition, according to Newport Beach 16-year-old Natalie Braverman, who played in the girls’ 18 nationals.

“I don’t want to be the top two in an age group,” Braverman said. “I want to play people better than me. You’re not going to get better playing people at your same level. I’ve always moved up a division, ever since I started playing the 10s when I was 7.”

Braverman, who was ranked 36th nationally and seventh in Southern California last year in the girls’ 16, didn’t advance past the second round in San Jose. But she proved she belonged with the big girls. Braverman was two points away from knocking off top-seeded Alyssa Cohen of Parkland, Fla., but she lost, 2-6, 7-7 (7-4), 6-1.

“I’d much rather lose to the top-seeded player in the second round of 18s and learn something and know that I’m improving my game,” Braverman said. “That would be better than winning the 16s.”

Lindsey Nelson, who will be a freshman at Villa Park this fall, could have played the 14s--she doesn’t turn 15 until November. But Nelson felt she had nothing left to prove in the 14s, where she was first in Southern California and 11th nationally last year.

“All the girls ahead of me moved up, so I pretty much had to go too,” she said. “It’s a lot of fun to have a really tough match. You don’t really want to get bored.”

It appears Nelson made the right choice. She is ranked fourth in Southern California and 39th nationally in the 16s. But her national ranking will undoubtedly improve after a round-of-16 showing in San Diego last week. Nelson was defeated, 6-2, 6-4, by Jackson, the eventual champion.

“‘It gave me confidence to know that I had a couple chances to win a set off a player who is that good,” Nelson said. “She’s got a really clean game. She hits a lot of top spin, she moves you around and she’s really smart. I learned that I need to try to hit with more top spin.”

Anaheim’s Tracy Lin, a 13-year-old, tried a different strategy. She played the 16s in many local tournaments, but she chose to stay in the 14s for the nationals and the Southern California Junior Sectionals. Caroline Lin, Lin’s mother and coach, said a jump to the 16s nationally would have been too dramatic.

“Tracy played the 12s last year,” she said. “I couldn’t jump her to the 16s.”

But Lin’s only competition in the 14s came nationally. Locally, Lin did not a set in the 14s. Last week , the fourth-seeded Lin lost in the finals of the girls’ 14s to fifth-seeded Polina Zaretser of Brooklyn, N.Y., 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.

Lin, who turns 14 Sept. 26, could play another year of the 14s. But she will play with the 16-year-olds in the national tournaments and with the 18-year-olds in some local tournaments.

“It’s easier for a lot of these kids to play up,” Caroline Lin said. “They’re not supposed to win. You’re free-swinging without much pressure. It’s tougher to do that when you’re protecting your [high] ranking and you’re not supposed to lose.”

Eliot Teltscher, the USTA’s regional coach for Southern California, said he isn’t bothered by all the movement. “Seventy percent of the people that move up are probably doing the right thing,” he said. “It’s like weight lifting. There is a point where people need to move up in weight.”

But Teltscher said some juniors play in higher divisions for the wrong reasons.

“In some cases, people are moving up to avoid the pressure,” he said. “They don’t want to take a chance of losing to someone their own age or even younger.”

Most of the movement is occurring in girls’ age divisions.

“The girls will mature much faster than boys,” he said. “Martina Hingis won the French Open Juniors [which is open to 18-year-olds] at 12. It’s impossible for a guy to do.”

KIM’S WILD DAYS

Fullerton’s Kevin Kim won his first match in a main ATP Tour event Monday night when he defeated David Caldwell, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, in the first round of the $725,000 Legg Mason Classic in Washington, D.C. Tuesday, the former Sunny Hills High and UCLA standout learned he had received a wild card into the main draw of the U.S. Open. Kim, ranked 154th, earned the wild card based on his point total on the USTA Challenger Circuit.

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