The missteps of cheating in junior tennis

Why do junior tennis players cheat in tennis? This topic came up recently when I attended a USTA Nor. Cal. Coaches Summit. The presenters for the summit included USTA Director of Coaching, Jose Higueres. Other presenters were Kent Kinnear, Director of Player I.D. & Development, Paul Lubbers, Director of Coaching Education and Geoff Russell, Manager of Player I.D. and Development. What lead to our discussion of cheating was a panel discussion about the drop out rate in competitive junior tennis being consistent with the trends of many other sports. Sport participation tends to drop off around age thirteen which is developmentally a critical time for social skills and self-esteem.

Many studies of why children drop out of sports cite the following reasons:

1) The sport is no longer fun.
2) The child moved on to other athletic interests.
3) Coach played favorites or was a poor teacher.
4) As the child moves up in age group specialization and year round training required too much commitment to remain competitive.

Rarely was combating cheating and gamesmanship listed as to why a child drops out of sport. Yet, as a USPTA Elite tennis coach and Sport Counseling Consultant, when I talk with juniors about their competitive play, the issues around cheating are typically a large part of their overall match feedback. When I brought up the issue of cheating in junior tennis as a reason juniors leave the sport, the USTA panel acknowledged that, as they travel around the nation talking with coaches, this topic was a major issue.

I believe that when a more player friendly environment is created by lowering the variety of ways cheating in junior tennis occurs, it can significantly increase the retention rate of this “sport of a lifetime.” There are endless creative ways that juniors use to shift matches by. Some of these include:

1) Deliberating calling balls out that are in during pivotal points during a match.
2) Faked injury time-outs which break-up the momentum of the player who is winning.
3) Bathroom breaks in the middle of a set if the player is losing. Why are bathrooms breaks allowed in the middle of a set instead of when the set is over?
4) Entourages bullying an opponent. Talking to either player by anyone outside the court besides a referee is prohibited.
5) Deliberately hitting a ball over the fence to break match momentum.
6) Changing the flip score cards to the wrong set score during change overs.
7) Not announcing the game score after points, then when questioned about the score saying the wrong score favoring themselves.
8) Parent or coach illegally signaling from the side-lines.

Where are the referees one might ask? Tennis tournaments do have referees but, unlike other sports where only one game is happening at a time, a tennis tournament may have only two roving referees available to monitor four or more courts at a time. When a referee is called to a court to work out a dispute the referee typically only stays long enough to hear the complaint, get the match restarted and stand there for a few points before being called away to monitor another match. Players often report that when the referee walks away the cheating and gamesmanship tactics resume. I believe junior players have enough on their plate playing the game without adding the distraction of cheating.

Parents of players who don’t cheat have become more vocal sharing their disappointment in how the USTA hasn’t stepped up enough to protect young players so they can focus on playing. The parents are upset that their child works hard practicing and playing and when they get to the tournament spend too much time engaged in arguing about line call disputes and needing to call referees over to monitor their matches.

An article titled “Is Cheating Ruining the Game,” by USPTA Tennis Pro Blair Henley addressed this issue. Many parents wrote in to express their thoughts after reading the article. Here are just some of the comments by parents:

“The USTA needs to be like golf and have a zero tolerance for cheating and keep suspending kids and stop listening to parents who say, let the kids figure it out. Some kids are bullies and usually their parents are too.”

Another parent who plays competitive tennis wrote, “Coming from a soccer, baseball, basketball, background, to not have refs at tournaments seems crazy! I won’t be introducing my daughter to tournaments for a long time simply because I believe cheating will take all of the fun out of tennis. I have played a couple of cheaters before and even if I win the cheating drained most of the fun out of the match. So I will try and prepare her for the cheating aspect of the game but I don’t want her dealing with it on a regular basis.”

“I invited some friends to a Level 1 tournament to watch my daughter play in the 12’s two years ago. First junior tournament for them and they were shocked. The amount of cheating and the inability for the cheated player to stop it had them asking me, ”What the heck are you doing this for? Soccer, softball, volleyball, basketball are so much more enjoyable. ”

With the expense of participation in tennis, which includes lessons, tournament fees, equipment, and travel expenses, it not unlikely that with all the other sport choices parents will steer their kids into easier to navigate sport environments. Even though youth sport referees are not always accurate at least they are present and serve to manage the games environments.

For a moment let’s think about the pressure unsupervised players experience when competing in tennis. In a research article titled “You Can’t Be Serious, That Ball Was IN: An Investigation of Junior Tennis Cheating Behavior” Jonathan Cooper, who had been a competitive junior player and a teaching professional, hypothesized that cheating in junior tennis is a result of three influences, the coach, the parent and the personal desire of the junior to win.

Under coach pressure, findings from Cooper’s research indicated that coaches who focused on performance, for example, winning is the most important thing vs. mastery, the focus being on improving skills predicated cheating behavior. The research indicates that ongoing exposure to coaching that emphasizes winning motivates a player to cheat.

The second pressure in Cooper’s research paper was identified as the parent. Robert Giltinan, a junior coach for the Australian National Tennis Association, was quoted in Cooper’s research paper as saying, “The link comes mainly from the parents. Generally ten-year old kids don’t go out there to cheat, they go out there to play the sport and have fun. They are not out there to try to cheat. It’s just that they get pressures from home.”

The third pressure on the player identified in Cooper’s study was personal expectations for high performance and the stress associated with competing. If the player perceives that the match outcome is vital for the future of their career it can lead to cheating as a way to not have the let down and trauma of losing.

People who play and understand the game of tennis know what a great game it is. Most parents are well aware that the probability of their child becoming a touring professional is very slim. What most parents do want for their children is the opportunity for their child to enjoy the benefits of learning the game, developing their skills to the best of their abilities and participating in a competitive environment that allows for accurate feedback of those skills. In the current culture of the sport at the junior level things need to change. Referring back to the comments from parents in the Blair Henley article it is easy to see that there are many good ideas for helping to make this change. Suggestions for reform include:

“The USTA makes 200+ million in revenue during the U.S. Open alone, it seems reasonable that they might cover the cost of additional officials at junior tournaments.”
I would add to this, at all junior tournaments, not just the higher tier tournaments need more officiating.”

“The USTA implements mandatory parental meetings to inform parents of parental codes of conduct then empowers tournament directors and officials to enforce the rules of that conduct during tournaments.”

A parent also suggested that a Public Relations team should be hired to implement a sportsmanship award that is voted on by players and referees. The winner would be able to waive the next tournament fee, or be given a USTA stipend to provide an incentive to parents as well.

It would also be useful to educate referees at the junior level more adequately. A common complaint by players and parents is that when a player calls a referee to a match the referee doesn’t always seem to know how to handle situations. There are many incidents of referees being influenced by input from the cheating player or a parent. The ref would be more credible if there was a stronger mandatory system in place for their education. Something similar to a USPTA or USPTR rating for the refs skill level would be useful. It would be an easy task for referees to keep up to date by taking on-line course work provided by the USTA.

Last, this is a wonderful opportunity for the WTA, ATP, USPTA, USTA, USPTR to utilize their resources to reset the culture of the sport. During televised tournaments have well known tour players, collegiate players and coaches appear in public service announcements talking about behavior and values that our sport wishes to promote. Create public service announcements that address guidelines for junior players and parents. Shape cheating into an uncool thing to do. It could be quite a creative campaign with well-known players and coaches talking about the benefits of not cheating. For example, players who don’t cheat have more confidence in their skills and ability to perform at higher levels when people are watching.

Cheaters are not the majority in the game of tennis, but they are disruptors and create enough discomfort for others that it can influence whether a player chooses to continue in the sport. A ten year old has enough to think about and react to without dealing with the shenanigans that to some have become recognized as the “norm” of competition. Let’s make an effort to change the culture of junior tennis so that it reflects the values of competition and fairness that are important for the sport and for the development of young players.

*This article can also be read @ examiner