The transition from an individual-oriented junior tennis to a potential career in college tennis can be challenging for some players. Although a summer tennis camp is not a prerequisite for recruitment, it can benefit players who are serious about pursuing the sport in college.
Some of the benefits of summer tennis camps on a college campus include making connections with various other tennis players, connecting with coaches and getting a feel of what college tennis would be like. The team atmosphere which these camps introduce can help a player develop on an individual level.
Apart from these obvious benefits, enrolling in a summer tennis camp in colleges can help coaches evaluate the various aspects of an individual’s game. This includes discipline, coachability, how well a player can adapt to a system and several other specific areas which a player might pass up on noticing otherwise. These camps provide coaches with ample time to assess and consider recruiting players based on the on-court performance of players.
On the other hand, players can also get an understanding of the requirements of coaches and the game. It allows them to mature into more fully developed players depending on whether they choose to be open to exposing their weaknesses as well as strengths to receive feedback from coaches.
It must be noted that coaches lay heavy emphasis on tournament experience and competitive play. This experience, paired with the summer coaching camps can prove to be a catalyst to being recruited. A player’s UTR rating is based on actual match results, and this is an essential factor in recruiting. An article notes that these camps alone cannot provide a way into college recruitment for aspiring tennis players. The article also lays stress on the importance of tournament experience which help get one’s ratings up. However, extra time with the coach at a camp might be a way to try to walk on to the team.
Camps are challenging in their own way. As mentioned earlier, coaches are given the time to gauge a player’s strengths and weaknesses in the long run. This is because camps focus on longer hours of consecutive play, whereas tournaments are held in shorter spans. This does not allow enough room for critical evaluation compared to summer camps, where the whole idea is to improve a player’s technique and master the skills required to win tournaments.
Apart from this, a coach can study a player’s attitude, mental fortitude and work ethic, which often pass unnoticed during tournaments. A camp is not a ticket to recruitment, but more of an opportunity for self-improvement where both coaches and players alike benefit from the common platform. To answer the question, players needn’t consider camps as the basis for tennis recruitment to colleges, although they may, in some cases help a player be recognised by coaches who are on the lookout for talent.
That being said, there are some camps which are solely meant to draw players to particular colleges. Players take part in these camps with the sole aim of getting selected to the college in which the camps are taking place. In the case of camps such as these, the objective is to find and recruit the best players around.
In most cases summer college camps do not serve as portals to recruitment, but in some, they are indeed looked as interviews before players are selected by colleges.
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