TOURNAMENTS
We encourage our athletes to participate in as many Tournaments as their schedule allows. Tournaments for all levels of play. Tournaments give athletes an opportunity to develop their strategic game, as well as continuing to advance their stroke/production skills. USTA Tournaments As a guideline in Texas, a previous Challenger Level player might sign up for a Level 7, 1 day tournament or a Level 6, 2 day tournament. A Champs level player might sign up for a Level 5 or 6 tournament. As your child plays more tournaments, it will become more obvious which levels are appropriate. For Levels 6 and higher, the highest ranked players who are registered will get in to the tournament. A “Closed” Tournament is only for Texas players. An “Open” Tournament allows players from any Section to register. To sign up for a tournament, go to: playtennis.usta.com. At the top put in your Player Category (Junior 18), Location (zip code) and Date Range. Hit “Search” and tournaments will be listed. You can filter the results by scrolling down and putting in gender, age range, distance and event type. Rankings can be found on the same website. Two additional links which provide greater detail about the new system include: https://www.usta.com/en/home/stay-current/texas/2021-junior-structure-in-texas.html https://www.usta.com/en/home/play/youth-tennis/programs/national/junior-competitive-structure-changes-2021.html UTR Tournaments The UTR system is a global rating system that promotes fair and competitive play across the tennis world. It was devised in order to encourage and facilitate matches between similarly rated players. This led to the development of a truly “universal” rating system and methodology—now called the Universal Tennis Rating System– that is based on principles not found in other tennis rating systems. All players, regardless of age, gender, geography or skill level are rated on the same scale between 1 and 16.50 based on actual match results. Tournaments are for all ages and genders. Many High School programs have seen the benefits using the UTR platform. Tryouts, dual matches and tournaments are now all run through UTR which provided a clear organized basis for results that are thus used for district and regional UIL tournaments. Clements High School offers our own Jr UTR Circuit in which we host one event a month, these events have become popular with Houston based Jr's as they are well run and competitive match play. For more information and to sign up for a tournament, please see the UTR Events page. |