Determining JV/Varsity Tennis

[MSWR0319]

I think we have some HS tennis players here. I was just curious how your school decides who makes varsity and jv. This is our first year with tennis, and I know nothing about it. Our school uses a "ladder tournament" to determine. DS came home frustrated today because he played the worst he's ever played resulting in being much lower on the ladder than anticipated. He knows he can beat three of the kids ahead of him, but is now "stuck" lower and he doesn't even get a chance to play the kids he hasn't played yet. I understand the concept, it just seems a bit strange to place JV/V on one day of play when you don't even get to play everyone.

[georgiegirl]

Not sure, but there are several days of try outs. Boys have 40 players and top 10-12 make varsity. Not sure for girls. Ask me in a week and I’ll know details

[mmsmom]

We are at a private school that has middle school, JV & Varsity tennis for boys and girls. The numbers vary each year but usually there are not tryouts for middle school and everyone makes the team. For JV & Varsity, they do something similar to what you mentioned where they play matches to determine the teams. They also do drills and other activities and cuts are made as needed along the way. DS is a junior this year. He played all through middle school and played JV freshman year. He did not play last year due to a conflict with a science program he was doing. He missed the first 2 days of tryouts due to swim team still competing and having their championship meet (this is a conflict every year). Since the coach is also new and did not know DS he was told he would not make Varsity since he was not there for first 2 days. Part of it is the numbers this year. There was a freshman who played Varsity last year and did not make it this year. A few other Juniors did not make Varsity and chose to quit instead of playing JV. I’m proud of DS for sticking with it and playing JV… he is playing Line 1 doubles and is captain. The reality is if he played Varsity he would likely be playing exhibition matches only so it really is better for him. I do think the elimination style is common but usually they are also using drills and other methods to look at skills vs just how they may play for one match. Tryouts start with 3 days but go longer if needed. I think it took 5 days this year.

[mom2binsd]

Public high school, they had 4 days of tryouts, the last day was rained our, my friend said he son, a 9th grader was happy to make JV, selection was based on tryouts, judging on skill and drills not just match play.

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[AnnieW625]

Dd1’s team had maybe 14 players, but some schools had up to 25 or so players. The rules in SoCal tennis for varsity are: 1, 2, and 3 singles, and then 3 doubles teams. Everyone else plays JV.

The coach ranks the kids on a semi regular basis so there is no tryout essentially.

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[SnuggleBuggles]

]

The coach ranks the kids on a semi regular basis so there is no tryout essentially.

The sports mine have done have been like this. No formal tryouts.

[acmom]

I think we have some HS tennis players here. I was just curious how your school decides who makes varsity and jv. This is our first year with tennis, and I know nothing about it. Our school uses a "ladder tournament" to determine. DS came home frustrated today because he played the worst he's ever played resulting in being much lower on the ladder than anticipated. He knows he can beat three of the kids ahead of him, but is now "stuck" lower and he doesn't even get a chance to play the kids he hasn't played yet. I understand the concept, it just seems a bit strange to place JV/V on one day of play when you don't even get to play everyone.

I played HS and college tennis and we always had a preseason tournament that helped determine cuts (in HS) and beginning of the season playing rank (in both HS and college). I know our current HS coach does something similar. But in my team's case, everyone played everyone- at HS tryouts it was 4 games vs. each other person if I remember right. Then you added all your wins/losses and the cut line was based on that ranked order.

[elektra]

DD did 2 years of JV and then 1 year of Varsity at a large public school with a good tennis team.
This last year they did a camp kind of set up all summer and then had 2 specific try out days. I think the coaches had already made up their mind by the tryouts but I think the high school rules require a tryout in case a student athlete cannot do the whole summer camp thing.
There is quite a bit of seniority favoritism IMO, but that is what I have seen in high school athletics overall.
Determining who makes the team or who is on JV/Varsity most definitely not based on a single tournament. I had to google what a ladder tournament was. I do think the coaches use some head to head competition in practice to determine who gets to play on the match days though.

[AnnieW625]

The sports mine have done have been like this. No formal tryouts.

Yes but sometimes it doesn’t work that way. If my DD1 had played tennis at our home public high school (which is a few divisions higher than her high school) with zero experience as a freshman she still would’ve played JV and most likely would’ve played JV throughout high school. Dd1 was lucky and picked up the game easily and because of low numbers her freshman year was slated right into #3 doubles and played 1 and 2 doubles for half of sophomore year but then half way through one of the singles players had to switch to doubles because of a nagging wrist injury or something (so having a partner made it easier for her) and then she never looked back and played varsity singles through senior year. In public high school in our area she would’ve been years behind because kids here start tennis at age 4-5 and play consistently through high school (based on what her coaches, and other teammates have told me). It wouldn’t have been the same experience at all but it probably wouldn’t have been awful either; I just don’t think she would’ve picked up the love for it as easily as she did she has talked about playing intermural or club in college and if she was going to the local community college could play for their team per her HS coach). Again probably not the norm though because we chose to pay for high school (vs. public).

ETA: I also think things maybe different for Snuggle Buggles as well because your kid doesn’t go to the best high school in your area and therefore that demographic will be different as well. If DD2 all of a sudden decides she wants to play tennis high school (I don’t think she will!) I will encourage her to go to a different public high school in our city because it will be less competitive for tennis than the home high school due to not as being as prestigious in athletics (and DD1’s original tennis coach is at that school now).

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[acmom]

I played HS and college tennis and we always had a preseason tournament that helped determine cuts (in HS) and beginning of the season playing rank (in both HS and college). I know our current HS coach does something similar. But in my team's case, everyone played everyone- at HS tryouts it was 4 games vs. each other person if I remember right. Then you added all your wins/losses and the cut line was based on that ranked order.

I should have specified that I played at a fairly large public high school and our team was really good (typically won sectionals and had multiple players advance to states) so there were always cuts and always a lot of players that were of similar, strong skill level. Coach's rationale for doing the tournament was that it took some of the politics / subjectivity out of it, and also allowed him to watch players perform in different match situations including matches again players with higher skill, similar skill and lower skill. Current HS is same.

In college, our coach's rule was that if you wanted to rise in the playing order (eg. move from 5th singles to 4th singles, etc), you could challenge the person above you to a full match, but couldn't challenge anyone higher than that (so similar to a ladder format in that way). If you beat them, then you earned another match against them to determine the spot. If you lost to them in that initial match, they kept their spot and you couldn't challenge them again for a period of time.