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Tennis Injury Handbook
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 Order Here Explore this section... The Elbow Middle-Aged Athletes The Junior Player Complete Table of Contents |
 The Junior Player Within the last decade or so, the highest ranking professional tennis players have become younger and younger. This tendency applies to both men and women players, although the younger generation of women, led by Martina Hingis, Venus and Serena Williams, and Jennifer Capriati, now seems to dominate the women's game. The top men's players seem to mature somewhat later, partly because they are still getting stronger into their 20s, and strength is an integral part of tennis. Also, girls tend to mature physiologically earlier than boys. Nowadays, players turn professional at the ages of 15 to 17. They start full-time practice at much earlier ages because of the technical complexity of tennis and the high degree of motor skills required. The best time to acquire these skills has been shown to be between ages 10 and 12 for girls and ages 10 and 13 for boys. During this period, the differences between boys and girls in the development of their performance are very small; therefore, professional practice is begun during childhood. Unfortunately, this heavy load of training can lead to acute and overuse injuries. A junior tennis player's parents, coach, and physician all need to monitor how a young athlete's growing body reacts to high loads of practice time. In addition to the typical ills and injuries associated with tennis, such as knee ligament injuries, dislocated kneecap, runner's knee, shoulder impingement, tennis elbow, and cracked vertebrae in the back, younger players have a special set of problems, including growth plate injuries in the bones.
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