There is a dirty little secret in the cloistered world of competitive junior tennis—cheating and gamesmanship are rampant.Chris Lewit’s Substack is a reader-supported publication.
Really compelling framing of the perceptual limits here. The distinction between kids being dishonest versus their visual system literally being incapable of tracking 70+ mph balls is huge, esp. when neural processing is still developing. I coached youth soccer briefly andit was night and day compared to self-officiated systems. The automated tech basically removes the false choice between character-building and fairness.
Based on a few conversations, I think the USTA sections are 100% in on the challenge systems but USTA national is ambivalent. Because the sections have bare bones budgets they are buying a handful of systems to use when they can but without help from national we are stuck. In general USTA national seems to have problems picking a lane regarding juniors and electronic challenge is stuck in that mud.
Rampant cheating was definitely one of the reasons I was so turned off by junior tennis.
Really compelling framing of the perceptual limits here. The distinction between kids being dishonest versus their visual system literally being incapable of tracking 70+ mph balls is huge, esp. when neural processing is still developing. I coached youth soccer briefly andit was night and day compared to self-officiated systems. The automated tech basically removes the false choice between character-building and fairness.
Based on a few conversations, I think the USTA sections are 100% in on the challenge systems but USTA national is ambivalent. Because the sections have bare bones budgets they are buying a handful of systems to use when they can but without help from national we are stuck. In general USTA national seems to have problems picking a lane regarding juniors and electronic challenge is stuck in that mud.