Tennis Chatter

This morning when I was flipping through channels something caught my eye. On the Today Show, they featured Jan Silva, a five year old “tennis prodigy.” Jan is quickly becoming one of the most exciting (extremely young) tennis prospects in a while.His parents were fans of tennis and passed on their interest in the game to their son.

When it became clear that there son was very good at a young age (at four he competed with players several years older than him), the Silvas sold everything they owned and moved to France. They initially looked into sending their son to the well-known Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida; the academy of such stars as Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Maria Sharapova, and Jelena Jankovic. However the academy was wary of providing a scholarship to such a young player. Instead Jan is attending the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in France. Inadvertently, I think the Silvas may have just made the best decision possible for their son. The Bollettieri Tennis Academy generally embraces a baseline bashing style of tennis opposed to the French, which traditionally embrace more of an all court style (just look at Gasquet). I believe learning tennis in France, will benefit Jan in the future to be successful on all courts. Americans recently haven’t had much success on clay, whereas in France, Jan will play on clay a lot, getting experience at a younger age. Plus a lot of tennis coaches say that if you can learn to hit winners on (slow) clay (like Gasquet, Federer, and Nadal), you can hit winners on any other (faster) surface. The all court style already shows, as Jan showed a very good onehanded backhand, along with good volleys on the Today Show. In fact, I thought his onehander looked like his best shot.

The other issue to consider is his young age. A lot of kids change their interests as they grow up or are just early bloomers. Perhaps Jan’s talent will be much less impressive in a few years, as other players catch up. And what if he decides he doesn’t like tennis? Five is an early age to already know what you want to do. Finally if the media starts picking up this story, pressure and expectations will build. There are hundreds of stories of young stars not living up to their hype (across all sports). His parents say they think he is well adjusted, but five is far too young of an age to determine that. If he makes it through all these obstacles Jan’s father thinks he has a great chance to go pro. His father said:

I think there’s a pretty good chance of him going all the way

If you want to read NBC’s story or view the video clip of him playing, click here.