Junior ROG Development Program
Starting Monday, August 28, 2023
Runs from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM, times vary by age/skill group.
For children ages 3 and up
Overview
Our newest junior tennis programs instill a love for the sport in our students. Our ROG Director, David Archer, has been teaching tennis for 44 years. He wrote and published the book 8 Weeks to A Lifetime of Tennis, in which he lays out his incredibly fun, organized, and systematic approach to help kids develop a passion for the game along with the skills necessary to become extremely accomplished players. The 8 Weeks to A Lifetime of Tennis system outlined in the book has trained coaches all over the U.S. how to work with 12 and under kids.
ROG Q & A | Parent Session
Saturday, August 19, 2023
On Saturday, August 19, David Wesley Archer author of the book ”8 weeks to a lifetime of tennis” and new hire as Director of our upcoming after school ROG (10 and under) programs will be hosting an informative Q and A session from 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM. David is looking forward to meeting as many parents of 10 and under students as possible as he talks about the finer points of an excellent 10 and under ROG program.
David comes to us via the Salt Lake Racquet and Health Club where he and Jason Weir Smith (current Director of Tennis) built one of the largest ROG 10 and under programs in the nation. Through the book “8 week to a lifetime of tennis David has been asked to consult with various clubs across the nation and is absolutely excited to be building here. He will have books on hand for a $15 dollar fee that goes to cancer research or you may also purchase copies of “8 weeks to a lifetime of tennis” on Amazon books or where ever online books are sold. Lets give David our full support at this awesome and informative event!
Sprouts
Runs from 3:30 PM to 4:00 PM
This is a perfect place to introduce your 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds to the lifetime sport of tennis.
This class is a PARENT PARTICIPATION class. PARENT PARTICIPATION simply means that the adult in charge of the child must be within ear shot while the student is in the Sprouts class. Sometimes the “parent” is asked to come to the court and participate while the student watches. This usually solves any disruption problems and after a few minutes the “parent” can retreat to ear shot again.
At 30 minutes this class is the perfect length to keep their attention and is filled with warm up exercises, skills challenges, racquet ball control practice and learning to be independent in their practice on the hitting wall. This class will have your younger ones giggling with delight and begging for more as they hit cones off buckets, learn the alley to alley warm up stretches and work on passing our patented 30 ball Sprouts challenge test that, when accomplished, graduates them to the Sprouts H.P. class.
Sprouts HP (High Performance)
This 30-minute class is the graduation class for 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds coming from the Sprouts class but can also be the starting class for stronger 5-year-olds. If the student has shown an ability to focus the whole 30 minutes the Parent Participation guideline can be taken off.
Most strong 5-year-olds can pass the 30 ball Sprouts Skills Challenge in the first few minutes of the Sprouts class and then can be placed in the Sprouts H.P. class.
This class focuses on our stronger 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds being able to practice on the wall and the 36’ court with ease. It also includes our patented 30 ball Groundstroke Skills Challenge that, when accomplished, graduates the participants up to the Red Ball 1 class.
Your younger ones will thoroughly enjoy their alley-to-alley warmups, cone knocking, wall hitting and learning our patented hit and catch model of soft competition while getting a firm handle on all of the foundations of the lifetime sport of tennis.
Red Ball
Our introduction level class to our 6- and 7-year-olds; the goal is to help kids be independent self-practicing tennis players. All Red Ball classes are offered Monday - Thursday from 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM.
Red Ball Class Levels
Red Ball 1
Red Ball 1 class is our introduction level class to our 6- and 7-year-olds. It is also the graduation class for our students graduating from Sprouts High Performance; it focuses on the foundations of tennis including grips and swings. In this class we add some challenges like “Live Ball” where students learn the art of what we call “hit and hit” or more commonly called “The Rally”. Challenges in this class include some self-feeding practice and wall live ball challenges. Our goal here is to help kids be independent self-practicing tennis players. This includes the introduction to our patented 60 ball skills challenge, the graduation benchmark for our Orange Ball 1 class. We do alley to alley warmups, skills challenges for rewards, Cone Mountain fun, Live Ball and end of class 30-minute round robins.
Red Ball 2
The Red Ball 2 class is reserved for our stronger 6- and 7-year-olds who are getting closer to accomplishing the 60-ball skills challenge that graduates them into the orange ball classes. We focus our attention here on some continual hitting challenges on the wall along with learning our patented creative hit and catch round robin competition model that allows these students to participate in our once-a-month tournaments here at CHTC. We still do alley to alley warmups, skills challenges for rewards, Cone Mountain fun, Live Ball and end of class 30-minute round robins. The focus here begins to be “tournament fun”.
Red Ball HP
The Red Ball H.P. class is reserved for our Red Ball Tournament players (hit and catch, hit and hit) who have passed the benchmarks of graduation from the Red 2 class. (See benchmarks for graduation Parent Education handout). We focus more here on our cooperative live ball challenges with players “hitting” with one another in a cooperative manner. We still start with alley-to-alley warmups then transition to self-feed cone mountain forehand and backhand practice, then to live ball and end with 30 minutes of a fun round robin. The benchmarks from graduation here bring the students to the orange ball level.
Orange Ball
All Orange Ball classes run from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Orange Ball 1
This is our entry level class for all 8-and 9-year-olds. We start all new students on a 36’ court learning the finer points of controlling a tennis ball with a racquet. We still start with alley-to-alley warmups, move on to our 60 ball skills challenges, hit cones with our patented cone mountain challenges and work on our live ball drills. Our goal is to teach soft competition so the students can graduate to Orange 2 and begin to participate in our creative round robin match play events.
Orange Ball 2
This class is our first 60-foot court class where the students hit on the full-size courts but use the 60-foot lines. This is the first orange class where students are then invited to our Saturday creative round robin event where they literally play in mini tournaments. We still focus on incredible ball control challenges, but our bigger focus is “rally” or what we call hit and hit. Benchmarks for graduation bring the students to the Orange High Performance class.
Orange Ball HP
In this class the students are not only preparing for victory in our patented creative round robin events but are also getting ready for their first USTA tournaments. It is an incredibly exciting time as they are prepared for their futures as true tennis tournament players getting ready for High School tennis and beyond. We focus here on serving, scoring (including tie breakers), shot accuracy and creative round robin competition. Once the benchmarks of graduation are met in this class the students graduate to their first Green Ball Class.
Green Ball Classes
Green Ball 1
5:00 PM to 6:00 PM
This is our entry level class for all our 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds. In this class we teach the basics more rapidly. Our goal is to learn the art of cooperating with another player to learn proper practice through repetition. We also like to teach how to independently practice on the ball machine and the wall. In this class other students then become hitting partners to practice with while not in class. When the benchmarks for graduation for this class are met the student moves to
Green level 2.
Green Ball 2
5:00 PM to 6:00 PM
This is our tournament training class for green ball. Students that have been playing USTA Orange and have passed the benchmarks and students from the Green level 1 class move up here to learn to compete in a fun filled competitive atmosphere. We focus on cooperating with partners for live ball repetitions that help us with accuracy and point construction while learning the art of “Cooperative purpose filled hitting”. Those that graduate from this class move up to either Green National or the High School Prep group.
Green National
6:00 PM to 7:30
The Green National class is reserved for all 12 and under students looking to advance into the Yellow Academy groups. These students have shown great tennis proficiency while passing many benchmarks of graduation from Red to Orange to Green and now to Green National. These students have played many creative round robin events and many USTA events and are well groomed in cooperative tennis live ball challenges. Benchmarks for graduation to Yellow Ball include our patented 60 ball live ball challenge.
Yellow - Green National
Although there are benchmarks for graduation from Green Ball classes to Yellow Ball classes, once in a while a student who is 10 and under comes to us who has already graduated to the yellow ball.
In those cases and with some of the extreme talent we have found with some of our younger tennis Phenom’s at CHTC we have created a class called “Yellow/Green National”
This class is an invite only class for our highest level 10 and under students.