Our first ever TEAM WY training took place May 20 - 21st, in Cheyenne, and was a great success. We had 19 players total including 5 of our #1 ranked players in the B’s 12, and B 18’s and G 14’s, G 16’s and G 18’s. We had many other ranked players in attendance:
G 16’s # 3, #4 #5
G 18’s #2, #3, #6, #7
B 14’s #2, #4
We also had many up and coming 10 and Under kiddo’s as well from Cheyenne and Casper. I was really impressed with our four (4) younger 7 – 9 year old players that attended from Cheyenne and Casper. We had players from Cheyenne (13), Casper (4), Carpenter and Rawlins. One player from Torrington (Tyler Ring) who had registered could not make it. This was our first event and was open to any junior that wanted to attend. What a GREAT group of Wyoming junior tennis players!
One of the great “lessons learned” by all the older players was that they can learn from any player and how important, and FUN, it can be to hit with some of the younger players. When all the players voted on who was the most inspirational player or the player that motivated them the most during the TEAM WY training the top vote getter was Ben Vigneri (he got the 2014 US Open hat) – remember Ben is only 10 years old. Ben is our #1 12 and under was identified a few years back as one of Wyoming's up and coming players and as part of the USTA Player Development program, he has attended two (2) training sessions at USTA Regional Tennis Centers (RTC's) in Las Vegas!
There was a tie for 2nd place votes between Grace Dereemer and get this, Robert Vigneri (Ben’s 8 year old brother). That is right, Robert won the respect of every player that attended and during our FUN “supersized” games on Saturday (Deep Desperation, Wipe Out, Star Catcher) played with “orange” balls, and Robert played with , and against, high school players that were twice his age and height, and Robert hit many of the winning shots.
The players were on court with Josh and I from 10 – 6:00 on Saturday and from 10 – 1:00 today – 12 total hours. All the players learned a TON, improved their game, became much more aware of what they need to do to continue that improvement (tennis, physical, mental and emotional), and were extremely grateful for this opportunity. The older players learned how important it is for our WY player development to hit with the younger kiddo’s and that it can be fun too. The younger kids told the older kids how grateful they were that they had taken the time to hit some with them and how great it was for them to play with older and better players. Respect and gratitude all around!
We plan on holding several more TEAM WY trainings to occur this year. Josh volunteered all of his time (12 hours) as is very grateful for our investment in his USTA Player Development and High Performance training over the past ~2 years.
GREAT things are happening in WY Tennis and TEAM WY is just one of those.