Culture of Respect: How young players can compete fairly and honorably, and keep tennis’ tradition of sportsmanship alive

What will happen to tennis when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal retire? Fans have been pondering that ominous question for nearly a decade. The sport will obviously lose two of its greatest champions; perhaps more significantly, it will also lose two of its finest sportsmen. Federer has won the ATP’s Sportsmanship Award 13 times; Nadal has, to our knowledge, never thrown a racquet. Together they’ve scrubbed the men’s game of its bad-boy reputation and returned it to its gentlemanly roots.

Will the next generation continue that tradition? The signs from the first half of 2022, frankly, weren’t good. At the Australian Open, Daniil Medvedev screamed “Are you stupid?” at one chair umpire, while Denis Shapovalov shouted “You guys are all corrupt!” at another. In the following months, Alexander Zverev slammed his racquet against an umpire’s chair, and Nick Kyrgios and Jenson Brooksby sent theirs careening toward nearby ball kids. Stefanos Tsitsipas and his father, Apostolos, continued to flout on-court coaching rules.

This doesn’t need to become the norm again. Good sportsmanship—showing respect, calling lines fairly, restraining your anger, accepting defeat—has always been as integral to tennis as a good serve. From its earliest days, the sport was a vehicle for teaching young people how to compete honorably. Even now, players who enter Wimbledon’s Centre Court pass under Rudyard Kipling’s entreaty to “meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same.” You won’t see those words at Yankee Stadium or Lambeau Field.

Tennis gets us off our phones and brings us together; it gives us rules to follow; it teaches us to do battle in a civilized manner. How can we keep those values alive, even if we see less them of them in the pro game? We talked to coaches at the beginner, junior, and college levels about how they create a culture of respect in their programs. They all agree: Learning to play tennis fairly, and with a healthy perspective on winning and losing, is as satisfying as learning to play it well.

Kids: Tennis as a Team Effort

These are busy times at Kids on the Ball (KOTB), a Vermont-based non-profit whose mission is “creating opportunities for kids to learn about themselves and others through tennis.” Founded in 2000 by Jake Agna, KOTB tries to introduce the sport to young people who otherwise might not have found their way to a court.

The program takes tennis into the public schools in Burlington, and makes outreach efforts to children of refugees in the area. The KOTB staff includes instructors from Bosnia and Vietnam who grew up in the program, and they expect to work with recent arrivals from Afghanistan and Ukraine.

That diversity makes KOTB a model for how tennis can break down boundaries between young people who don’t look or speak alike. For KOTB’s executive director, Shona Mossey, tennis consists of “life lessons disguised as a sport.” That begins with its global, dual-gender appeal.

“Boys and girls play together right from the start,” Mossey says, “and all races are equal on our courts.”

Mossey says that KOTB teaches tennis as a team activity first, and lets the kids drive what they do. “We want to put them in motion and get them having fun,” she says. “That’s what hooks them on the game.”

A group effort to hit 50 balls into a basket is a popular way to give the kids a common goal.

“Getting to 50 is a win for the whole class,” Mossey says. “It’s humbling to see how much they support each other.”

Kyrgios throws a racquet, and people love him! Todd Snyder, a teaching pro in Brooklyn, N.Y.

But Mossey also says that tennis is “good for learning rules.”

“The kids need to be patient, to wait in line, to let others takes their turns, to hold their racquets safely,” she says. “They watch the other kids and learn from them, too.”

For Todd Snyder, a teaching pro in Brooklyn, N.Y., instilling sportsmanship is a way to counteract what he sees among the pros today.

“Kyrgios throws a racquet, and people love him!” Snyder laments.

At his Brooklyn clinics, the mantra is “we’re all in this together.”

“We have a no trash-talk rule, because that is something kids do,” Snyder says with a laugh. There’s also no ridiculing, and definitely no sword-fighting with racquets.

“We have discussions if necessary,” he says. “A couple of strikes and you’re out.”

For Snyder, teaching kids to comport themselves well is a way to keep an important tennis tradition alive, one that, Kyrgios and others aside, is still part of the sport’s appeal for him.

“When I see Carlos Alcaraz overrule a call in his opponent’s favor,” Snyder says, “it gives me a chill. That’s what tennis should be.”

Juniors: Develop the Person First

Since its founding in 1999, the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park, Md., has guided players like Frances Tiafoe, Denis Kudla and Robin Montgomery onto the pro tours. But those are only the most visible beneficiaries of its programs. JTCC is committed to bringing the game, and its lessons, to as many Washington, D.C., area juniors as possible.

“We try to get young people to think of tennis as a learning sport,” says Kelly Sykes, JTCC’s director of junior development. “We want them to be comfortable asking questions and being open to new experiences.”

Sykes works with players ages five to 17, a period when they may stop seeing tennis as merely a fun activity and start seeing it as mode of competition. He begins by asking them a question of his own: “Why do you play tennis?” The answers range from “So I can be like Rafa!” to “My mom made me do it.” The point is to get them to articulate a reason. When they’re finished with his program, he asks the same question again.

“There’s always a big difference,” Sykes says. “Their answers change, and are more detailed. Which is great, because they’ve learned something about themselves. We want to develop the person first.”

Tennis is about learning how life works. That’s the beauty of it. Kelly Sykes, JTCC director of junior development

The personal lessons they learn with Sykes don’t always come easily.

“With juniors, there’s a lot more energy per moment,” he says. “Emotions come first, and the mental part comes second. They may be new to winning and losing, and what to do about line calls. They can be caught off-guard.”

Sykes tries to get his players to put the mental side first, and maintain their self-control, by pausing, taking deep breaths, looking away, looking at their strings; anything to reset. He encourages them to praise their opponents’ good shots whenever possible; and if there is a dispute, to come to the net and talk about it with the other player.

“We want them to see the value in acknowledging other people, and not have it all be about themselves.”

“Tennis brings together two dimensions, how are you in the competitive field, and how you are in the social field,” Sykes says. “Young players need to express themselves on court, but also control their emotional side. We want them to see that difference as normal.”

In practices, Sykes mixes team-oriented drills with personal-record drills, and tries to get his players to understand they can work together to build themselves up as individuals. Even calling lines is a skill to be learned. If one of his players makes a questionable call, he’ll quietly approach him about it later.

“I want them to be aware, and let them process it,” Sykes says. “I might say, ‘Give yourself more time to make your calls.’ Usually they improve, and they start to see they’re succeeding when their opponents aren’t as angry.”

“Tennis is about learning how life works,” Sykes says. “That’s the beauty of it.”

College: Be True to Your School

Anyone who has seen a college tennis match knows it can be a cauldron of emotional volatility. There’s yelling and cheering; there might be chanting and booing; and there’s the occasional questionable line call to really stoke the flames. It’s an atmosphere that can put tennis’ gentlemanly ideals to the test.

When Tim Russell was named CEO of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association in 2015, he made sportsmanship a top priority.

“The large majority of players and coaches exhibit it,” says Russell, who has worked to bring video replay to the college game. “But the problems can come with the big matches, especially on the men’s side. People are making money, so there’s a lot at stake.”

For Billy Pate, head men’s coach at Princeton, ensuring good behavior begins with the recruiting process.

“We want the best players, but also the right players, and we do what we can to vet them,” Pate says. “We look for kids who have won sportsmanship awards; that sends a good message to us.”

There’ll be times when teams are yelling at each other. A coach needs to be able to step up and say, ‘This isn’t right.’ Billy Pate, head men's tennis coach at Princeton

From the start of the season, Pate makes it clear that good behavior is important to him, and to the school.

“A coach has to outline what his program is about,” Pate says. “My players know where I stand, so I don’t have to say much during the season.

“Our student-athletes represent a global brand at Princeton. With the non-stop presence of social media nowadays, it’s easy for a bad line call to be posted on Twitter and reflect poorly on our program.”

Even in the Ivy League, though, tensions can run high.

“There’ll be times when teams are yelling at each other,” Pate says. “A coach needs to be able to step up and say, ‘This isn’t right.’”

Pate believes that players can decrease that tension right away with a show of preemptive sportsmanship.

“If you give your opponent the benefit of the doubt on an early call,” he says, “you’re more likely to get a clean match.”

Pate was an assistant under legendary Notre Dame coach Bobby Bayliss, and he relishes the mentoring role that comes with the job—giving the kids personal help, while still putting together a winning team.

“I love it,” Pate says. “We want guys who do well, that’s the fundamental mission. It’s about more than four years.”

At the core of that mission for him is passing tennis’ code of sportsmanship to a new generation.

“What other sport do you make your own calls?” Pate asks. “I’m a little bit old school, but I really believe there’s an honor in tennis.”

With sporting champions like Federer and Nadal getting closer to retirement, it will be up to the rest of us to keep that honor alive.