5 Things You Should Know Before Your Kid Plays Junior ITFs

Your kid is ready to play ITFs. Great - another tournament system to learn. But this is one you want to get right, so start with these five tips. 

1. Register for an IPIN

You need an IPIN to enter any ITF. You can register for a junior IPIN when your child turns 12 years and 11 months, and it costs around $US50 a year. It will show you all the tournaments you are currently entered in as well as other vital information such as where you sit on the acceptance lists, the fact sheets and the visa requirements for each tournament.

Register for your IPIN on the ITF website here. (Click on ‘sign up now’)

 2. Tournament calendar

You can access the junior ITF calendar through your IPIN. Filter by country, region, tournament category, surface, and venue type. Then click on enter to add the tournament to your dashboard.

You can enter as many tournaments as you like and unlike most local systems, you don’t have to pay up front. But it’s important to realise you can only play one tournament a week, so setting your priority for each tournament is super important.

Setting priority

The priority setting is basically a preference setting. So set the tournament you would prefer to play that week as Priority 1, your next preferred tournament as Priority 2 etc.

Note: When deadlines come into play priority settings can become automatically overridden and you might end up being entered into your backup tournament instead of your first choice. So, it’s super important to pay attention if you enter more than one tournament in a week. But that’s a whole other blog. If unsure, stick to one tournament a week.

3. Age eligibility

To make sure young kids aren’t pushed too hard, too early, the ITF has placed restrictions on the number of tournaments juniors can play. This is called the age eligibility rule.

You can find the current regulations document here on the ITF website.

This document has ALL the ITF regulations so it’s a good one to bookmark. The age eligibility rules are in an appendix at the end of the document.

As you can see, players aged 13 can only play 10 tournaments in a year, 14-year-olds only 14. And even though 16 tournaments for a 15-year-old sounds like a lot, if you play 2 each school break and then two during term, they rack up quickly.

I know quite a few families that have been caught out by this rule and end up sitting out the last two to three months of their birth year unable to play. So, plan your tournaments for the entire year, based on the number you are allowed to play.

Tip: You are probably going to be a better player at the end of your birth year than at the start, so if in doubt, chunk the tournaments towards the months leading into your birthday, just before you turn older.

  4. Junior Tennis Cut-off Report

I don’t think many people know about this document. At least not the ones I talk to. But it’s super useful for tournament planning. The report shows every tournament played in a year and what the ranking cut-offs were for main draw and qualifying.

This is useful in a few ways. For instance, just say you are starting out and you want the best chance of making it into a draw. You’ll probably want to start with a J30 or J60 (previously J5 and J4) tournament.

If you look at an extract of the report above you can see that last year in Week 2 in Auckland there was a J4 where the cut off was n/r for qualifying and, even more importantly, for main draw. n/r stands for no ranking. And main draw cut off is important as you only get points in a J30 and J60 for winning a main draw match, so if you can get there direct, you have a better chance of getting some points and getting points means it’s easier to enter tournaments and that means it’s easier to plan.

Even better is that the next week, there is another J4 in New Zealand where the cut-offs are n/r too. Based on this, you have a good chance of playing in both tournaments, they are in one country and so if you’re starting out, they look like a good bet.

But this document isn’t only useful when starting ITFs. For example, if my daughter’s ranking was 300 and I wanted her to play in a J300 (J1), based on the report below, I could see that my best bet is to play the one in Colombia in Week 4 where she has a good chance of making main draw, rather than in San Jose in Week 3 where she would only probably make qualifying.

Obviously, there are other factors at play, such as where you live, how comfortable you are travelling, possible wild card opportunities, the expense etc, but the cut-off report can help with your decision.

*Please note that 2022 and 2021 were COVID-19 years so data may not be as accurate as usual.

2022 junior cut offs document

 5. Draws, deadlines and acceptance lists.

This can be really complicated so here are some definitions.

Entry deadline: This is the deadline for entering the tournament. Once this date passes no more entries will be accepted. The Entry Deadline is at 14:00 hrs Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) on the Tuesday twenty (20) days prior to the Monday of the tournament week.

Withdrawal deadline: This is the deadline for withdrawing from a tournament. The Withdrawal Deadline is at 14:00 hrs GMT on the Tuesday thirteen (13) days prior to the Monday of the tournament week. This applies to both Main Draw players and players on the Qualifying Acceptance List.

You enter and withdraw online through your IPIN.

Freeze Deadline: The Freeze Deadline is at 14:00 hrs GMT on the Wednesday preceding the tournament week. After the Freeze Deadline players on the Qualifying Acceptance List will no longer be moved into the Main Draw, and players on one or more Alternate Lists will no longer be moved into the Qualifying Acceptance List.
Such Alternates are not committed to play the tournament and therefore are not subject to Late Withdrawal or No-Show penalties. A player who wishes to withdraw from Main Draw or Qualifying after the Freeze Deadline must withdraw online through the IPIN online service.

Direct Acceptance: This is a player who has made it into either the main or qualifying draws.

Wild Card: Each tournament has a number of players who are accepted into the main or qualifying draws at the discretion of the tournament organisers or national association. They are given wild cards.

Special Exempt: They are players on the Qualifying Acceptance List at the Freeze Deadline who apply for and receive exemption from the Qualifying event because they are still competing in singles or doubles at a “Qualified Tournament” on the day the Qualifying event is scheduled to begin. These players get a spot in the main draw.

Please note: in many cases these spots are not used and so they act like an extra two spots in the main draw. This means that usually, qualifiers 1 and 2 will move into the main draw and alternates 1 and 2 will move into qualifying.

Alternates: These are players who are ranked lower than the direct acceptances into Main draw and qualifying.

How the list moves:

Each list will move in a unique way, but if you are on the alternates list and wondering if you should make the effort to travel to the tournament, there are a couple of things you should look out for:

1. Internationals are more likely to withdraw. So, before the withdrawal deadline, go down the list and check how many international players are in front of you. By internationals I mean, anyone not from the country the tournament is in, or from a country nearby. For example, if the tournament is in New Zealand, anyone not from New Zealand or possibly Australia should be counted as an international. If removing most of the internationals brings you close to qualifying or main, then maybe you should plan to play.
2. A lot of people will withdraw by the withdrawal deadline. So, if you are close to the top of the alternates (around 10 or so) you have a very good chance of getting in.
3. Wildcards. These are usually awarded to the top players from the country the tournament is in. So, if there are several players from the host country on the alternates list above you, you can assume that some of them will be awarded wild cards, which moves you up the list. But also, if there are some behind, they might be moved up and you’ll in effect be moved down.

The tables below show the number of wildcards that may be awarded in a tournament depending on draw size. Not all tournaments award all the wildcards and, in those cases, the spots go to players next on the list.

Qualifying (Singles)

Main Draw (Singles)

*this varies because of wildcards the special exempt and also regional reserved players.

Conclusion

Although I think these are the top five things you need to know before your child plays an ITF, I’ve covered them all super briefly. And of course, there is always more to know!

So, if you have any questions or comments about this blog or about playing ITFs, feel free to DM email us at [email protected], or DM us on social media!

By Anonymous Tennis Parent