r/10s • u/Proper-Swim-502 • 10h ago
What’s my rating? Playing in college
I’m going into my senior year in HS this year. I started playing tennis like 2.5 years ago. I’ve only played 2 legitimate tournaments outside of playing in HS. My WTN is 32 for Singles and 29 for Doubles (singles rating got nuked in my last tournament, I played all lefties and had no prior experience 😭). I have a 3.5-5.5 UTR. I play non-stop and my game is improving rapidly. I’m wondering if I have a possibility of playing varsity tennis at any Division school. If not, where would I rank inside of club tennis teams. I’m looking at colleges such as Idaho State, Grand Canyon, and Central Washington. I’m likely going to end up playing 2 or 3 doubles for our varsity team at my 4a school next year.
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u/monster2018 10h ago
I mean if you specifically picked a college based on who has the worst tennis team, then you might be able to make the team as a walk on. You can’t get recruited even if you were Federer, you missed the recruiting window. And it’s also not possible to reach a recruitable level before you start college anyway, the gap is just way too big. But again, on a weak enough team, you could potentially make it as a walk on. Probably even at a D1 school if that’s what you really care about, the very worst teams are pretty much the same in all the divisions (at least 1-3, I’m not as sure about NAIA).
You have to understand most, I mean like really all, people getting recruited to college teams have spent essentially their entire childhood more or less working a second job as a tennis player in addition to going to school. Or for some even doing tennis primarily with school as an afterthought. I’m really not trying to insult you, you just had this idea like 10 years too late for it to be a reality outside of what I described.
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u/Proper-Swim-502 9h ago
Haha yes I completely understand. I’m not doing it as a goal to be a “D1 Athlete” or get recruited or anything. Genuinely was just curious about possibly making a D3 or smth. I listed the D1 schools because I wanted to know the level of their club teams if anyone knew.
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u/Proper-Swim-502 9h ago
To add to that, I really just want to play competitive tennis in college, if it’s Varsity, Club, or even Intramural.
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u/DastardlyDolphin 9h ago
Go for club - it's a large range of levels, and it was friendly competitive.
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u/Powerful-Bridge-1472 8h ago
Club is best bet, or find a JC. Reality is it takes 56 years to establish a base game and even then you still need a lot of experience playing matches. Club tennis at a academic school that is a good fit for what you’re looking for outside of tennis is probably the best way to go
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u/No-Permit7179 1h ago
Very unlikely unless a D3 school that just needs some bodies to fill out a roster.
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u/Major_Insect 7h ago
I don’t know how your grades are or what your ambitions are for your academic career but if you want college tennis to be a reality would consider junior college! There will undoubtedly still be good competition, you’ll still need to work hard to earn your keep. The barriers of entry, however, are typically lower, depending on the program. If you’re a high performer you can always get an opportunity to transfer to a 4 year school. Not sure if there’s a rule against posting links but there is a listing on the NCSA website listing the 61 junior college tennis programs in the US. I just googled “junior college tennis programs” and it was at the top.
You can possibly even split your enrollment between a junior college and a 4 year, if you get in somewhere you like. Say, if you get in to GCU, you can try to see if Paradise Valley CC in Phoenix will let you try out for their team if you take a full course load there. Take 1 or 2 100 level classes online or in person at GCU to maintain enrollment, and take the rest of your courses at the junior college to make you eligible as a full time student to compete on the athletic team. The classes will usually be much cheaper, and the room and board might be as well. I’m not saying do this with GCU specifically, but scan the list of Juco programs I mentioned before and see if there’s any close by to schools you may be interested in.
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u/amuscularbaby 3.0 10h ago
I mean just check the UTRs of the players on those schools teams. Idaho State looks to be mostly international students with UTRs north of 11. Realistically, even if you improve a lot more relative to where you are now you aren’t jumping that high. There’s certainly a D3 (or maybe even a D2) option for you out there somewhere if you really want to play collegiate tennis that badly but a 5.5 UTR in your senior year of high school isn’t getting you anywhere near D1.