Junior Tennis

Mythbusters: Which States Do the Strongest Junior Players Live In?

March 5, 2020 | By Ricky Becker
GettyImages-1171084311_CROP
Photo courtesy of Getty Images

 

Some information probably won’t actually help you much but may still be interesting. The table below is probably just that. Have you ever wondered which states are the biggest producers of top junior tennis players? The table below is a fairly empirical way of ranking the states. We did the same study in 2016 and a few people asked if we can do a table in 2019 for comparison.

The list was compiled by taking the top 150 kids in the TennisRecruiting.com National Junior Rankings for both genders in all four high school grades (senior, junior, sophomore and freshman) and assigning a point value for each child. The state where the number one player in the country lives gets 150 points, in the number two state player gets 149 points, etc. While Universal Tennis Rating may be used more widely, TennisRecruiting.net seemed like a better measure to use here due to the fact it actually measures who wins the matches.

Would you have predicted it to fall something like this?

2019 Total Rank State Total Points Boys Rank Boys Points Girls Rank Girls Points 2016 Rank 3-Year Movement
1 California 19,771 1 10,381 1 9,390 1 No Change
2 Florida 11,197 2 6,119 2 5,078 2 No Change
3 Texas 8,523 3 4,293 3 4,230 3 No Change
4 New York 4,919 4 2,495 4 2,424 4 No Change
5 New Jersey 4,011 6 1,776 5 2,235 6 +1
6 Illinois 3,898 5 1,843 7 2,055 8 +2
7 South Carolina 3,477 9 1,329 6 2,148 7 No Change
8 Georgia 3,038 8 1,457 9 1,581 5 -3
9 Ohio 2,814 13 960 8 1,854 10 +1
10 North Carolina 2,647 7 1,683 13 964 11 +1
11 Michigan 2,403 11 1,134 10 1,269 12 +1
12 Pennsylvania 2,024 12 1,052 11 972 17 +5
13 Virginia 1,866 10 1,189 18 677 9 -4
14 Washington 1,792 15 825 12 967 16 +2
15 Massachusetts 1,490 16 741 16 749 15 No Change
16 Indiana 1,399 19 605 15 794 18 +2
17 Arizona 1,250 25 412 14 838 13 -4
18 Oklahoma 1,199 22 476 17 723 23 +5
19 Connecticut 1,187 17 664 20 523 19 No Change
20 Maryland 1,181 14 887 26 294 14 -6
21 Nevada 933 26 365 19 568 25 +4
22 Tennessee 793 24 432 23 361 28 +6
23 Utah 788 20 591 30 197 37 +14
24 Louisiana 753 23 463 27 290 20 -4
25 Kansas 691 29 218 21 473 21 -4
26 Minnesota 691 18 630 39 61 29 +3
27 Oregon 645 21 509 34 136 31 +4
28 Colorado 585 28 251 24 334 26 -2
29 Wisconsin 463 39 7 22 456 33 +4
30 Alabama 416 27 321 37 95 22 -8
31 Puerto Rico 334 41-52 0 25 334 27 -4
32 Hawaii 311 30 138 31 173 39 +7
33 Washington, D.C. 277 31 127 32 150 24 -9
34 Arkansas 267 38 36 28 231 30 -4
35 Kentucky 208 34 99 35 109 38 +3
36 New Mexico 197 41-52 0 29 197 32 -4
37 Rhode Island 139 37 42 36 97 43 +6
38-39 Delaware 138 41-52 0 33 138 45-52 +7
38-39 New Hampshire 138 32 126 44 12 45-52 +7
40 Missouri 122 35 63 40 59 34 -6
41 Maine 119 33 119 45-52 0 42 +1
42 Iowa 95 36 43 41 52 36 -6
43 Montana 90 41-52 0 38 90 45-52 +2
44-45 Idaho 26 41-52 0 42 26 45-52 +1
44-45 Mississippi 26 40 6 43 20 35 -9
46-52 Alaska 0 41-52 0 45-52 0 45-52 -1
46-52 Nebraska 0 41-52 0 45-52 0 41 -5
46-52 North Dakota 0 41-52 0 45-52 0 45-52 -1
46-52 South Dakota 0 41-52 0 45-52 0 44 -2
46-52 Vermont 0 41-52 0 45-52 0 45-52 -1
46-52 West Virginia 0 41-52 0 45-52 0 40 -6
46-52 Wyoming 0 41-52 0 45-52 0 45-52 -1

 

Ricky Becker
Ricky Becker is The Director of Tennis at Glen Oaks Club. Ricky also coaches high-performance juniors throughout the year and has been the Director of Tennis at three of Long Island’s biggest junior programs.  As a player, Becker was the Most Valuable Player for the 1996 NCAA Championship Stanford Tennis team, four-time MVP for Roslyn High School and ranked in the top-five nationally as a junior.  He can be reached at rbecker06@yahoo.com, 516-359-4843 or via juniortennisconsulting.com.
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