HIGH ACHIEVERS: Sean Sweeney introduces unique brand of tennis development for youth

By Martin Cleary

Tennis was a completely foreign sport to Ottawa’s Sean Sweeney as a teenager and young man.

But every so often, he would grab a racquet and go through the motions as a recreational tennis player with friends. There was never a thought of chasing city, provincial or national honours, let alone climbing the steep and lengthy professional ladder.

No, football was Sweeney’s sport. He played for the Carleton University Ravens and served as a team captain for a period. The CFL’s Toronto Argonauts even invited him for a tryout in the late 1980s.

When the Argos didn’t offer him a contract, Sweeney moved on, married, started a family and worked in the software business.

But when his son was growing up, Sweeney became immersed in tennis.

He shadowed Jordan through many different aspects of competitive junior tennis and right into chasing the dream of being a professional player on the Futures circuit, which is now the International Tennis Federation’s World Tennis Tour, the entry-level pathway to the various levels of the men’s ATP circuit.

While Jordan was learning the game, playing matches and developing, Sweeney was watching, gathering knowledge and being inspired by everything around him.

Sweeney didn’t realize it at the start, but he was on his way to leaving an executive job in software and becoming a tennis coach.

There was a time when Jordan attended a week-long session at the prestigious Heath Watters Tennis Academy in Atlanta. It was a valuable experience for both father and son as they learned from Watters, who saw his players win 30 national and international youth championships and coached nine different professional players.

Today, the founder and CEO of the SCORE Tennis Academy for almost 16 years has ventured into a new area to develop tennis players with a more cost-effective, stay-at-home approach.

In late May, Sweeney introduced the SCORE Ottawa Junior League, which is a rather unique concept for bringing the game to new and established players.

For 21 consecutive Saturdays in the spring, summer and fall, pre-teen and teenage players will have three short matches a day against opponents of equal ability. And there’s relatively little travel involved.

“The traditional junior tournament model in Canada is broken,” Sweeney boldly wrote in a posting on his Instagram account.

“Families spend $300 to $550 per tournament weekend. They drive two to four hours each way. Their child plays two matches, maybe one, if they lose early. Then, they do it all again.

“This is not development. This is an expensive road trip.”

In the first two weeks of his new tennis venture, Sweeney and staff instructed five and seven players respectively. He’s hoping to welcome 11 or more to play on two of the four courts this Saturday at Owl Park in the Hunt Club area.

All matches are filmed as part of the development process and parents are sent a link of their son or daughter. The cost is $70 each Saturday for players of all abilities in the U12, U14 and U16 classes with a maximum of 24 spots.

Each player, regardless of age or gender, is provided a Universal Tennis Rating between 1.0 and 16.50 based on match results and competitiveness. Matches are scheduled between players of like UTRs to spur development.

The first player to capture four games wins a set. If the score is tied 3-3, the set is determined by a five-point tiebreaker. In the third set, a seven-point tiebreaker is used. Matches will last between 45 minutes and one hour.

“The players love it. Everyone who played in the first week came back to play in the second week,” Sweeney said in a phone interview this week.

The parents had the same reaction.

“So far, they love it,” he added. “The first group all came back the second week and we added players. A 10-year-old girl loved getting three matches in one day.

“I was tired of parents driving to Toronto, forking over $1,000 and their son or daughter may only play one match. The UTR system allows us to group the players by levels … so they can have competitive matches.”

Inspired by Watters, Sweeney refuses to take credit for the success of players.

“It’s the system – the mental, physical, tactical and technical sides. It’s not me. He (Watters) looked at what the top five men had in common,” Sweeney explained.

He also stressed the importance of standards, whether it’s serving balls to certain places on the court or hitting the ball to a specific area over and over again “to master the pattern.”

“I do a lot of shadowing,” Sweeney continued. “Shadowing is no contact (racquet on ball). It’s going through the right movements. It’s going super slow so the brain learns.”

Sweeney believes he is providing a dynamic way to bring tennis to young players.

“We have fun, play and develop,” he added. “On the first day, one of our coaches stayed after and the players were playing fun games. They had a blast, making up their own (tennis-related) games.

“That’s where they fall in love with the game.”