February 2010 -- I recently received an e-mail from an executive director of one of our USPTA divisions. She had attended a sectional USTA Community Development Workshop and was a little surprised by a statement made by a USTA representative regarding QuickStart Tennis Play Format and teaching professionals.

She went on to explain that the USTA rep said USTA was moving forward on QuickStart "with or without the pros." Needless to say, this USPTA employee was a little uncomfortable with the implication that USPTA was not supportive of QuickStart Tennis Play Format, so she asked me how she should have responded to such a statement.

My response: The best answer is simply the truth!

The fact that some USTA staffers and/or volunteers are under the impression that USPTA does not support QuickStart can only be attributed to false or misleading information.

USPTA was promoting children's ­tennis - specifically a program with graduated equipment and courts - for many years before the introduction of QuickStart Tennis. USPTA's Little Tennis^® is nearly 20 years old and we have produced the finest manual available for the instructional side of the program. And, one visit to LittleTennis.com reveals the only tennis Web site designed exclusively for children, parents and pros, including the widest assortment of games, drills and lesson plans. It also includes recommendations for a localized league system that were documented following a pilot study at USPTA's World Headquarters and led by Tommy Ho, a USTA board member, and me.

As far as USPTA's support of QuickStart, we have exceeded all expectations outlined in our agreement with USTA. We have recommended QuickStart as the "play format" for all playing situations with children and graduated equipment, and we have featured QuickStart at our divisional conventions and World Conferences for several years. This past year we gave QuickStart one of only a few highlighted general-session time slots at our World Conference, and we've published a number of articles in our monthly magazine, ADDvantage, promoting the use of the QuickStart Play Format.

Recently, we were fortunate to add Craig Jones in a leading role to USPTA's Little Tennis Committee. Craig is both a USTA High Performance Coach and USTA QuickStart national presenter. He also will be heading up our efforts to rewrite the second edition of our Little Tennis manual and Web site.

Our support of QuickStart, a USTA program, is evident in all our past promotions of the program and in our future plans to implement the best parts of each program in our own Little Tennis. USPTA has always and continues to support QuickStart as a play format. USPTA and its members believe that specific areas of the program, such as the "mandatory" guidelines for play conditions and age should be supervised by teaching professionals.

Nevertheless, USPTA applauds USTA's effort to finally recognize the importance of graduated play systems (Little Tennis/QuickStart). Just imagine if we'd been able to jointly work on a similar program almost 20 years ago when we asked USTA to support Little Tennis!