The Easter Bowl in 2008 was the 40th anniversary of this storied and unique junior event–and our second consecutive appearance to observe the same.
Last year we covered the Easter Bowl AS a kind of exploratory foray into the study of American junior tennis. The event basically blew me away. I felt I’d discovered an amazing viewing window. The chance to see the best 600 players in America all at the same place at the same time in an environment unlike any junior tournament I’d witnessed.
So I got into it and ended up staying the entire week and writing stories about all six finals–which were mostly amazing competitive matches. In fact, some of them had more drama than many big pro finals I’d witnessed.
We also created a new section o the site, Future Stars, and put up clips of the strokes of about 100 American juniors. We also shared that video with both the USTA and with some of the kids and their coaches. It was surprisingly positive all the way around.
So we decided to go back in 2008–and even became a minor Easter Bowl sponsor. Starting with the boys in this issue (and the girls to follow in June), we are adding another 100 clips of the strokes of American junior players to Future Stars.
As great as the experience was last year, I didn’t want to arrive with the expectation that it all had to happen exactly the same way again and so I consciously adopted a somewhat circumspect attitude.