Dave Miley Tennis

Just leaving Vilnius after 4 days attending the ITF World coach conference. 600+ coaches attended and I presented on the main court on the first day. It was great to be there with some of the KTF player development team. I am proud to work closely with them. We have accomplished a lot in 5 years…but still lots to do.

It was great during the week to catch up with so many good friends from tennis. My first world coach conference was in 1987 in Majorca when I first met coaches like Louis cayer, Jim loehr, Jack groppel, Frank zlezak, Richard Schinborn and Doug MacCurdy. I learned a lot. I was also responsible for ITF for organising this conference from 1993-2015.

As you can see from the photo, Frank Van Fraeyenhoven was also there in Majorca and back then we were the young guys used as hitters on court by presenters. They don’t make shorts like that anymore!😇

Nations represented in the top 100 men’s and women’s rankings 2025

I have written so much over the past few years about professional tennis and that the current “broken” system and the articles can be viewed in my website www.davemileytennis.com.

Dominic Thiem said recently that it cost 1 million dollars approximately to go from a ten year’s old junior player to reach the top 100 ATP rankings and start earning money. This money for his development came from a combination of his family, the Austrian Tennis Federation and sponsors and not from the ATP/WTA tours or the Grand Slams.

In the article….. “top international tennis…what’s in it for the tennis federations and the tennis farmers and factory workers” I explained that unlike sports like football, ice hockey, rugby, baseball etc. there is no system to reward or pay back the people or organizations that develops the players that later reach the top 100 ATP and WTA and participate in the financially successful top pro tour events. It seems to be becoming increasingly difficult for nations to get players into the top 100.


On the way to the ATP event in Almaty last week, my transport got stuck in traffic and I started to look at the current rankings and at the nations that are represented in the top 100 (see details in the photos attached). I think for the health of the sport, it’s important to have a lot of countries from the different regions of the world represented at the top of the pro game but what I found is that we risk soon having a sport where only a few nations will be able to develop players good enough to get there.


What I saw is the following:

There are 28 nations represented in the top 100 of the men’s ranking and 36 nations in the Women’s rankings. There are 43 nations represented in the combined men’s and women’s rankings but 17 of these only have one player. So just 26 nations have 2 or more players in the top 100 men and women’s rankings combined.

In the men’s top 100 rankings, 4 nations have 46 players (46%), 8 nations have 66 players (66%), 13 nations have 81 players (81%) and 17 nations have 89 players (89%).

In the women’s rankings, 3 nations have 35 players (35%), 7 nations have 51 players (51%), 13 nations have 69 players (69%) and 21 nations have 85 players (85%).

In the men’s rankings, the Grand Slam nations have 38 players and in the women’s rankings they have 29 players making a total of 67 players out of the combined men and women top 100 (33.5%). Their success is of course due to good work by those involved but is also partly due to the large budgets they have for player development, the access to coaching support on the lower levels of the competition pathway and wild cards for their players coming up which players from most other nations do not often have access to.

In the combined 200 players ranked, 98 players are from only 6 nations (49%) and 129 players are from 10 nations (64.5%).

Countries like Argentina in the men and Czech Republic in the women should be congratulated as they continue to develop players with less resources than the other top nations and this is due to certain unique factors which I will not get into here.

What I fear is that in the future, there will be progressively less nations represented among the top 100 men and women and this could have a very negative impact on the promotion of the sport globally and TV rights/sponsorship for the big tournaments that showcase the top players. Every player wherever they are from should feel that they have a chance to fulfil their dream to be a top players.

My suggestion has not changed since I ran for president of the ITF in 2019. There should be a system in place for the top pro events to give back to the game and to the development of the next generation of players. My suggestion continues to be that 10% of the Grand Slam Prizemoney (approximately 6 million each) and a percentage of prizemoney from the top ATP/WTA tour events should all go into a Development Fund. For ATP/WTA I suggest for 1000 level events- 5%, 500 level events-2.5% and 250 level events-1%. This 30 million + fund could be jointly administered and then be used to support player development in the ITF member nations especially the ones with no pro players in the top 100 rankings . This would give meaningful help to the federations with the development players and for the tournaments that bring them to the top level (Juniors, Futures, Challengers etc.).

Despite the fact that the top 100 men and women have cost over 200 million to produce and that the international tournament pathway costs the ITF Federations over 120 million annually to organize, the Tours contribute nothing back. The Grand Slams do give annually 3 million dollars to the Grand Slam Player Development Fund, and I commend them for this. But please keep in mind that this contribution of 3 million annually represents only 1.2% of the total combined 2025 Grand Slam Prizemoney. The amount they were contributing in 1990 to the fund was 2.2 million which was 7.3% of the 30 million combined prizemoney at that time. If the percentage link to prizemoney had been maintained, this amount being contributed by the Slams today would be close to 20 million dollars per year.

My prediction now is that if nothing is done to change the system, it is likely that in ten years time there will be only 10-15 nations that can produce players to the level of the top 100 ATP and WTA, and this will not be good for the sport of tennis or for the income generating potential of the top events.

Tennis Drives-Fitness Supports

I am a tennis coach, but I have been lucky over the past 30 years in tennis to work closely with and to learn from some of the best fitness coaches working in tennis. My first ITF Worldwide coaches conference was in 1987 in Majorca and I had the chance to see Dr Jack Groppel present and since then I have spent time at ITF Regional and Worldwide conferences with such great tennis fitness experts as Mark Kovacs, Beni Linder and Ann Quinn who was the fitness coach of top players like Pat Cash, Shingo Kuneida and Pat Rafter. I was also involved in the production of the ITF Strength and Conditioning book that was produced when I was in charge of Development at the ITF.

One of the things I have learned is that the best experts in every field make complicated simple. And this is what these great fitness experts do. They gave the tennis coaches and their players the medicine the players need to improve their performance in the matches. The exercises that maintain what they are good at and the exercises (on court and off court) that help the players to improve what they are not so good at.

The key word for me in every aspect of high-level player development is “player centered”. The fitness coach should work closely with the tennis coach to put together an individualized and tennis specific program for each player. This program should be based on a combination of the fitness tests and the observations of the tennis (and fitness) coach of the player on the court in matches and in training. Every player is different and needs an individualised program.

In 1988 I visited the training center of the Swedish Federation. I also visited the German center in Hanover as both nations were dominating tennis at that time. In Sweden they did something so simple for each player. They put up on the wall the areas of fitness in an order of 1-6 that showed what the player was good at (to maintain) and those areas that needed to improve. It didn’t compare results between players, but it showed the things that each player had to focus on. One of the players was Nicholas Kulti who went on to be a top pro player and to win the deciding match for Sweden in the Davis cup final.

For me I say all the time that Tennis should Drive and fitness and other sports sciences should support. The example I give is that if you run the 100 meters in 15 seconds it does not matter of you have a good fitness program. But if you run it at 10 seconds, a great fitness program could make a difference of .3 seconds and help you win a medal at an important event.

I am pleased to announce that at our upcoming ATP 250 in Almaty the KTF will do something that I think is cutting edge and that has not been done before. We have organized a three-day workshop with a top fitness coach and a top tennis coach working together under this theme of “Tennis Drives-Fitness Supports.

Dario Novak who has worked with top players including Lena Rybakina and Stan Wawrinka will be the tutors/speaker along with Hrvoje Zmajic, former ITF development officer for Europe and they will show over the three days how the tennis and fitness coach should cooperate and work together efficiently and effectively (face to face and online at tournaments) with players aged 12 to 18. The course has already attracted a lot of interest outside of Kazakhstan and a number of nearby federations have asked for their top coaches to attend.

I’ll keep you posted how this unique workshop goes.

During our recent ATP Challenger and ITF futures Professional tournaments in Astana in July, I was interviewed by the Astana Times about the development of tennis in Kazakhstan and the improvements made and the success achieved since 2007 under the Presidency of Bulat Utemeretov. The interview was conducted by the very professional journalist Aida Haidar and it covered many topics related to the main objectives of any tennis federation which are More Players and Better Players.

Over the past 18 years, the number of tennis centers around the country has increased dramatically and today we have seen that tennis is more accessible, with increase tennis participation at all ages around the country. We have also seen really good results by Kazakh born players in international tennis at both junior and professional level in both individual and in ITF junior team events.

Kazakhstan hosts each year over 40 international junior and professional events culminating each year with the ATP 250 held in Almaty which in 2022 attracted 7 of the top 10 male players and which was won by Novak Djokovic. This years event will take place from October 13-19.

An article was published in the Astana Times this week and a video interview was released today.

The link to the interview is

Kazakhstan’s Match Point: Raising Tennis Champions at Home What does it take to build a tennis nation from scratch? 🌍 From Rybakina’s Wimbledon triumph to Bublik’s showmanship on court, Kazakhstan is quickly making ...

Two weeks ago, our Boys under 14 national team participated in the world top 16 team final of the World Junior Tennis event in Prostejov, Czech Republic. The team finished the week in 12th position, and I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the team, Akhmadi, Askar and Kakhnazar and the team captain, Team manager and fitness coach for an excellent performance. The team were close to beating Germany on day one (who finished 4th ) and and lost very close matches to Japan, Czech and Egypt on the deciding doubles.

The players gave 100% in every match and I want to thank Saga Ayap as captain, for his great work. He was on court 6-7 hours each day, encouraging the players and dealing with a lot of pressure. Well done to him.

Our team qualified for the finals in Malaysia at the expense of very strong teams including Australia. One of the players on that team, Bexultan was injured two weeks before the event and we missed him in Czech. Askar Amir joined the team at short notice and he and the other two players played at a very high level. These 4 players showed that they are able to hold their own and compete closely with players from the top nations participating.

On the girl’s side in Kazakhstan, our girl’s national 14 and under team narrowly missed to qualify for the finals,beating Australia, before losing to the top finishing team Korea in the deciding doubles and Korea went on to finish 3rd in the World finals. The great news is that Kazakhstan has now 5/6 boys and 5/6 girls at these ages (born 2011) that are at or close to World level for their age.

Finally, I want to recognize the work of the player’s private coaches and my KTF staff (Shukhrat, Zarina and Ruslan) for all their work for the past 6 months to prepare the team. This detailed preparation is the one of the reasons for our very good results over the past few years. Out of 16 Qualifying 14 and 16 and under events 2022-2025, the teams qualified for world finals 6 times (37.5%), finished top four 9 times (57%) and finished top five 12 times (75%).

Congratulations again to the team.

In June I had the chance to be at Roland Garros for 4 days and was honored to be invited to the 50 years anniversary of Tennis Europe which took place at Roland Garros on Saturday May 31 hosted by the FFT president.

My first event with Tennis Europe was in 1985 when I attended the European Coach symposium in Nice and my first Tennis Europe AGM was in 1992 (yes I am very old!!) and I attended over 15 AGM’s since then. It is a great organization that has done so much for tennis since it was established especially for Junior tennis, entry level pro tennis and coach education.

It was great to meet up with former Tennis Europe and ITF President Francesco Ricci Bitti who I worked closely with for 16 years and to hear his speech referring to the establishment of Tennis Europe in 1975 and the part it has played since then in tennis.

I saw many friends from tennis that night, including Tennis Ireland President Letty Lucas, and during my few days there and then had the chance to watch Alex Bublik in two matches and our Kazakh junior players compete on Sunday and Monday.

It was also great to be in Paris again and to spend time with Bernard Pestre, former FFT Director of coach education, whom I stayed with. The end of May and the start of June is definitely the best time to enjoy this beautiful city.

Wheelchair tennis is very important to me. I was overall in charge of this area for 17 years at the ITF and had the chance to attend many of the top events including the World Team cup and the Paralympics. One of the big objectives back in the 1990s was to have wheelchair events at all 4 of the Grand Slams which was achieved and now these events have raised the visibility of the great athletes playing wheelchair tennis as I saw last week at Wimbledon.

In 2022, we introduced wheelchair tennis in Kazakhstan when I arranged for Mark Bullock to visit during the BJK match against Germany and to work with players and coaches. We also met then with the Paralympic committee and Government officials and made plans to develop the sport.

In June we held our first International ITF Futures and players from11 nations including Japan and Australia participated. I was very proud of the high standard of the organization (you can see in the video link attached) and of the very positive feedback we received from all players and coaches participating. I want to say a big thanks to our sponsor KPMG who have been very supportive of wheelchair tennis in Kazakhstan.

Our manager of wheelchair tennis, Sergey Selivanov and my colleague Ayana deserve great recognition as he has done an amazing job developing and improving the level since 2022. In 2024 we participated in the World Team Cup, in ITF events outside of Kazakhstan and currently have one player ranked in the top 100 wheelchair players.

Fasten your seat belts as next stop hopefully will be the Paralympics in USA in 2028. The link to the video is:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKymXHio-yu/?igsh=MWdmOXJ0cGQzaWticA==

The Kazakhstan Tennis Federation is hosting, for the third year in row, the Asia Oceania qualifying for the Junior Davis Cup and BJK Cup in Shymkent from May 12-25.16 of the top under 16 boy’s and girl’s teams from the region are fighting it out to be one of the 4 teams to qualify for the 16 team World Finals in November. It is being held at the Beeline Tennis Center, a fantastic venue for an event like this with 10 world class clay courts.

In 2023 Kazakhstan qualified for the finals in both boys and girls and in 2024 we qualified in the boys (finishing 5th at the finals) but narrowly missed out in the girls losing a close quarter final match to Australia. This year, we knew that our Kazakh girls team was strong, but we also knew it would be a hard to finish in the top 4 as the other teams had many players representing their nations ranked in the top 100 of the ITF junior rankings.

The week began with an opening ceremony attended by the top Government sports official from Shymkent city after which the matches began. In our group stages we finished in first place, winning our first two matches easily before beating a strong Chinese team 2-1 on the third day in a close match. The singles were split in close matches before Yeva and Yerkezhan won the deciding doubles 6-4 7-6 to progress to the quarter final play offs. We were drawn to play India in the quarter finals and won a tough match 2-0 to qualify for the world finals. Yerkezhan won a long three set match at number 2 before our number 1 player Yeva, clinched the tie with a straight set win over the Indian number 1. Beating two nations with a combined population of 2.5 billion people is quite an achievement.

Congratulations to the three players and captain, former Grand Slam Champion Yaroslava Shvedova, who will now progress to the finals in Santiago, Chile, where we wish them well.

On day 5 and 6 the players fought hard but lost close matches to both Chinese Taipei and Japan to end the week in 4th place.

Since 2022 Kazakhstan has had 9 top 4 finishes in 15 events- a great achievement for all involved. The boys event takes place this week. Top 4 finish and qualification is the objective.

I just finished one of the most intense weeks since I came to Kazakhstan 4 years ago.

It started last weekend when I attended a Lexus event related to our “Tennis for Life” program that they sponsor. Lexus opened a new dealership in Atyrau, and we held a tennis event at our Tennis Center which was attended by their CEO. I spoke later at their Dealership Launch reception where with the help of my big Forehand we awarded some tickets and hospitality packages for our 2025 ATP 250. KTF has a lot in common with Lexus. We believe in our product, we know the importance of good customer service and developing brand loyalty and we embrace in our work their slogan “Experience amazing!”

Our girls National 14 and under team was at the same time playing in the ITF Asia Oceania 14 and under Team qualifying in Malaysia. The team played very well and beat Australia twice. But despite playing some great tennis and fighting hard, they missed out narrowly on Monday to qualify for the top 16 team World finals, losing against a very strong Korean team, 2-1 in a very close deciding doubles match.

While the Malaysia Asia Oceania qualifying event was happening in Kuching, our BJK cup women’s team were in Australia where they beat Australia and Colombia to qualify for the 12 team World finals in Shenzhen in September.

Finally, our Boys 14 and under team were playing this week in Malaysia and yesterday they beat Chinese Taipei 2-1 to qualify for the World finals in August in Czech Republic. The match itself took over 8 hours on court with the first singles taking 4 hours and our boys winning the deciding doubles 10-6 in the champions tie break. Well done to Saga Ayap, the captain, and to the three boys.

Not much time to breath as our 2 weeks of combined men’ and women’s futures start on April 21 in Shymkent. As I say all the time…..This tennis work……it’s not a job. It’s a way of life!

Multi Match/Placement match formats-How to make the ITF World Junior Tour more user friendly and less expensive for players.

I think all ITF Junior J30, J60 and J100 events should introduce placement matches with every player guaranteed 5 singles and awarding different ranking points for each position 1-32. This works very effectively at national level all over the world and internationally in the regional junior 14 and 12 and under tours. Currently all 930 Junior ITF events operate a knockout format with players guaranteed only 1 singles match for their entry fee which has recently been increased by ITF to between 80 and 150 US dollars.

Some things to consider:

-For a performance players under 14, it is recommended as a guide that the player should try to play at least 60 good singles matches each year with a 2/1 ratio of winning to losing. For players aged 14 and over, this number as a guide increases to 80+ singles per year. Under the under 14 regional circuit system, a player playing 10 tournaments will get 50 singles matches. Under the ITF system, the player does not know if they will get 10 matches or 50. This makes it more difficult to plan and results in extra costs and wasted money to get to the 80+ matches.

-Players travelling on the international tour usually play 2 or 3 tournaments at a time in a certain region. If they lose in the first day of the event they cannot return home and instead the player, and the accompanying coach or parent, have to pay for Hotels and food while they wait for the next event to start. At the last week, they usually have an economy air ticket and so it’s difficult to change the ticket and to return early if they lose. The end result is a very expensive system, and many days wasted not playing competitively.

-Because of the current ITF knockout system, coaches and parents are forced to schedule for their player more tournaments to get the necessary matches and this requires more weeks away from home and more expense. This also means the player will miss school and this impacts on the players education and personal growth. The ages of the vast majority of players playing these levels of events, are mostly between 13 and 16 and this is an age where they cannot afford to be away too much from school. Most academic systems have 14-18 weeks of official holidays and soif players were guaranteed 5 singles, parents and coaches could plan in such a way not to miss too much school time if they only needed to play between 10 and 15 weeks instead of 15-20.

-Players aged 13-16 have limits of the number of Junior ITF events they can play each year until their birthday. Its between 12 and 16 tournaments.

-At every ITF junior event, unseeded players have a 25% chance of playing a seed in the first round and 50% in the first two rounds. So often the new players lose in the first or second round and then do not get the competition experience that they need.

-The costs for parents under this proposed system would be a lot less as they would reduce the player and accompanying person’s travel accommodation costs by 5-10 weeks, saving between $5,000 and $10,000 per year.

My Proposal

My proposal would have mandatory multi match/placment formats and different ranking points for each place at J30 and J60 events and it would be optional, with a strong ITF recommendation, for J100 events. At these events there is no hospitality and so it will not impact on these costs because players are involved longer in the event. The demands on courts and roving umpires will be more but if the nations can do this when they have regional and national events, they should be able to do it when hosting ITF 18 and under events.

When I talk with the national player development directors in the top nations, they all think this proposal would benefit their players, coaches and parents. As Tennis Director in Kazakhstan, I know this change would make it much easier for our players, coaches and parents to plan.

For the full article please click here:

https://davemileytennis.com/2025/04/03/multi-match-placement-match-formats-how-to-make-the-itf-world-junior-tour-more-user-friendly-and-less-expensive-for-players/