The Worlds Prettiest Tennis Game Belongs To This 13 Year Old!! Wow
Take a look something is going on with this kid. The question is what?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6IhAWO8_r0
The video you are watching is of 13 year old Deja Kitchiner. Deja's Junior tennis career is unique in many ways. For one Deja was invited to train at a world class tennis academy and she has respectfully declined. Deja's game and development has also been very visible to the public. Deja has been uploading videos of her tennis talents on you tube since she was 10 years old. The videos are often met with mixed reviews, & some have even reached over 100,000 views. Most of Deja's older videos have been taken down because they contained copy written music. Deja has decided to start fresh, and currently Deja's other live video is at 75,000 views and counting. Deja is also unique because she is blessed with tremendous athletic explosiveness, and a playing style that is beautiful to watch. While some notable tennis players have been trained by their parents, most including Venus and Serena Williams eventually went on to receive training from outside (Rick Macci and the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy)sources. Keep this fact in mind when getting to know Deja. Deja is essentially attempting to teach herself to become a world class tennis player. Other than a minor grip change at age 9. Deja's game has been untouched since age 3. At the time of filming this video Deja is 5'5 inches tall, and weighs 130 pounds. This is currently a very similar stature to that of Deja's favorite WTA tour player Justine Henin. In comparison to most juniors Deja plays a relatively small schedule. In the beginning this was due to financial reasons, now the smallish schedule is due to Deja working on her craft and fine tuning different aspects of her game. Including her serve & volley, and Steffi Graf style of play. Deja is a true all court player who on any given day might come in on virtually every serve. The fact that Deja has so many options at her disposal is sometimes both a blessing and a curse. Deja is currently the epitome of a hot and cold player who is sometimes confused at what style she should play. It is well known that many professional all court players, even Roger Federer struggled with this aspect of all court play while developing. Why should Deja be any different? If you have followed Deja's career, then you are aware that when she was 6 She played in the 10's division. When she was 10 she played in the 18s, and every since then she has registered in mainly 18 year old events. This was done purposely so that she could get used to playing against a pro style ball. Deja in fact was groomed to be a professional from the very start at age 3. When Deja's father noticed that pace and challenging pro style drills were easy for Deja, he never looked backed. Deja has been training to be a professional every since. Deja essentially skipped playing with kids her age, and rarely had to play when she was the dominant athlete. Recent struggles at the 18's challenger junior level(a level in which Deja won consistently at age 12) has helped Deja's father recall something from a book titled "Training A Tiger" The book was written by Earl Wood the late father of Tiger Woods. Earl Woods was famous for moving Tiger up to the next level when his son Tiger was unable to focus or to get up for matches when he was the physically dominant player. Deja's family is struggling with this dilemma currently and this aspect of junior tennis is proving to be one of the consequences of Deja declining the tennis academy scholarship. At the academy Deja would know for sure that on a match by match basis she would be up against people who are preparing for the same goal. Deja must certainly concentrate on this a bit, but not to the point to where she changes her game or mindset to fit the non attacking style of junior tennis. Venus & Serena Williams avoided junior tournaments all together after age 12,possibly the drastic differences between junior and pro tennis contributed to this fact. The fact that with each other the sisters could always play high quality tennis meant that they didnt have to play top junior players to gauge themselves. Deja doesnt have this luxury. For this reason the family has come to the decision that it is time for Deja to step up to the next level of Junior play which is ITF tournaments, and national events. Deja is currently working on better understanding playing styles, and what tactics are best suited to combat the different styles. When Deja gets a grasp on this aspect of tennis "look out" because as you may have noticed she is certainly equipped with every shot, style, and physical attribute to execute the game plan on the next level. In December of 2009(8thgrade) Deja decided to home school so that she could focus further on her tennis game. Feel free to rate & comment. Subscribe if you are interested in tracking Deja's quest to become a great professional.