Junior Tennis Resilience Training Gets Deep Dive From USTA Coaching Expert

What separates a player who crumbles under pressure from one who fights back? According to Lindsay Baum, Head Tennis Professional for Junior Development at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the answer was forged long before anyone reached the main draw at Flushing Meadows.

Writing in Long Island Tennis Magazine's coaching column, Baum argues that the U.S. Open's most compelling quality, the ability of professionals to bounce back from adversity in a brutally demanding environment, has its true origins in the junior circuits and intermediate levels within each USTA section. Those developmental stages, she writes, are the proving ground where ambitious athletes first challenge their limits and competitive spirit.

The centerpiece of her framework is a three-phase approach she calls the "open, close, open" method, designed to move juniors systematically from observation to intensive training and back into match conditions. "How do coaches determine the improvements to be made on court?" she writes. "Simple: 'open, close, open' method."

The front end begins with watching players compete. Baum's programs at the National Tennis Center use matchplay analysis in an open play-based environment to assess individual player needs, letting actual match behavior surface the problems worth solving. From there, the methodology shifts into a closed environment built around hard practice drills and targeted scenarios. This middle phase, Baum explains, is where mental toughness gets cultivated, building junior confidence and what she calls "competitive familiarity for all levels."

The final phase loops back outward. Coaches guide juniors through reflective questions before returning them to competitive play. Two examples Baum cites capture the spirit of the approach: "Are you running down every ball?" and "How resilient are you in every drill?" The questions are pointed and deliberately simple, designed to transfer ownership of effort and grit to the player.

Baum brings more than a decade of coaching experience to this framework. She holds a professional teaching certification with RSPA, is a USTA Eastern Certified Tournament Director, and specializes in both 10 & Under programs and High Performance training at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Her column runs in the January/February 2026 digital edition of Long Island Tennis Magazine and is directed squarely at coaches, parents, and junior players across the Eastern Section. She can be reached at NTCPros@usta.com.