December 1992
Boys vs. Girls
By Cindy Starr
Do certain factors decide how the two sexes play tennis?
Call it the gender gap of the courts.
Apart from the obvious fact that most boys grow up to be bigger, stronger and faster than most girls, coaches and developmental experts agree that other factors also work to create differences in the way girls and boys play tennis.
Innate differences in emotional sensitivity and the rate of physical development are very real, experts say. So, too, are those differences built into a society that generally expects more of boys than girls and offers them more athletic opportunities. Together, genetics, culture and education have combined to bring about a gender gap which, although narrowing, is still about as wide as the doubles alley.
Thus, although many girls develop outstanding serves, USTA coach Rodney Harmon says he often finds that helping girls improve their serves is "like pulling teeth."
And although some girls may harbor as much grit as any boy, John Cook, a Cincinnati-based coach, will rarely use his gruffest tone of voice when criticizing a female student.
And although some of the world's greatest volleyers have been women, Vince Spadea, father of three nationally ranked children, finds the aggressive net- rusher in his family is the boy. His son and two daughters are all "playing the same game," Spadea says. "But they're really not."
How coaches, teachers and parents approach the gender gap is vital to the child's success. On the one hand, expectations and stereotypes can be self-perpetuating. On the other hand, if subtle gender differences go unappreciated, coaches risk losing players to disinterest or damaged self-esteem.
For example, coaches who are insensitive to girls' emotions are not likely to produce highly successful girls.
"It is important to understand that girls are more complex and tend to be more sensitive than boys," says sports psychologist Jim Loehr, Ed. D., of Loehr-Groppel/Saddlebrook Sport Science in Florida. "They feel things more deeply. Because of their bio-chemical makeup, females are more naturally tuned into emotions and feelings and are more sensitive to the world around them."
"A lot of coaches who have coached boys and then go on to girls apply the same modus operandi. They treat the girls as guys and end up not getting the response they expect."
Cook, who coached NCAA standout Andrea Farley and is now coaching touring pro Any Frazier, agrees. Although he has taught girls who didn't mind a harsh tone of voice, he knows that most of his female charges dislike it.
"If l raise my voice with one little girl I'm working with now, she immediately turns off," he says. "She does not respond to anything. I could talk the same way to a boy and it would be like water off a duck's back."
A heightened sensitivity may be one reason why certain coaches have had great success coaching girls and women. Jimmy Evert, who groomed his daughter, Chris, and Jennifer Capriati , and Federation Cup coach Marty Riessen come to mind.
Girls and boys also approach competition differently as a general rule. While boys grow up in a world of team sports where winning and losing is part of everyday reality, girls still have fewer competitive opportunities. As a result, says National Team coach Lynne Rolley, ''they handle competition more intensely."
Gender differences reveal themselves early on. Research suggests that in the classroom young girls are better able to sit still and pay attention, according to Bob Singer, Ph.D., a professor of exercise and sport science at the University of Florida and a member of the USTA Sport Science Committee.
"Boys are more restless. Generally, young girls have a better ability to be still and focused, and that may account for their getting better grades."
On the tennis court, differences in attention span mean that boys tend to be more impatient and less likely to enjoy tedious drills. Harmon finds boys need more stimuli to stay interested, and he shifts them from one drill to another more frequently than he does girls.
The ability of girls to concentrate for long periods, meanwhile, can transfer beautifully --- some might say too beautifully --- to the baseline, where many will spend most of their tennis Lives. The monotony of baseline play doesn't bother them, and coaches may be reluctant or unwilling to force a change.
"Teachers make a mistake in not doing enough net work with girls," says Butch Seewagon, who teaches young children in his New York-based Children's Athletic Training School. "I don't have that prejudice. I spend equal time at the net and backcourt. I don't want to see unevenness in players."
Indeed, there is no reason for coaches not to spend as much time on net play with young girls as with young boys. According to Dr. Jerry Thomas, associate dean of the graduate college at Arizona State and a researcher in gender differences, girls and boys are remarkably similar both physically and athletically before puberty.
In a 1985 paper published in Psychological Bulletin, Thomas and Dr. Karen French, a motor development specialist at the University of South Carolina, reported the results of research into 20 different motor coordination tasks performed by boys and girls between the ages of 4 and 5. In 19 of the tasks, which included running speed, catching and kicking, the differences were small. "On average young boys run faster," Thomas said. "But many girls run faster than boys."
But the task of overhand throwing produced an eye-catching gap between the sexes. The differential in this skill between young boys and girls was three times as large as the largest differential in any other skill. Such a finding may have relevance for tennis coaches, because throwing is a close cousin of serving. As Harmon points out, "One of the biggest problems I've found is that most girls don't know how to throw a ball properly."
Of course, we know women can learn to serve, as proven by the picture-perfect deliveries of Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova. And Harmon reports that his 7-year-old daughter, Chelsea, can throw a ball beautifully.
Thomas and others believe serving difficulties, where they exist, derive mostly from the fact that girls do not play sports that require overhand throwing as often as boys. Baseball and football are still almost exclusively male domains.
Now comes a caveat, albeit a small one. In the research on 20 motor skills in children aged 4 and 5, Thomas and French noted four physical differences that could influence boys' and girls' abilities to throw. Boys had slightly less fat, slightly longer arms, a larger shoulder-hip ratio, and slightly larger joint diameters at the knee and elbow. Other studies show that boys are more likely than girls to have a dominant left leg, a trait that could enhance the throwing prowess of a right-handed boy.
Thomas raises the possibility that evolutionary pressures could have created a selection bias for the male, who could throw well and thus hunt successfully.
However --- and it's a big however --- Dr. Thomas asserts that the subtle physical differences noted in his study account for only a small part of the differential in overhand throwing.
"I don't believe for a minute that they are the main factor," he says. "They may play a minor role. The reason boys and girls are different is we've made them that way. We can unmake them that way, too."
Getting young girls to practice throwing, to play catch with mom or dad in the backyard, is a good place to start. Under the guidance of coach Rick Macci, Capriati worked on her serving motion by throwing a Nerf football. Such training done early enough could help eradicate a phenomenon witnessed by Rolley: excellent female players with weak serving motions. Reaching girls early is a key point, because serving motions, once ingrained, are terribly difficult to change.
With the prepubescent growth spurts, coming at about age 10 for girls and 11 to 12 for boys, the physical and performance similarities between boys and girls disappear and the gender gap breaks wide open. Boys gain the strength, quickness and size that makes serving and volleying much easier for them.
Boys trail girls in their rate of development, however, and an elite girl tennis player of 14 may be very near professional status, while the elite 14-year-old boy is still several years away.
Spadea, whose three children reached the upper echelons in national junior championships (Vince Jr. was runner-up to Brian Dunn in the National Boys' 18s last summer), believes boys' slower development is an advantage.
"No one expects boys to be pros at 14," he says. "They can afford to be a little wilder on the court. They can take a little more time."
The pressure on girls to succeed early comes at an already challenging time in their lives. A recent study by the American Association of University Women revealed that girls are much more likely than boys to lose their self-esteem upon entering high school. The study showed that while nearly 50 percent of boys felt good about themselves in high school, only 29 percent of girls expressed similar self-satisfaction.
In girls, Loehr says, the menstrual cycle and accompanying hormonal releases can contribute to mood swings and pack extra punch behind feelings of vitality and despair.
in the end, all agree that despite differences between the sexes that consistently arise, coaching boys and girls boils down to the art of teaching human beings.