There is no shortage of opinions in junior tennis about how much is too much. Coaches have opinions. Tournament directors have opinions. Other tennis parents, especially the ones whose child is playing more than yours, always seem to have an opinion. What is rarer is an opinion grounded in evidence and expressed in specific, usable numbers.

A 2025 review published in Sports Health, co-authored by researchers from Mount Sinai Hospital and Emory University’s sports medicine program, provides exactly that. Based on the available evidence on injury risk, burnout, and long-term performance, the authors offer concrete age-specific guidelines for junior tennis that most families have never seen and most programs quietly ignore.

For players under twelve, the recommendation is no formal tournament play at all, or at most six tournaments per year for those already competing. One to three training sessions per week. Active participation in other sports. This is not a conservative outlier position. It is what the evidence supports when you remove the commercial and cultural pressures from the equation.

For players under fourteen, the guidelines suggest a maximum of twelve to sixteen tournaments per year, two to four training sessions per week of ninety minutes to three hours, and a serious conversation about whether specialisation is appropriate yet. The research suggests it usually is not.

For high-performance players aged sixteen to eighteen, up to twenty-four tournaments per year and three to six sessions per week, with tennis specialisation appropriate but non-tennis physical activity still essential. Even at this level, the numbers are more conservative than what most competitive programs actually deliver.

The figure that stands out most is this one. Playing more than forty matches per year is associated with a significant increase in medical withdrawals from junior national tournaments. Forty matches sounds like a lot until you consider that many serious junior players in the United States routinely play sixty, eighty, or more. The system not only permits this. It rewards it, through a ranking structure built on match volume.

The researchers are honest about the tension this creates. Following these guidelines, they note, would make it difficult for a player to be ranked highly in the current junior system. That is not a reason to dismiss the guidelines. It is a reason to think carefully about what the current junior system is actually optimising for, and whether that is the same thing you are.

These numbers are not a prescription for every player. Development is individual and context matters. But they provide a benchmark that most families have never been given. If your eleven-year-old is playing twenty tournaments a year, that is not dedication. It is, according to the best available evidence, a risk factor.