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Questions Wisdom of Single Teaching Group

I enjoy reading RSI. It fills a real void in providing inside industry information. But I don’t agree with the thoughts expressed in Peter Francesconi’s “Our Serve” column in the Nov./Dec. issue about unifying the USPTA and the PTR.

Tennis according to John Muir and Kurt Kamperman has been growing at a very healthy rate in the past six years. Both teaching pro organizations also appear to be growing and both are healthy financially. It is great that teaching pros have a choice. The fact that they compete with each other has spurred better and more creative services. Encouraging a monopoly is not a good policy for a growing industry.

Any merger can be very disruptive, even when the cultures and people align pretty well. In this case there are significant differences in the governance structures as well as the cultures. The PTR is much more of an international organization. There are numerous other subtle differences.

So why is it that an industry composed of many small- to medium-sized companies is suddenly looking seriously at consolidating into a single organization one of its most important components, its delivery system for teaching the game? Frankly, if this was coming from the pros I would understand it better.

Skip Hartman

From the February 2013 issue
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