UTR Real Story: Terry McGrath
Universal Tennis
Stories from UTR players, like today’s UTR Real Story from Terry McGrath, are why we do what we do every day to make tennis better for everyone. The 16-year old from Connecticut just competed in last week’s Tenacity Futures/UTR $10K Open at Harvard University. Here’s what his experience was like. Thanks for sharing Terry!
“This past weekend, I came to Harvard to play Tenacity UTR $10k Open as a way to improve my UTR rating. I didn't really know what exactly I was signing up for, but I thought it was worth to try.
In my first UTR match I played against a friend of mine from the USTA New England section who is older than me and a very strong player. With the USTA system we never had a chance to play against each other because he was always playing in an older age division. I ended up winning that match, which elevated my confidence.
The next day I played a D1 player from Wake Forest who is about 2.0 UTR points higher than me. I went out and got destroyed in the first set, but even though the score showed 0:6, a lot of games were close. I never stopped believing. I won the second set and even though I ended up losing the match, I surprised myself by going close with D1 player.
This whole experience was a great way to boost my confidence, and opened my eyes that playing stronger more experienced players is so important to someone like me who loves tennis, and some day would love to play D1 tennis. It is a great way to test my abilities, and it is a great way to see great matches. I would never have had the chance to experience what I just did, because with USTA, if you don't qualify for the Nationals or have enough points in a higher age group, then you end up playing the same players in your section over and over again. Some days you win, and some days you lose but you never really get the chance to see how good you can be. I would love to experience more events like this one. I was able to play at a higher level of tennis by playing against older friends, college players, and maybe even future Pros. For me this event was a life changing experience!”
Terry’s mother, Iwona McGrath added:
“Thank you for organizing such a great event! The venue provided Terry with the opportunity to play with a dynamic group of great players, and watch great matches. Before this event, he never really had a chance to test his tennis abilities in a real competition against much older and stronger players. Terry loved every minute of it, and still can't stop talking about it. Now more then ever he believes that he has a chance to be a D1 tennis player. Witnessing my child's excitement and growing confidence was a special moment for me as a parent. I would love to see more events like the one this past weekend. What an inspiration and great experience for a young tennis players!" - Iwona McGrath (Proud mother of Terry)
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