ATF 14 & Under tournaments are for players from aged 10 to 14 years old. For parents and coaches who are new in this journey and never encounter such experience, it is good to know this information earlier so that the pathway of the players can be prepared accordingly.
A little research has to be done to get all these information. Besides asking parents and players who have gone through the journey, it is also better to have some read up on ATF junior circuits.
Raihah and Reefa turned 10 in 25th August 2024. We knew we can enter ATF 14 & under right after the date but we have to chose carefully and to not make them suffer too much with bigger girls. At 10 years old, they are smaller in size compared to 14 years old girls. Works need to be done first before the girls able to compete with bigger and stronger girls.
To prepare them, they need to be expose with the kind of size and strength of players in other tournaments. As for that, they have played some tournaments 14 and under with the chance to win to gain some confidence ahead. Few months past, we are ready now to enter ATF 14 & under.
Malaysia able to host 7 ATF events every year. That means, we have the chance to compete in the country before going out and spend more on financial. Penang is our first journey in ATF and its going to be special and be remembered.
Starting with registration, I was a little bit frustrated with the platform. It was not very user friendly and to find ways to register was not that easy. Was told to pay for ITF ipin before going to ATF website. Here is the link for ITF Ipin registration. https://ipin.itftennis.com/ITF Ipin.
Sign Up needed and payment should be made to this platform in order to get the IPIN number. Note that, a player needs to have their own email address and not using the parent’s email address. All the email will go through their own email address for their tournament purpose.
Once payment made, the ipin will looks like this ABC1234567. Payment was USD 60 and the ipin is valid for one year starting from the date of payment.
ITF will send the email to the registered email of the approved ipin instantly after the payment was made. It was quite easy in this part since it was on the ITF website.
Once done, I went on to the ATF website and this was a little bit tricky.
ATF has more than 1 website. Thats the tricky part. For a first timer, you have to ask which platform to use to register players or you have to explore yourself. The main ATF website does not have a visible link to register players. Even if you click on to tournament and ATF junior tour, it does not have a link to register players. This is the main one at https://www.asiantennis.com/atf-junior-tour/. In here, you can see the live score of tournaments all around Asia that is currently happening.
To register, you need to go to other website. It’s called https://atf.hitcourt.com. From here then, you can register players and put in all the informations to create an account. Note that there is one more website and it is different with the address https://atf.tournamentsoftware.com/tournaments. This website also have no ways to register players. not sure what is the website for, maybe its an old one but still active.
In http://www.ATF.Hitcourt.com, the registration is made for players and it needs the passport and a player image using selfie mode. The requirement made players to have their own image in the account and they other players can check the face before a match.
From that website, tournaments registration can be made, according to the players favor. The places, the time, and the category or grades that they want to choose. For a first timer, choose a lower level tournament to get into the tournament since a lot of players will register to the tournament. You need a little bit of luck to get to the tournament since you have no ranks for a first timer.
But once a player registered, he or she can play anywhere in Asia, and compete with other players in own country or other countries. Usually, the draw will be 32 main draw players, with 16 highest rank players who registered will get direct acceptance. The other 48 players will play qualifying round with 8 spots to main draw.
6 main draw wildcards will be given to players, and 2 special exempt wild cards. Total of 8 main draws wildcards can be given to players. Players with good standing with the association, usually will be the one chosen to get wildcards. And depending on organizers, they might also give wildcards to nation as exchange wildcards when our players happen to play at their country.
The qualifying wildcards will be given to players who do not have the points or rank enough in the list of players registered. There are 8 reserved spots for qualifying.
When you register, note that you be might be at the alternates section. This will go up when someone withdraw their names from tournament and many did so. Just keep on checking the acceptance list names to see where they are at on the alternates list.
After all, parents or coaches play an important role in this. They need to plan well for the tournament and be aware of the dates and venue of tournaments. Players might just go to the venue and play their matches. It’s the parents and coaches role to enroll them to this kind of tournament. Just remember, the ranking will take care of itself when the level has gone up.
The first day went ok, Raihah lost 2-6; 2-6 to player from Singapore. It was a good experience for her since this is our first time playing ATF. Looking forward to more ATF tournaments.
Good to have this first experience in ATF. May we have more of this in the future.