By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Picture credit score: Jennifer Pottheiser/USTA
Declining alternatives to advance in teaching, reasonably than increasing household obligations, is a person trigger of girls teaching leaving tennis.
A brand new nationwide report from USTA Coaching and Tucker Middle for Analysis on Ladies & Ladies in Sport concludes that work-place challenges—issues over honest pay, equitable environments and alternative to advance—immediate extra girls coaches to faucet out of tennis than private selection.
You possibly can learn the complete report Ladies in Teaching: A Cross-Sport Collaboration, at USTACoaching.com.
Listed below are some key findings from the report:
● Inadequate pay, not caregiving, is the primary purpose girls collegiate coaches decline job provides, immediately difficult long-standing narratives about household being the first driver of attrition.
● Ladies who understand unequal pay, restricted advantages, and restricted development alternatives report considerably decrease job satisfaction and a better chance of leaving inside 12 months – a pricey consequence for organizations looking for continuity and aggressive stability.
● Persistent “blame the ladies” narratives—resembling “girls don’t apply” or “girls lack confidence”—proceed to obscure systemic obstacles at societal, organizational and interpersonal ranges, permitting establishments to keep away from accountability for structural reform.
● Fundamental skilled infrastructure, together with entry to services, locker rooms, lactation area, and correctly designed uniforms, immediately impacts efficiency, authority and retention, reinforcing whether or not girls are handled as integral leaders or afterthoughts.
The findings from the report have been “knowledgeable partly by discussions at a cross-sport working summit held in the course of the 2025 US Open,” USTA Teaching mentioned in a press release.
On August twenty sixth, 2025, the USTA convened a number of skilled girls’s coaches from quite a lot of totally different sports activities on the US Open. The panel mentioned a few of the most vital challenges girls coaches face to stay teaching.
USTA Teaching Managing Director Megan Rose mentioned retaining girls coaches within the sport is significant to development.
“Teaching is extra complicated and demanding than ever,” mentioned Megan Rose, Managing Director and Head of Enterprise Growth & Operations for USTA Teaching. “If sport organizations need stability and innovation, they need to handle how teaching roles are structured and supported, not simply what number of girls enter the pipeline.
“Recruitment with out retention will not be progress.”
Right here’s how USTA Teaching goals to deal with the difficulty, based on their mission assertion within the information launch:
USTA Teaching is already advancing many of those rules. Launched as a nationwide platform to modernize coach schooling and professionalize teaching pathways, USTA Teaching offers versatile certification fashions, tiered growth alternatives and structured help designed to strengthen entry and retention.
Earlier this yr, USTA Teaching launched its inaugural Ladies in Teaching Cohort, a 10-month nationwide management expertise for 25 numerous girls coaches throughout the tennis ecosystem. This system focuses on management growth, monetary literacy and profession longevity – areas recognized within the report as vital to sustaining girls’s careers.
“The time for performative help has handed,” added Rose. “Sustaining girls in teaching requires structural change, from pay fairness and services to work tradition and development. The way forward for sport depends upon who we retain, not simply who we recruit.”
