BIGGEST PRIZE
DEADLINE TRACKED TO THE MINUTE
Waco Level 5 Championship
1 hr 42 min drive · Boys 14s · Level 5
A deep run here is worth more than a title at any Level 6 nearby.
MOST IT CAN PAY
300 pts
GUARANTEED
4 matches
round robin
Pathway shows you which USTA events actually move your child’s ranking, weighs the points against the travel, and sends deadline reminders so a missed signup never costs them a weekend of play. We’re opening it to a first group of families — create your account, add your child, and see their plan before the season’s first entry window closes.
Only a player’s six strongest results count. A weak event that can’t crack that six adds nothing.
Every tournament shows the most it can pay — the champion’s total at that level, draw format and match cap. Any earlier exit pays less.
Ranking points last twelve months from the day they’re earned, then drop off the record. A tournament that looked optional in March may be the one that replaces points expiring in June — which is why entries are worth planning around the roll-off, not just the calendar.
Every junior gets six singles slots and six doubles slots. Doubles results count toward the ranking at 15% of face value, which sounds like a rounding error until you notice they’re earned on the same weekend, in the same draw, at almost no added cost. Six empty doubles slots is half a season left on the table.
They drove to those four tournaments anyway. They paid those entry fees. They were already there on Saturday — the doubles draw was running, and they skipped it. Same six weekends, 486 points against 648.
Each weekend, Pathway shows the events within reach and the most each one can pay — the champion’s total at its level, draw format and match cap.
A deep run here is worth more than a title at any Level 6 nearby.
Great for match wins — but a Level 6 pays per win, and the ceiling is low.
We’re opening Pathway to a limited first group so we can set families up properly, one at a time, before the season starts.
Founding families are onboarded ahead of general release, with your child’s division and travel radius already set up.
You start the season with a plan already in place — not scrambling the week an entry window closes.
Tell us what you actually need to decide each weekend, and it shapes what we build next.
Entry windows close days before an event — miss one and there’s no way back in. Pathway tracks the deadline for every tournament on your child’s plan and reminds you by email before it closes, so the only reason to skip an event is because you chose to.
Plain answers to how junior ranking actually works.
A junior’s ranking is built from their best six SINGLES results and their best six DOUBLES results over a rolling twelve-month window, not from every event they play — twelve result slots in total, and singles and doubles are often earned at the same tournament, with doubles counting at a fraction of face value. Each tournament awards points by the round a player reaches, and higher-level tournaments award far more points than lower ones. Because only the top six count, a player’s ranking is really the sum of their six most valuable finishes — and their weakest of those six is the “floor” that any new result has to beat to matter.
Level 6 events are the best place to build early — they’re winnable, close to home, and a great way to bank match wins and confidence. They award roughly 20 points per win, versus about 300 for winning a Level 5. How many points a player can actually earn also depends on the draw format: a single-elimination bracket ends the moment you lose, while a round-robin or compass draw guarantees several matches — so a round-robin flight where a player wins four matches at ~20 points each can total around 80 points, even at Level 6. As a player’s best-six floor rises, a Level 6 result eventually sits below that floor, so it stops adding to the ranking even though it’s still valuable for match play and wins. That’s the natural signal it’s time to also enter higher-level tournaments (Level 5 and above), where a strong result can replace one of the six — while Level 6 events stay a smart pick whenever winning matches is the goal.
Combined points are a single number — the total value of a player’s best results, added together. A ranking is the ordinal position that number earns them on a specific list (1st, 9th, 42nd) once every player is sorted. Points are absolute and only change when you play; your ranking is relative and can move even in weeks you sit out, because other players’ results shift the order around you.
National championship fields are filled from national standing lists as of a published cutoff date, combined with a quota of players each section is allowed to endorse. A section endorses its top juniors up to that quota, and remaining spots are filled at-large by national ranking. The practical consequence is that selection is decided weeks before the event by where a player sits on the list at the cutoff — not by late-season form.
A travel radius doesn’t cost miles — it costs the points in the tournaments it puts out of reach. The highest-value events are spread thin, so a tight radius often locks a player into low-level local draws that can’t beat their floor, capping how high their ranking can climb. Pathway shows the most each event can pay at its level and draw format, inside the radius and beyond it, so the trade-off is a number, not a guess.
More than most families expect. Doubles results carry at a fraction of their face value toward the ranking, which makes them easy to dismiss — but they’re earned on the same weekend, in the same draw, at almost no added cost. The evidence is in the standings: among the top two hundred ranked juniors last season, only a handful had no doubles points at all. Practically everyone at the top of the list is playing doubles and banking those points. A partial credit still counts, and over a full season those fractions accumulate into the difference between two players with identical singles records.
Create your account now. Add your child, set the travel radius, and the first deadline is on your calendar before the entry window opens.