The “Young Stars” tournaments are a series of five tournaments for children up to 14 years of age that are held in various European countries during the months of July and August.

The series was launched in Brühl in 1988. In September of this year, representatives of the Carl Gantois Cup (Belgium), the Royal Dutch Tennis Association and the FördervereinJüngsten-Tennis-Tournament Brühl eV (Germany) met for the first time to coordinate their efforts in organizing youth tournaments.

The aim was to be able to offer teams from all over the world a European tour made up of closely spaced high-level tournaments which, geographically not too far apart, are played in the same way.

Appropriate participation conditions should aim to give the tournament series a qualitatively unique value within the ETA tournaments for the age group AKIII and beyond that worldwide.

In 1989 the “Young Stars” series started with four tournaments. In the following years, apart from Brühl, the venues changed several times, but the tournament series met with such great international interest that the series was expanded to include a fifth tournament in 1994 and a sixth in 1995.

In 1998 there were only four tournaments in this series. The organizers of these top-class tournaments give young tennis players from all over the world the chance to collect ranking points during the four weeks in Europe. In addition, the organizers of the “Young Stars Circuit” bear the costs of accommodation, food and transport between the arenas for the international associations. Although the “Young Stars” series has no official status within the ETA, its Grand Slam character is measured in terms of quality and international participation, undisputed. For winners and successful participants maybe a big step towards Roland Garros and Wimbledon.