“A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.”

-John Wooden

Tennis: the last of the truly individual endeavors. But is that a good thing? I often hear tennis players boast over the individual nature of the sport, and how it helps them develop greater problem-solving skills compared to other athletes. Ironically, I also see many players who are incapable of working constructively with others due to the selfish nature of the sport and the egocentric habits that are created as a result. Personally, I think it’s arrogant and ignorant to think tennis players develop greater skill sets because of the sport’s individual nature. Even worse, I think tennis players suffer more emotional distress than most other athletes.

So, is tennis a great sport because of its individuality? Or, would tennis be an even better sport if there was on-court coaching?

Tennis, the ‘Pseudosport’

I’ve always believed that there’s a ton of value in playing sports in general. The ability to prepare, execute, and review any undertaking is a life skill. Through sport, we can learn to manage success, failures, challenges, and crisis, and we also learn self discipline, time management, and humility. Would tennis players, the sport as a whole, and players’ development curve be improved or worsened if on-court coaching was allowed?

My personal opinion is on-court coaching would be incredible for tennis, and its addition would be the single greatest change the sport could make. I actually believe the current version of tennis is more of a ‘pseudosport’. Why? Because the objective of ‘sport’ is to develop the highest level of your abilities, and there’s no possible way any single person can do that as effectively on their own compared to if they had a coach teaching them at critical moments. For anyone who played junior tennis, had a child who played junior tennis, or coached junior tennis, you realize all of the tangible learning opportunities that exist while competing – particularly in critical moments.

Habits Create Champions

Scientific evidence from experts such as Anders Ericsson and Carol Dweck show the most effective way to be your best is to fail under pressure and then correct mistakes using a positive mindset, a lack of attachment to the outcome, and an orientation towards process. This is exactly what coaches do. Coaches help you stay in the moment and focus on the process. It’s unreasonable to expect a junior tennis player, who has limited mastery over his/her body, sport-mechanics, and emotional control, to stay focused on the process while under the duress of competition mired in the judgement of wins and losses.

Let’s think about it in the context of the typical cycle of a junior tennis player, which I believe would be highly more efficient and effective if a coach was by the athlete’s side during competition.

Athlete competes,

Athlete develops habits,

Habits are not optimal because player is left alone with uncontrollable thoughts terrorizing their head before the player has the necessary skills to handle such stress,

Athlete flounders and stunts their learning curve (or stops learning altogether) and experiences excessive frustration which requires an enormous amount of time to correct

Why do you think Mr. Williams kept Venus and Serena out of junior tennis? Habit formation. They were rarely on the court without him or someone else in their ear to make sure they developed the necessary habits required to be champions. He was not about to send the girls out to play tournaments until the right habits were set in stone. As a result, Serena and Venus couldn’t self destruct even during their ‘off’ moments.

Would On-Court Coaching Make a Difference?

We know that even the best tennis players lose as much as they win. Take Stefano Tsitsipas for example who is ranked #32 in the world. Stefano’s record over his entire ATP career is 26-27 (before the Citi Open). That’s a winning percentage of 49%! How much could Stefano’s winning percentage benefit from on-court coaching or at least his mindset with the guidance of a coach? Further, given the amount of failure Tsitsipas (or any player) regularly experiences, how much healthier would his time between points become if he had a coach with him during competition? This clip of Tsitsipas from over the weekend is my point and case. In a perfect world, all players would have on-court coaches and be mentally healthier, which in turn would create a higher level of competition and an even better level of tennis for spectators.

I think we can look to other sports to hypothesize the impact of on-court coaching too. A good coach who’s able to make game-time adjustments can be worth their weight in gold. While the examples of great coaching can be seen in many instances, one of my favorites was the brilliance of Bill Belichick during Super Bowl 51.

After a scoreless first quarter, the Atlanta Falcons scored 21 points before the New England Patriots made a field goal late in the second quarter to make it 21-3 at halftime. When the Falcons increased their lead to 28–3 midway through the third quarter, most people turned their televisions off. Cue the magic. Belichick coached Tom Brady to start working his guys on the sideline saying, we got this, we can do this, we’ve been down before, one down at a time, one play at a time. The coaching staff made a few tactical adjustments, and next thing you know, the Patriots scored 25 unanswered points to tie the game and go on to win it in overtime. That’s what a coach can do to change outcomes.

How Coaches Could Help On Court

Having a coach on court during the entire match could help in the following ways:

Reinforce the game plan developed prior to the match Make adjustments to the game plan during the match Help manage the players emotions and expectations Keep the player focused on the task at hand, in the moment Provide a neutral perspective – most players only see what is happening through his/her own filter. Typically, these internal filters are inaccurate, so having a secondary set of eyes on the match would give the player more accurate information. Most importantly, if the player simply executes the instructions of the coach, it takes all the pressure off the player to “win.” This creates a ‘process orientation’ versus an ‘outcome orientation’ which can be life changing for athletes. Considering tennis players will lose countless points, games, and sets en route to match and tournament victories, it’s extremely important they do not get bogged down by mini failures.

In a skill-based sport like tennis, typically higher skill levels win out. It is clear though, getting the right input at the right time can lead to skill and game development. Here’s an example: My player is losing from the backcourt. He’s making too many errors and things look bleak. As an on-court coach, I can encourage my player to move forward and attack more. In fact, I can demand it offering two options:

Get to the net and lose differently, or Shake hands and get off the court (I’ve benched my players before at the college level and would do it again – that’s called coaching).

In the process of following instructions, my player may turn a match around, or realize “boy, if I volleyed a little better, I could have won that match.” Either way, my player is moving forward in a positive direction.

What About Practice Coaching?

If we were really buying into the theory that tennis is an individual sport and the skill sets it teaches mainly consist of individual problem solving, then aren’t we preparing the players all wrong? Isn’t the group and academy setting a false representation of the competitive environment? As a result, are we creating players who cannot function independently? Why should we have so much coaching during practice if coaching isn’t allowed during competition?

Unfortunately for the purists, our sport has become more business and money-driven. The more players that tennis facilities, academies and programs can attract, the more money they will make. Are these environments really in the best interest of players who will compete alone with no support or help during a match? If you have to compete without coaching, then shouldn’t you practice without coaching? Shouldn’t you play more practice matches, have less instructor-led practices, and shoulder more responsibility to set up your training? It just seems like having a parent drop you off at the academy after they arranged all your training creates impotent players, not empowered ones. Although, the value of the academy setting (or lack thereof) is a subject for a future post. For now, let’s just say the leading researchers on world class skill development think there are better ways. If this topic interests you, I suggest you read Peak by Anders Ericsson, the world’s leading authority on the science of expertise.

The College Game

You’re probably aware there’s on-court coaching at the collegiate level. Is there a correlation between the best teams having the best on-court coaches? It’s a good question but a tough one to answer. Unlike other sports, many tennis players are uncoachable on court because they never learned how to be coached during competition.

The challenge at the college level is you are taking an athlete who has never been coached in the midst of a match and are trying to coach them while under pressure. As you can imagine, this is tricky business. Provide too much input and you can create too much thinking by players (‘paralysis from analysis’). The urge for a coach, of course, is to coach since we’re wired to help. However, players must first know how to receive on-court coaching for it to be effective. By starting at the junior level, players will feel comfortable being coached on-court by the time they hit college.

Good Coaching Creates Great Problem Solving Skills

I love watching basketball games on TV late in a close game when they show the huddle during a timeout. That’s where the treasure lies. One of my favorite recent occurrences was seeing Golden State Warriors head coach, Steve Kerr, tell his team at a critical moment in a big game to “figure it out on their own.” He didn’t hesitate and immediately walked away from the huddle.

Wait, isn’t this starkly different than tennis? Basketball players are coached their entire life before, during, and after competition. When Kerr tells his guys to “go figure it out” in a critical moment, they’re equipped to course-correct and go execute. Conversely, the tennis player isn’t coached during competition and is left to try and figure it out on their own. How can you figure it out if you’ve never been shown the way? Osmosis? I think not.

Final Take: On-Court Coaching Establishes Platform for Success

I strongly believe that allowing coaching at the very early levels of tournament play would have a profound impact on the level of tennis played at the early stages, tour levels, and everywhere in between. I also believe we would lose less players at younger ages because they would not feel so alone and vulnerable. The most difficult situation tennis players encounter is the tournament, match setting. If the toughest situation a tennis player will face is navigating through match play, then it makes no sense to throw them out there all alone to face it starting on day one. Sure, they can hit groundstrokes, serve and keep score, but does it really serve the player’s or the sport’s best interest to put them on an island during competition from the moment they start playing?

Further, most players seem to suffer from some sort of PTSD after a lost tennis match. They are sullen, depressed, and not interested in talking about the match. Having the ability to coach on-court during matches can create an environment that leads to much less mental “damage” and a player developing more of the ‘coachability’ attribute that champions possess.

Not being able to afford a coach is no excuse either. Parent coaching exists in every sport and certainly works in tennis. I’ve coached my kids in sports I have no experience with (e.g. field hockey), but I brought positive energy, enthusiasm, and fundamentals that I learned from googling info about the sport. Any parent can provide that level of support!

Qualities such as learning to be coached, being open-minded under pressure, working well with others, and being able to follow instructions are all prerequisites for functioning in any job or career. I say bring on the coaches, eliminate the notion of illegal coaching and allow everyone to benefit and develop from match-play support.

“All coaching is, is taking a player where he can’t take himself.”

– Bill McCartney

Do you agree with Bruce’s thoughts on on-court coaching? Would it truly make the players and the overall sport better? Comment with your thoughts below! Interested in more on the topic of junior development? Be sure to check out Brian Baker’s (former ATP top 50 and ITF #2) post on how to create great competitors.