Is it right for players these days to have more than one coach or is it a case of too many cooks?
I do believe that players should have a ‘team’ around them but the team should consist of one coach, someone to do strength and conditioning, a hitting partner and of course the family as support.
In this blog I will break down the roles of each person in the team and to make this clear…this topic is really aimed at players of a higher performing level, NOT your average joe who plays in the club open every year and the rest of the time is a recreational player who plays with friends.
The role of the coach
A players coach is responsible for how the player performs on a tennis court, taking control of everything from technique, strategy and court behaviour.
To break it down further a coach will work on every aspect of the players tennis playing ability, and this happens through months and months, years and years of hard work and grafting. Players don’t improve overnight, it takes time, patience and effort on both parties, from the coach to the player. Coaches take the time to watch players both in sessions and in matches to determine what weaknesses their players have and then plan training sessions accordingly. The hard work for the player comes not only from the tennis side of but also from the patience of listening to their coach.
A coach will determine a weakness and focus on that for as many future sessions as required to improve however other aspects will also be covered.
In my experience, with a particular player, the area we needed to work on was the serve and so we focussed purely on the serve for a number of sessions over 2 weeks and then started to expand the sessions bringing in other skills such as attacking off the serve once a level of consistency was achieved. Once the consistency was there there was room then to fine tune technique and bring in some strengths to build confidence.
With that goal being closed in on it was time to look at other goals such as consistency with ground strokes, during matches it was clear that the player wanted to kill off the point early however once the rally passed shots the point ‘had to end’ in the mind of my player so to improve there, my player had to, and still has to, hit 15, 20, 25 shot rallies with me before we can play the point to help with his consistency.
Putting both of these into practice in recent sessions, my player now has a much more consistent serve however it is still very much work in progress but consistency in ground strokes has massively improved and my player is much more capable of going through longer points and coming out on top.
Moving onto…
The role of the hitting partner
A hitting partner is much needed to practice the techniques and strategies taught by a coach, in which the coach can occasionally observe to check on the players progress without being on the other side of the net.
A hitting partner is just that…hitting partner, NOT a coach, they should be of an equal ability or able to put pressure on the player in the areas that need improvement.
Hitting partners should not coach or even attempt to coach on what the players coach has instructed as this can lead to massive confusion when the player steps onto court in matchplay or in tournaments.
Again, in my experience, players that have a second coach instead of a hitting partner get conflicting coaching leading to confusion and mistakes in matches. My player that I have been working on consistency in ground strokes with has been coached, by another less qualified coach, to hit high to the baseline which I totally agree with, at the right time, however as it is not a main focus and not an area they need to work on until the required technique and grip is achieved, my player is now hitting short balls bringing their opponent into the net and hitting short lobs, setting opponents for easy smashes and volleys as the player is confused and is trying to finish the point early with a dropshot and lob.
The consistency I am working with them to achieve will develop into depth as we continue to work on technique and as they hit more with hitting partners/matchplay leading to a point where the high ball to the baseline/corners will be much more effective.
In my eyes, hitting partners are invaluable and are a must for all players, not just players who play at a high level. They help players work on techniques learned in group sessions as well as private sessions. Even as a coach I have a hitting partner as I sill need to keep improving and develop my own game to help my players improve.
The last person in a players team…
The role of a strength and conditioning coach
The roles of these coaches are not specifically tennis related, these are aimed at the athletic ability of each player. There is only so much a coach can do e.g. footwork but if a coach can see where a player is struggling then they can tell the S&C coach giving them a target area to work on such as speed around the court, balance or core strength.
Once again, in my experience, I have sought the advice of a S&C coach and done the best I can as finding time for the S&C coach to work with my player is proving extremely difficult therefore my player cannot reach their full potential until we achieve their goals on a non tennis related skill set which at the moment is court coverage and movement, which means I can start to develop footwork further.
The final part of a players team is…
The role of the players family
A players family plays a massive role in a players development as a tennis player, through their attitude and encouragement.
Now families can have positive and negative impacts on players depending on how they interact with the player.
Families that get too involved with no tennis knowledge can have a negative impact as they don’t always understand the players achievements.
My experience tells me that this can be the case, with a family of a player I coach, I have to reiterate the results of matches and the achievements of the player, one match my player won 6-2, a family member was picking out mistakes my player was making which is a perfect example of family getting too involved in a players play. in another match, the same player went 5-2 down, saved 3 match points then clawed back to go 6-5 up only to lose 7-6 in a tiebreak and a family member again was picking out mistake after mistake. This was a concern for me as I firmly believe that to encourage a player the family should have been complimenting the player, in the first match, on the result and in the second match, the saving of match points and even going a game away from victory. It is the job of the coach to focus on the mistakes and plan what needs to be done to improve and rule out the mistakes made.
The importance of all of these factors is HUGE to a players development but at the centre of all of this is the coach, if you have two coaches then it gets overly and unnecessarily complicated leading to mass confusion and it will be counter productive to the player.
See below the relationships of each of the team with each other…
Coach – Player – coach develops player in every aspect of tennis
Coach – Hitting partner – coach informs hitting partner of area to focus on
Coach – S&C coach – coach outlines difficulty player has for S&C coach to work on
Coach – Family of player – coach keeps family in the loop and explains all helping family be as supportive as possible
S&C Coach – Player – S&C coach works with player to improve athletic ability
S&C Coach – Hitting Partner – No link
S&C Coach – Family of player – No link
Hitting Partner – Player – hitting partner works with player on specific area outlined by the coach
Hitting partner – Family of player – No link
Family of player – Player – source of encouragement and positive/constructive comments
Any comments and feedback to this blog is welcomed as I am a young and developing coach and this is as far as my understanding goes at the moment and I am wanting to learn!
samcoaching 