Coaching

I was coached in tennis myself at the premier courts at Milton in Brisbane and then played Saturday tennis back in Melbourne. I was too young to be able to produce a good serve or strong backhand, but I developed a strong flat forehand. I played socially with better players than myself and did learn to serve better. But to be a better player I would have had to have much more coaching and much more practice.

So when my son was about 5-6 I got him some tennis coaching. He was still small then and didn't show great promise. He played Saturday tennis for a while and then later, socially with a friend who did have some serious coaching, more than my son or me.

The other day I agreed to go and watch them play. I soon summed up their skills and was pleasantly surprised to see that both could hold a good rally for some 10 strokes. I went from keeping score to coaching mode. My teaching training had come out to play. I stood at the back of them as they served to see where they were hitting the ball and with what kind of stroke.

There were really interesting differences in the 2 players. My son looked like Gustavo Kuerten and his friend looked like Roddick. They were playing better than I had seen much on local courts. It was synthetic grass with sand on it and the first thing I noticed was that my son made use of the sand to slide and played much more like a Latin American while his friend played more like an Australian or American. My son also played front on while his friend produced strokes the "Australian way".

My son's strengths were that he had a good sense of where balls were going to go and where to place them in reply. He used the court well, moving back to the centre after each stroke and moving in to the net when he could and played some nice drop volleys. He has a one-handed forehand and backhand. His forehand was solid and his backhand weaker. His opponent should have exploited that weakness but failed to. My son's serve was awful. No taking the racquet down the back or bending of knees and every serve would have technically been a foot fault as he threw the ball about 2 foot in front of him. But he got it in and once again his opponent should have taken advantage of this weakness by moving right in to take the serve on the rise but he didn't.

The friend's lack of skills in taking advantage of an opponent's weaknesses was compensated for with a very good serve and stroke technique. He did have a very good technique on serve but his placement of the serve could have been better. He had a strong forehand and backhand (two-handed), but over hit constantly. What my son had in touch and accuracy, his friend made up for with power. But he played a power game without ever coming to the net and tended to stay on the side of the court where he could play his forehand, leaving the forehand court open for my son's shots.



Well we had a debriefing after the game: a one set tie-breaker as it turned out with the friend winning by one point. It probably helped both of them play better tennis with someone watching them and someone who knew a bit about tennis. They both need some more coaching but not from me as I haven't got the equipment. They would both benefit. My advice to then was to play in order to get better, not to win. Teach each other their strengths and practice volleying, serving and rallies, rather than playing a set or two. I've yet to find out how they have gone.

What the experience showed was that young kids don't learn tennis well, because they are not strong enough to play all the shots required. They could get into bad habits which they may not be able to rectify later. Of course all the top players did start with a tennis racquet really early but it is difficult to know how much they were formally coached, rather than by their own parents. Parents can make coaches as I did too, but when it comes to the mental side of the game a top player needs someone who has been to the top him or herself.