Overcoaching: Stop Trying To Save Them

The goal of every player is to become their own coach. Tennis coaching has turned into a multi-million dollar business. How can this be? Was this always the case?

No it wasn't. Tennis coaching is a very fraudulent business. Barriers to entry are extremely low, anyone with a heartbeat, two legs, and work ethic can break into the tennis industry. Tennis coaches can be found in every city across the United States, each with their own philosophy on how to become a champion. The supply and price of tennis coaching over the years has increased, but to no fault of the coaches themselves. The blame is placed on the naive parents who drive the business, looking to gain an edge on their fellow competitors. Parents are supplying a steady income to coaches across the country, hoping to save their children at every corner.

A lot of coaches perpetuate the problem, living paycheck to paycheck, listening and agreeing with the needs and wants of each parent (not to mention giant egos and narcissism) and pushing for more private lessons. In order to stay afloat, some coaches will say or invent just about anything to sound like they can mold and predict the future. Unfortunately, a lot parents are simply too inexperienced to know any better (most are non-athletic living vicariously through their children) and hope to be proactive by Yelping the best tennis coach in town (usually a fraud if he is #1 on Yelp).

*Think of any financial crisis, bubble, hedge fund manager promising 20% return on investment year after year (same idea as tennis)*

Prior to the tennis boom of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, coaching was not the business it is today. Players simply went to the club, competed with whoever was around (old ladies, hacks, juniors, anyone with a heartbeat - but mostly against other juniors), and rarely took lessons. Most players picked up tips from watching others compete at the local club, college matches, or good players visiting in the area.  They were hungry about learning the game and became true scholars of the sport. A certain pecking order was established within your geographic location where each and every players goal was to climb the ranks. Competition within your club was vicious (those results mattering more than a tournament); nobody was there to help you with technique or to save you (unless you asked and were hungry to win and were willing to put in the extra effort). One learned through observation and experience - which is much more meaningful (longlasting) than having a lesson paid for by your parents (short-term bandaid). The information ingrains itself much deeper when the players discovers the aspects of the game rather than being forced the concept. 

Lessons are overrated (especially more than one private lesson a week). Most players played as many sets as they could. The great players would play anyone, anytime, amounting up to 10+ sets a week (the best players didn't care with who, they would make it worthwhile). Competition breeds champions (point system in today's USTA rankings do not promote competition). Lessons do not breed champions. Parents, please stop trying to save your children (not just in tennis, but everything!). Seek to adopt a more detached attitude when it comes to practice sessions and results (not healthy).  In addition, please stop coddling them and protecting them from unwanted losses in practices. These are learning experiences and no player in the world has a 100% W/L record (most hover around .500). Let them learn to cope and adapt. Tennis does not have to be a complicated sport and the players are the ones who win championships, not coaches.

*Big apology to all tennis coaches, but we can't expect to have tough players if we are always saving them (because we need a paycheck). Tennis coaches, like players, will learn to adapt and survive. Our primary responsibility should always be on developing players and doing what's best for them while maintaining honesty and integrity towards the students and parents.

Make Constant Small Adjustments Throughout the Point

Too many times, players wait until they miss the ball (in the net or out of bounds) before they decide to make an adjustment to their stroke. Not only has the player lost the point but she may have, in fact, practiced doing something wrong 4, 6 or 6 shots in a row. This makes the road to adjustment a lot more difficult because first you have to unlearn the bad shot before you master the good shot. Instead of waiting for the actual miss to happen, try to make small adjustments throughout the point. Set up imaginary "targets" on top of the net and figure out how your shot measures up with the intended target. This is similar to artillery warfare where the first blast is used to determine the coordinates of the impact and adjustments are made to subsequent artillery fire to take into account wind, elevation, etc. In war, you don't wait until you run out of cannonballs and then say "oops, I guess I should've been aiming more to the right and higher". No, you make small adjustments along the way. Same with tennis; aim for particular spots on top of the net and know - from practice - that if you hit "X" the ball will end up going to "Y" (i.e. the on-court, ultimate target). If you see that your shots are starting to slip from Green to Yellow and from Yellow to Red (picture on the left), stop the bleeding immediately. Make the adjustment while the ball is in play. Same concept applies when your shots are starting to land closer the the line than intended (second image). If you see that the shots are flirting with the lines, throttle it back a little bit (more spin; maybe less power) and bring them back to at least yellow or, preferably, to the blue zone. Force your opponent to hit one more shot. Never give him the satisfaction of putting yourself in the position where you're beating yourself. Make him beat you; make him hit 48 winners. Good things will happen for you if you force your opponent to concentrate an extra shot. Just imagine all the easy sitters that you have missed in your career. Unless the other kid is a "world beater" - ehhem...he's not - you will many extra points when you force another shot back in play. And points add up.

Steal This Drill: The Backhand Game

In honor of my dad's birthday, "MR. G", I present to you "the backhand drill". When learning to play, he always told me that you're only as good as your backhand and second serve. If both or either of those two components break down, it's going to be tough row to hoe. Anyway, the purpose of this drill is to get as much repetition and backhand practice as possible. This is particularly important for juniors who seem to hit forehands day-in and day-out but regard the backhand as a mere after thought. Here's a little tip from an old snake: don't let me catch you with a glaring weakness on your backhand; I don't care how good your forehand may because you're simply never going to hit it (don't even bother warming it up - j/k) or you're only going to hit it from the most awkward positions. I'm not too proud to slice you, dice you, moonball or junk your forehand to get enough of the backhand exposed. So make your backhand rock solid or be prepared to run.

Figure 1: this is a half-court game up to 10, 15, 21, etc. where the players (a) can only hit backhands; (b) the ball can only go cross court unless you go down-the-line drop shot (player chasing the drop shot CAN hit a forehand on that play only). Players cannot hit inside out forehands but can come to the net where they can hit forehand volleys. The point, however, is to stay back and grind with the backhand.

Figure 2: this game is the same as the one in Figure 1 although the players get to use "more court" (i.e., players can hit 2-3 feet in the down-the-line half (deuce side)). The purpose of this drill is to learn how to hit the backhand and recover to the middle (otherwise you get caught with a forehand). This is particularly useful for players who tend to plant themselves 2-3 feet in the backhand side of the court. Anytime you get complacent, a good player is going to take advantage of your positioning so it's always preferable to "stick and move".

It's Not About Forehands and Backhands, Stupid!

"If I am the better player, why can't I win?" -Allen Fox

The great player and coach Allen Fox coined this phrase and it sums up tennis in a nutshell. Most players are conditioned to believe that through hard work and perfect technique, the incremental improvements will keep coming. This is true to a point, until you reach the Great Wall of China and your game is stuck in the mud. Changing coaches, fiddling with your grip, analyzing your footwork, tinkering with your serving stance- all logical ideas to improve your game, but it's chasing fools gold. It's not about the forehands and backhands, stupid!

When you reach this point in your tennis career, this is the time to face the music and use what you got. There are no easy answers to solving this never-ending riddle on the otherside of the net. Simply telling your coach that your forehand broke down and having balls fed to you will not solve the issue long-term. Considering you have fairly competent strokes, technical changes will not get you to the next level. It's a great mistake if a coach and/or player is preaching this message. Taking the focus off the bigger picture of the game will only set you up for dissapointment. Sure, you always want to fine tune your technique and practice these fine motor skills. However, at some point in your develop it's simply not about the forehands and backhands, stupid!

A smarter way to approach the issue of bumping your head against the Great Wall of China is to embrace who you are. If you know your backhand has limitations, do your best to not ask so much of it. Why would you hit a backhand down-the-line off of receiving a high ball when you know you can't make 9/10 out of a basket? That is like taking a gun and shooting yourself in the foot. Yet, good players do this match after match, year after year, continuing to think this is a technical defiency in their stroke. Again, this has nothing to do with forehands and backhands, but everything to do with your clouded judgement.

The players who maximize their potential (that's all you can ask for because you can't control the winning and losing) are always the ones who have accepted who they are and played within themselves. They don't waste their time getting depressed and frustrated about their weaknesses. They don't beat themselves up about lacking picture perfect technique. They aren't embarrassed about their inability to hit over 50 mph groundstrokes. They play with what they got and embrace who they are. They don't cringe when they hit a shortball to their opponent thinking, "Jeez! Why can't you hit it deeper!?!" They are okay with their opponent hitting winners and controlling points. It's not a character flaw to be on defense once in awhile. Practicing crosscourts or out of a basket, its all theory. Hitting the ideal forehand or backhand at the "optimum" contact point (for those scheisters who use sillly terms) is all useless theory. It's absolutely mindless, time wasting, and pointless. The ONLY thing that matters is does it go in and is it repeatable. Against great players, one needs to be able to do this OVER and OVER and OVER again. Nothing sexy. That's it and work within those boundaries. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Remember, TENNIS COACHES NEED TO MAKE A LIVING and SOME FEEL IT NECESSARY TO MANUFACTURE SOME BALONEY to justify getting paid. Overcoaching can lead to some dangerous avenues with the boogey man at the end of the street. It's not about the forehands and backhands, stupid!

Steal This Drill: Practical Ways To Train With 6+ Players/Court

Our first request for a drill comes from Paul N. from Iowa. Paul runs a small junior academy and, with winter coming, he wanted to know if with limited time and court space there would be a practical way to have 6 or more players on court without it becoming a zoo or resulting in too much loafing around. I said, "buddy, you came to the right place." You see, in Romania we only had 3-4 indoor, wood courts/city and those would have to be shared with: volleyball, team handball, basketball, indoor soccer, gymnastics, martial arts, etc. So whenever we had access to a tennis court we were forced to not just double up, but quintuple up (and whatever the proper word may be for 6, 7, 8 or more). What can I say, in US we watched "Rocky"; in Eastern Europe we lived it. So here are the drills: 

Figure 1: one pair of players practices short court down-the line. Since they stay just inside the baseline, they have better ball control so they shouldn't need as much room. Therefore, the doubles alley is all they need. A pair of players hit volley-volley (tap-tap). Again, they also do not need much room. The other pair of players hit from baseline and thy need more room to hit. This is usually a good way to warm up. Other players may be jumping rope, running or doing some other physical exercise. Players would cycle in, work their way through every position and then transition to/fitness routine. 

Figure 2: This is for 6 players on court. Two players (on their own "X") hit cross court. On the other side, one player lines up right behind each other. These players hit the ball cross-court also and then move outwards toward the sidelines allowing the other player to hit the next shot. Usually, there were specific markers that the player would have to touch or run around. This way, players practiced hitting as well as movement. In many of these drills, more emphasis was put on movement than actual hitting. Same as above, some players could have been doing fitness in the corners waiting their turn. 

Figure 3: In this drill, all players are at the net and hitting volley-volley. One player was usually by himself hitting volley against two players. This drill is fairly easy to figure out. 

Figure 4: This is a variation of the drill in Figure 2 in that there are EIGHT (8) or 6 players on court hitting either cross-courts or down the line. Two players can line up right behind the other and hit either cross-courts or down the lines against another pair. A player wold hit the ball and then rotate wide and around making sure that she leaves plenty of room for his partner. The other half of the court would do the same. Again, with players doing fitness in the corners, you could easily have 12 players getting a good workout. This is a pretty challenging drill because movement and ball control are key. The players cannot just "hit the ball to get rid of it"; they have to hit the ball cleanly and with a lot of control. 

Figure 5: In this drill, all 6 players are at the net hitting volleys. This is more of a "fun" game although it becomes QUITE CHALLENGING when two balls are added into the mix. It's a bit difficult to demonstrate on paper but the basic concept is that one of the player (in the alley) feeds the ball to the player in front of him, that player volleys it back diagonally to the "T" player; that player volley it in front of him to the other "T" player; that player volleys it diagonally to the alley player; that player volleys is in front of him to the other alley player that player then volleys it diagonally to the "T" player; and so on. A slight variation is where the "T" players do volley-volleys with the two alley players on the opposite side (wide "V" pattern). 

Figure 6: This is a variation of the Figure 3 drill but, in this case, only two players are at the net ("T" position on both sides). The other 4 players (2 per set) are at the baseline. In this drill, one of the player hits both against a volley and a ground-stroke. This way, he gets to see both a topspin and a skidding volley (and boy did those balls skid on the wood surface). 

In these drills, footwork and ball control are preeminent. I can tell you that sloppy work was more than frowned upon. You were expected to take pride in your work and show "teamwork" because this was EVERYONE'S practice not just yours. But we can see that with some imagination and some hard work, there is a workable way to make a decent practice happen for 6 or more players on court. In addition, these drills will demonstrate the benefits of combining tennis and fitness at the same time. 

Please feel free to send questions, drill suggestions or requests to catenniseditor@gmail.com.