Effective tennis coaching doesn’t come in one form as every player is different and depending on the students and dynamics within the group. The tennis coach has to select the best way to communicate to achieve the best results.

It is very often that coaches come to a session with an idea as to what they want to teach, but how can a coach offer a quality session if giving the players what they want and what they need are conflicting?

There are two clearly defined styles of the effective coaching, command style and cooperative

In the command style, the coach dictates what is going to be done, how to do it, and gives the solutions to any problems.

In the cooperative style, the coach presents the material in ways to get the student’s agreement, sets-up situations for problem-solving, and asks questions so students can be involved in discovering solutions.

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The coach will tend to choose a style based on their personality.

A competent coach will be able to use both styles to adapt to the needs of the student, and to best fit the particular situation. Below is a better look at the different styles in more detail.

COMMAND STYLE

This style of coaching is when the coach leads the session and is the boss of everyone. Their role is to get the students to perform correctly by getting them to do what the coach says.
When the coach gives feedback it is always in the form of instructions (e.g. “Do this, don’t do that”, etc.) The student has little power or input in the learning process.

Advantages of command style coaching:

• Potentially this style may get students initially to respond quicker, especially if they are new to the game and have lack of understand or knowledge of the game.
• If a player is not concentrating then using the command style coaching may help them get back on track.
• The coach may be able to minimize management time with younger children by simply telling them what to do and when.

Disadvantages:

• Most players will only make short-term changes with this approach. For example, they may do something the coach suggested in the lesson, but not understand it (or believe it) enough to practice or use it on their own.
• When a player has to adhere to the coaches demands all the time, this could damage a player’s confidence and self-sufficiency. The player could develop an over dependency on the coach to make the decisions for them rather than developing their own skills for problem solving and decision making.
• Through this approach it is easy for the coach to become negative. They may not consider the learning process and get frustrated when a player can’t perform what they have been asked to do.

COOPERATIVE STYLE

This style of coaching allows the coach and player to share in the learning process thus making it a team effort. The coach must create a learning environment where tactics and techniques are presented as problems to be solved to improve consistency or win more points. With the use of effective questioning, the players will discover and experience solutions. On finding these solutions, there are agreed objectives on what to do, and how to do it.

Advantages:

• By having the players involved in their own learning process, their motivation is increased which also increases the chance that long-term changes will be made.
• A closer relationship is created between coach and players which increases the amount, and quality, of information exchanged.
• Players are less intimidated to explore ideas and ask questions.
• There is a big increase in the amount of feedback from the player so they are more aware of how to improve the learning environment and individualize it.
• With the use of questions, this approach helps the player to solve their problems and be less dependent on the coach. This is essential for being a tennis player as you are not allow to be coached during a match.

Disadvantages:

• This method requires more expertise on the coach’s part because the process is much more interactive (e.g. rather than just going through the ‘steps’ of a stroke).
• Some questions asked by the coach may be too broad and lead the player into lengthy, unnecessary discussion.
• The coaches may talk too much and minimise the amount of time the player has to the practical work on court.
• This method could be seen as having no structure or control, and students can do anything they want and rule the court (even though a lesson is fully ‘learner-centred,’ it should still be, ‘coach driven’).

More times than not, tennis coaches’ use the command style approach as it is a lot easier but when asked to use the cooperative style, one of the major responses is that it takes too much time.

This isn’t necessarily true as long as the coach does things correctly. Learning how to play the game of tennis is the goal and not having robot players mimicking the ‘correct’ movements.

Problem solving, decision-making and tactical thinking are a priority in tennis and these are the skills we should be promoting within the sport.

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