What is the Number One Thing in Coaching Young Tennis Players?
Allistair McCaw
The post by Allistair McCaw
When it comes to coaching young tennis players, don’t lose track of what the number one thing is a tennis coaches responsibility isn’t just about the skills and drills.
With kids, It’s a responsibility of the tennis coach to be teaching the right things at the right time. It’s also a responsibility of the tennis coach to the child, that the number one thing is kept: the fun element.
Too much seriousness, result driven mindsets, lectures and drill like sessions only kills the joy and passion the kid has of the game. Like I only say, remember it’s not about you!
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Many kids we coach really look up to you as the coach. Alot of things
we teach will remain with them the rest of their lives. What I tried to
instill in these kids development will hopfully be useful for them as
adults. Not every kid you coach will become pros or scholarship players.
But as a coach, we can help these kids develope a strong self-esteem that
will work for them in the future.
My kid joined an advanced tennis group being 8 (eight!) years old.
This is the exact list what they had:
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Too much seriousness, result driven mindsets, lectures and drill like sessions only
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It was all positive, but everybody understood: tennis is the first & main thing here. Nobody made fun the first thing, and too much fun was immediately cutted out, though some portion of humor were always on court.
Other coaches around had group of kids, making fun & passion games. 30-40 minutes of easy drilling, and then – running, screaming, very happy kids & parents drinking their coffee with no single thought about what’s going on.
Our kids (that was group of 4 kids aged 8-9) were like small soldiers in that environment. And we, parents, were seen as totally crazy.
8 years later, this is what happened with those 4 kids from an advanced tennis group (they all are still under 18):
Kid 1: inside Top-200 of adult ranking;
Kid 2: participated in Junior Grand Slam events;
Kid 3: plays main draws of small pro tournaments (which is also good for their age), inside top-1000 of adult ranking;
Kid 4: accepted a very attractive full tennis scholarship from a prominent college.
Should I say that nobody of those “funny kids” from courts around – who was not happy to join that “small soldiers” group – ever played a single pro match or received a college scholarship?
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