We always talk about creating autonomy and ownership in our players. I remember a tutor Mandy Frank that said our job is to create independent critical thinkers. Well, are we doing the same with our coaches always telling our coaches what to do, or are we giving our coaches, the principals and the road map to follow?

It depends a lot on what the initial education process is. If coaches are on a different page, you can’t create rigid train tracks where everybody’s going for your players or for your coaches. What you have to do is create principles.

These are the destinations along the route. You give them the map and you tell them; this is where we’re going. We’re going to here, here, and here. Now we have to work out how we get there and we have to applaud ingenuity. We have to applaud people taking their own initiative to try and get there and try different things as opposed to now you have to follow these train track and do it exactly this way. Because as tennis coaches, we’re not like that.

We need to be able to solve problems on the court. It’s the whole give a man a fish vs teaching him how to fish. We have to make sure that we are in a position where we’re giving coaches the skills to improve and develop because only if we can get coaches to work that way, we can get our players to work that way as well.