(Inspired by the podcast episode #3: “Tour Coach” w. Cameron Moore on The Adam Blicher Show — Dissecting High Performance in Tennis)
The role of the player
The players’ role is to be persistent, be resilient, come to practice every single day with intensity, focus and desire. Basically run down every single ball, have that mentality of today I’m going to work to get better, today I’m going to compete to get better. They’re the one who truly needs to be driving the ship.
If the player believes in what the coach is telling them and they’re just willing to go out and do whatever is asked by the coach day in day out, if you’re lucky enough to have that, you’re going to have something special.
As Tennis Coach you’ll know when you have a relation with a player like that because you look at the kid and you’re like
“Wow, I just want to go to bat for this kid every single day; and am I doing everything I can for this kid?”
The role of the tennis parents
How supportive are the parents? Are they going to give you the space to coach their kid or do they need to be involved in every step of the way?
To me, the role of the parent depending on the situation, is to let the Coach coach; give the kid financial support, give the kid moral support, tell them they’re proud of what their kid is doing, that they’re going to support what you’re doing because you’re the one driving the ship and we’re going to help with the resources of getting you what you need. Those are the parents you’re looking for.
As a tennis coach you need to be aligned with the parents, so there is no risk that they are undermining the process. It’s going to lead to either confusion or the kid doesn’t believe in what you’re doing.
The role of the Tennis Coach
It’s a lot. Role of the coach is to plan everything out. You need to look forward, but be aware of what is going on right now as well. You have to schedule for the year, you’ve got to have day in day out lesson plans. It’s a constant questioning to yourself as a tennis coach on:
What are we working on?
Is the lesson plan in conjunction with what the development plan is?
Are you in a training block or are you in a pre-competition week?
Are you in a tournament week?
What are you doing with your player within that time?
Are you working on the right things?
Are you physically making sure that you’re training the right portion at the right time?
There are so many little subtleties that the coach needs to know and the coach needs to be on top of because it’s not like you’re going to be doing heavy lifting the week of a tournaments, it wouldn’t make sense. You need to be doing more reactionary stuff, movement training. You’re going to block out certain things that week so that you’re working on the correct things for that portion of the season.
So the role as a coach is you have to be very well planned out, you have to know where you’re at in the season, what are you working on with the season and what are your goals for the season? All of those things in line throughout the development plan.
It’s more than just stepping on court and hitting balls or telling them “good forehand” or “Good backhand”, it takes a lot of planning to develop players and to develop them on a solid track.
The culture stems from the top down. If the players see the coach is hungry and the coach is really motivated each and every day they see them, the player is going to be more motivated to work as well. If they see the coach isn’t really into it this day or that day, why would they go that extra mile?
