Two things have stood out as the most valuable tools in my life. First is traveling. Second is reading. And the current book I’m reading, The Invisible Gorilla, is a gem.

For those that haven’t heard of the invisible gorilla experiment, volunteers were told to keep track of how many times a few basketball players tossed a basketball. While they did this, someone in a gorilla suit walked across the basketball court, in plain view, yet many of the volunteers failed to notice the gorilla.

What the invisible gorilla study shows is that, if we are paying very close attention to one thing, we often fail to notice other things in our field of vision, even very obvious things. This is called inattention blindness. And “what is in someways even more important than your failure to notice changes is the mistake and belief that we SHOULD notice them. When people know about the change in advance, it becomes obvious and they all see it. But when they don’t expect the change, they completely miss it. Overtime we all make tragic continuity errors which train us what to look for.”

And this is why kids need coached practice match play, and tournament matches reviewed on a continuous basis.

Kids only notice the things they’re trained to notice. Even if something incredibly obvious occurs in a match, like an opponent having a significantly weaker forehand than backhand, they won’t be able to notice it if they haven’t been trained to look for something like that. 

During my online match reviews and the practice matches I coach in person, everything is based on getting the player to understand what is happening in the match. What are they doing well and what are they not doing well. What is their opponent is doing well and what is their opponent is not doing well.

It’s a simple concept, but very difficult to execute because everything can’t be taught at once, or in a week, a month, or a year. Understanding tennis strategy takes a long time. There are many reasons a player can lose a match.

A player can lose a match because of technical reasons, physical reasons, or straight up tactical reasons. 

A player can lose the match because they double faulted 17 times, but did they double fault because of their grip? Their toss? Their legs? Their mindset? The wind?

They might fix the toss, but then it’s their legs. They might fix the legs and their toss, but then it’s the grip. Then they might fix the toss, their legs, and the grip, but then lose because all they did was serve to their opponents strength! 

Until a player goes through every experiences many times, AND HAS A COACH TELL THEM WHAT HAPPENED, it’s impossible for them to pick up what’s going on. Just like the people in the gorilla experiment failed to notice the gorilla walking right in front of them, the players will fail to see any new type of reasons they’re losing because they’re not trained to look for it. 

And that is why kids need the number 1 thing they’re not getting right now: coached match play and coaches watching them compete.

They’re losing matches, but are not 100% sure why. They think they’re 100% sure, but just like the people in the experiment were certain they never saw a gorilla, these players don’t actually know why. 

And if they don’t know why they’re actually losing, they can’t make the appropriate adjustments in their game to improve the trajectory of their game.