Can you think of a sport where the coach works with their players throughout the week, then doesn’t watch them compete? Can you think of a sport where the coach has to ask for the parent’s and player’s feedback on what to potentially work on after a competition? Especially a parent that has no experience in developing a junior tennis player?

I can……..junior tennis.

Junior tennis is the only sport where coaches do not watch the majority of their player’s competitions. Some kids spend their entire junior career never having had a coach watch a complete match. 

It’s one of the biggest failures of the junior tennis development system.

Tennis is a sport. Sport is competition. Coaches coach players to compete in competition. Therefore, a coach needs to see what happens during competition to determine what needs to be corrected, and what is going well.

If they don’t watch the competition, how else are they going to know how a player performs? By watching practice? By accepting what the inexperienced player and their non-tennis parents say about the match?

Well somehow, the junior tennis environment has created a structure where this is how kids are developed. Coaches only see their players at drills and private lessons, and MAYBE they’ll watch a few games or a random match at a big tournament. They never consistently watch them compete, and are getting feedback from the players and parents on what to work on.

And I’ll be the first to admit, when I started coaching juniors, I also didn’t watch their competitions. I fell into the same old school structure of development. But not anymore.

After spending four years traveling with a professional player ranked as high as 19 in the world, having watched all of their matches MULTIPLE times, and seeing how impactful that was to their development, I’ll never go back to the old ways. At least not without the parents knowing I disagree with that structure.

There are too many unique situations in a match that I need to watch. The emotional ups and downs, the routines in between points, the 30 minutes leading into that match, the strategies and adjustments implemented. I need to watch all of that

Without watching those things, I can’t have 100% conviction in my development plan for the junior. I can help develop a lot of relevant skills in practice, but there’s a reason commentators and coaches talk about players being “match ready.”

There needs to be a structural change in the junior development process and it needs to happen NOW. It’s better to have one less organized drill day, and replace it with one day dedicated to watching juniors play their entire matches. The data a coach receives from consistently watching their players compete is too important.

If you’re a parent and your child’s coach does not come to watch their matches, please speak to them. Figure out a structure where they can watch as many competitions as possible. The pros have that structure. College players have that structure. Top juniors have that structure. AND EVERY OTHER MAJOR SPORT has that structure. Now it’s your turn.