“The work starts at the bottom”

Every tournament I go to, I look around to see if there are any other coaches, and unfortunately, a consistent theme is present.

The lower the level of the tournament, the less coaches there are.

The Level 1’s contain the most amount of coaches, and the Level 6’s & 7’s contain the least amount of coaches.

In a way, it’s not surprising. The L1’s contain the best players in the country, the toughest competition, and the most amount of ranking points. The L6’s & 7’s contain the opposite.

But the one thing people seem to forget, is that players don’t start at Level 1 tournaments. They start at the L6’s. The 7’s. The unsanctioned events. Heck, even USTA junior team tennis! That’s where they have to work up from. If they can’t make significant improvements from there, they’ll never make the L1’s.

So for a coach to not watch those lower level events is a huge mistake. Players play differently in tournaments, and that’s who the coach needs to coach. They don’t need to coach the practice version of the player. They need to coach the competition version. But if they never see the competition version, they won’t know what that version of the player needs to work on!

Can you imagine a professional tennis player not having a coach at the 250’s, 500’s, Master’s events, but then bring one to a grand slam?

Can you imagine an NBA team not having a coach during the regular season? How about an NFL team? What about a soccer team not having a coach during the World Cup Qualifiers, but then saying they’ll show up if they actually qualify?

Can the coach say something useful at those big events? Yes, but the bulk of the work was done prior. The confidence building. The muscle memory creation. The locking down of reliable strategies during important points. All of that was done prior.

A coach can’t walk in during the biggest tournament of the year and ask them to do something they’ve spent very little time practicing. They won’t be able to do it!

If you’re a junior tennis parent, you need to make sure your child’s coach is “watching” as many tournaments as possible, especially when they’re starting out. It’s sad that it’s the parent that has to make sure of that in the first place, but it’s the reality we live in.

And I highlighted the term watching on purpose. Junior tennis coaches work with multiple players, so they can’t be everywhere. Thankfully, we have the technology to use apps like SwingVision to record matches, and send them to whomever we’d like. So make sure they’re at least watching as many matches as possible!

The work starts at the bottom. Not just for the player, but for the coach as well.

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**A note for international readers to provide some context: In the United States, Level 1’s are the highest level tournaments. Level 7’s are the lowest ones where you can gain ranking points.