What’s The Goal?

By Sam Kercheval, USPTA Elite Professional Volunteer Assistant Coach Men's Tennis, Notre Dame Athletics

Understanding the goals of a student is imperative to help them in their growth as a tennis player. Whether a junior or adult, beginner or experienced veteran, social cardio player or competitive league and tournament participant, a clear comprehension of the goals by both coach and student is essential. Having a conversation with your player early in your relationship when working with them is an important building block It should probably be the very first thing you do with a player after basic introductions, to ask “what are your goals in tennis?” You have to get an idea of what they are looking for to be able to start working with them and create a plan moving forward Are they a beginner and need to learn the basics including how to hold the racket and how to turn sideways? Are they someone who has hit a bit but never had a lesson and learned by trial and error or from watching YouTube? Are they wanting to have their technique corrected or do they want to keep their strokes and work on strategy? Not everyone is in it to have perfect technique and play competitive tennis Some just want to be able to hit the ball around with their spouse, kids or friends Others, want to master the skills or to win enough and move to a higher level of competition As coaches, we must know what our players are hoping to do, and it is our job to then work with them accordingly But it is also our job to help set goals for our players in order to push them With young kids and beginners in particular, they may not have any idea what types of goals they should be setting for themselves. It might be necessary for you as the coach to set sights higher because you know they are capable and need to challenge them, maybe set the bar at making 8 out of 10 serves instead of 5 out of 10 because you know hitting the fifty percent mark is too low for that player. Or maybe you need to save a player from them- selves when they set a goal way too high and unreachable for the current level they are at. I’ve asked players before, “how many forehands in a row can we make here?” I’ve had some respond with a number that far exceeds anything they have come close to hitting so we might need to recalibrate a bit to make it challenging but also reachable. Knowing the goals of a player is also a necessary piece of information to help the coach personally. We have all been there when a student of ours has come to their lesson and clearly has not practiced what you have worked on, has not improved their technique and in some cases maybe has not even stepped foot on the court since you last saw them. This can be frustrating as a coach because it can feel like the player isn’t trying or investing in their craft after the effort we as coaches have put in. To that point, it is important to remember that it is not about us as coaches despite the time and energy we put into the players, it is about the player themselves. But understanding the goals of the student we are working with can help calibrate expectations and alleviate frustration. If you understand that the man or woman you work with once a week has four children at home, you also realize practicing outside of the lesson might not be of interest or even possible for them given their schedule and you have more appropriate expectations of how fast they’re picking up the skills you are teaching.

Looking at any given day, we as teaching professionals and coaches all likely have a wide variety of clients and may teach them in a single day. For example, my Mondays always include a private lesson with a philosophy professor who is a solid 3.5 player in the morning. In the early afternoon, we have team practice with top NCAA Division I players who have been nationally ranked and some who have ATP points to their name. Immediately following that I teach a class of 24 red ballers, 4-8 year olds followed by our highest level clinic of middle and high school players, many of whom are varsity and tournament level players That is quite the spread in ability and more importantly, of engagement and training Because I know the goals of each of the players at all levels, I can set my plans before stepping foot on the court and be ready to pour everything I have into the lesson with appropriate expectations of performance and measures of success Without that, it would be easy to go from coaching my college players who strike a very good forehand to teaching young kids where making contact on forehands is sometimes a challenge and get frustrated by the kid missing a few times in a row But having a clear understanding of the goals ultimately allows us to engage with everyone we teach and clearly see points of success we can celebrate with our players Knowing the goal(s) is critical for us as coaches to know and have communicated with our players Having clarity from both the player’s and coach’s side will allow you to create more effective and targeted lesson plans to help them achieve what they want