My wife and I love going to this restaurant in Pittsburgh called Hyde Park.  It is downtown right by PNC Park.  We call and make a reservation.  When we pull up the valet parks the car for us and we walk right in and are seated at our table.  The waiter or waitress always comes right over and makes sure we have everything we want at all times.  My wife always orders a salad, filet mignon and french fries.  I typically get the wedge salad and an enormous prime rib.  The food always comes out exactly as we ask it to be prepared.  When we leave the car is always waiting for us curb side and in the winter they even turn on the heated seats!  All-in-all we love going to Hyde Park because they provide us with everything we want in a very comfortable environment.

If you are looking for a great restaurant I am sure you’ll agree my experience at Hyde Park is spot on.  However, if you are looking for a good coach to truly progress a player then the last thing you want is someone who acts like a waiter or waitress and brings a player what they want.  Instead you need a coach who brings a player what they need.  I tell my players this all the time, “my job is not to make you comfortable and bring you what you want like a waiter in a fancy restaurant.  Instead, my job is to give you what you need to improve and continue improving.”

I like to think of a coach as a guide you hire to get you to the top of the mountain.  Why hire a Sherpa guide to help you climb Mt. Everest?  Plain and simple the Sherpa has been to the top and knows the path to get you there.  The same is true with a good coach.  They know what you need in order to get you better.  However when a coach knows how to get to the top of the mountain and they are willing to prioritize a players needs over their wants, you have a great coach!

I believe there is a major component missing in the world of player development.  I have to admit I was totally in the dark about what I am going to share with you early in my career until I met Coach Chuck Kriese and he shared with me the concept of Momentum.  Momentum is maybe the best-kept secret in the world of coaching tennis and I want to introduce you to how it fits into developing a player so you are not in the dark either.

When I look at developing a player long-term there are 3 fundamental stages I want to get that player to go through.  First, the player has to build a solid technical foundation.  Players have to hit tons of balls so their strokes become as automatic as brushing their teeth.  Technique has to be learned to the point where it will hold up under the intense pressure of competition.  In an ideal world this happens early in a player’s development.  This is the exact reason why you often see the players with the best technique and who have practiced the most winning in the 10’s and 12’s tournament age groups.

The second stage of development is learning and utilizing a system of shot selection.  What that means is a player has a strategic place to hit the ball during competition.  There are many systems that work very well for this but regardless of the system utilized what really matters is that it is practiced so much that it becomes automatic.  The game starts to become too fast and time to think about where to hit the ball is non-existent.  Shot selection must become reflexive and practiced to the point where it will hold up under pressure just like stroke production.  In the 14’s and 16’s age groups the players who succeed are those who have practiced to the point where both strokes and shot selection does not break down under intense pressure.

Once these two stages of development are completed this is where most players hit a plateau.  Players often begin to see a lack of growth and burnout sets in.  This is probably a major contributing factor to the big drop off in players from the 16’s to the 18’s.  Coach Vesa Ponkka shared his thoughts on burnout and I think they fit in very well right here.  Mr. Ponkka thinks kids burnout on tennis not because they hit too many balls, train too much, or play too many tournaments.  Instead, he thinks they burnout because they stop growing and learning.  I would have to say I agree.  I know in my life anytime I stopped growing, improving, and learning I felt the grind myself.  So what is the final stage of development?  The answer is momentum.

When technique and shot selection are automatic there is no need to think about how to hit the ball or where to hit the ball during a match.  In fact, thinking about them only clutters a player’s mind.  So what should a player be thinking about?  Without a doubt they should be thinking about momentum.  In the simplest of terms momentum is knowing how to attempt to get things going your way, keep them going your way, and reverse things when they are going your opponent’s way.  Momentum is all about recognizing the flow of the match and knowing when to strategically apply different types of pressure.  Basketball coaches are excellent at attempting to control momentum.  They know when to put on the fast-break offense, when to speed things up, when to play zone defense, and when to slow things down.

As tennis coaches we have a problem because unlike basketball coaches we cannot call the plays for our players during a match.  Instead, we must teach them about momentum, how to recognize shifts, and then teach them what to do so they can in essence coach themselves.  This is the final stage of player development and in the 18’s, college, and beyond this is what wins matches and sets top players apart.

Here are 3 Podcasts on Momentum from my mentor Coach Chuck Kriese.

Here is a link to an article in the Wall Street Journal titled How Much Tennis Is Played During Matches?  In a 3-hour match at the ATP level players spend 31 minutes & 30 seconds or 17.5% of the time physically engaged in a point.

It is no wonder why a player’s thoughts can be their own worst enemy.  Regardless of the level of competition, routines between points and during changeovers are absolutely critical.  When you watch the U.S. Open appreciate how players do the same thing each time between points and realize they are going through a mental routine each and every time.  The best players think the same handful of thoughts hundreds of times over and over again during a match.  That is in direct contrast to players who think hundreds of different thoughts just a few times each throughout a match.  If you are interested in learning more about routines check out my friend Frank Giampaolo’s Tennis Parent Bible.