The Coaches Playbook Newsletter

Hi everyone, Two new releases have landed inside My Tennis Coaching Academy this week. 🎙️ Wayne Elderton — Member Q&A Replay (CLICK TO VIEW) Wayne joined us for an open Q&A shaped entirely by Academy members' questions. We discussed: 🎾 Scaling and modified equipment for adults — why scaling doesn't have to stop with junior tennis. 🎾 The Game-Based Approach — its strengths and some potential limitations when viewed through an Ecological Dynamics lens. 🎾 Deep attractors — how manipulating the...

My coaching did not change because I found a better collection of drills. It changed because I learned to see practice differently. For a long time, I started with an activity and asked how I could deliver it more effectively. I thought better demonstrations, clearer instructions and more repetition would eventually solve the transfer problem. Now I start somewhere else. What problem is the player trying to solve? What information do they need to detect? What actions are available? What does...

Once a coach recognises that a practice is too predictable, the natural response is to make it busier. Add targets. Move the cones. Create a rotation. Introduce a scoring system. Tell the player to recover after every shot. The activity now looks more dynamic, but the player may still know exactly what is coming and exactly which action to perform. The practice has changed on the surface. The learning problem has not. I made versions of this mistake for years. I collected new drills and...

One reason coaches struggle to change their practice is that we have been taught to label activities too quickly. Good drill. Bad drill. Traditional drill. Ecological drill. Those labels may create an argument, but they rarely help a coach decide what to do next. When I began looking more critically at my own practice, the important shift was not replacing every activity with a game. It was learning to ask what each task invited the player to perceive and do. A predictable basket-fed backhand...

For years, I judged the quality of a practice by what I could see. Were players making cleaner contact? Were the rallies lasting longer? Were they making fewer mistakes? If the answer was yes, I usually left the court believing the practice had worked. Then the player competed. The timing changed. The ball was less predictable. An opponent occupied space, disguised intentions and created pressure. The player who had looked technically strong in practice suddenly appeared unable to use the...

Before your next doubles session, you will probably do what most committed coaches do. You will think about the players, search through a few familiar activities and try to build a session that keeps everyone involved. You may change a rotation, add a target or choose a new drill because the last session felt too repetitive. Then you will step on court and meet the same problem: the activity runs, but you are not completely convinced it is changing what the players do when a real point...

Hi Coach, You run what appears to be a successful session. The player finds their rhythm. Their shots become more consistent. The practice looks like it is working. Then the match begins, and that performance disappears. We often blame confidence, concentration or technique. But there is another possibility: Did the practice actually prepare the player to solve the problems they face in a match? Most coaches have never been given a practical way to answer that question. That is why I created...

Most coaches do not struggle because they lack doubles drills. We can find hundreds of them online: two-up and two-back, cross-court returns, volley rotations, poaching patterns, serve-plus-one combinations and endless variations involving cones, targets and queues. I spent years believing that becoming a better coach meant adding more activities to my collection. The problem arrives when we have to decide why a particular activity should be used and what it is actually teaching the players....

“Where should I stand?” It is one of the most common questions players ask in doubles, and it is very tempting to answer it by pointing to a spot on the court. Stand here when your partner serves. Move there when the return goes cross-court. Follow the ball. Protect the middle. We may even use cones to give players a clearer picture of the correct position, and for a short while the court looks organised. The problem is that a position is only correct in relation to what is happening around...