What does a good tennis coach need these days to stand out from other coaches? I have asked myself this question more and more in recent years. You often see coaches doing a tennis training without a plan and the training is more like occupational therapy. Such training is of course not very effective, because the players are not developed in a goal-oriented way. A good tennis coach, on the other hand, is characterized by many things nowadays. Are you looking for tennis training tips that will improve your personality as a tennis coach and level up your coaching? Then I have something for you – here are my 10 tennis coaching tips that will help you become a better tennis coach.

This is what you can expect from this blog post:

1. Prepare your training
2. Be a role model for your students
3. Structure your practice sessions
4. Be a person commanding respect
5. Introduce a lesson summary
6. Pay attention to safety on the tennis court
7. Define clear running paths and target areas in your drills
8. Maintain a good relationship with the parents in children’s training
9. Always have a backup plan 
10. Don`t forget to educate yourself

Tip 1: Prepare your training

If you want your players to improve through your tennis training, you should prepare your training. There is nothing worse than doing a training session “on instinct” and only deciding on the court which exercises you want to do. This is neither fish nor fowl. A good trainer analyzes the group composition in advance, knows the strengths and weaknesses of his players, and focuses his training primarily on the players’ weaknesses. The goal is to improve the weaknesses, but also to build on and develop the strengths. Be sure to create a training plan for each of your groups and determine which areas you want to work on. It is best to identify a current state (status quo) and establish a target state.

An example of this might be:

1. Group XY is currently playing in the midfield and on orange stage. I would like to make the transition to the normal court and green stage with this group this season. To do this, I would like to work with the students primarily on ground strokes and better footwork so that they can deal with the higher ball contacts and the rest of the game. To do this, I have come up with the following exercises:

Week 1 – 3: Hitting rhythm on length with a focus on footwork.
Week 3 – 5: Consolidate stroke patterns for baseline and net, focus on footwork when approaching the net.

Review your progress at the end of the season, and in the best case scenario, you will have achieved your goal. If not, set more intermediate steps to reach the goal in stages.