Introduction
One of the most important roles of a tennis coach is to provide their player with clear and actionable feedback after match play. The player is so involved in the match and makes so many quick, instinctive reactions that they cannot possibly see and analyse all the key details. However, the coach can, as they are usually able to see the court well, have much more experience than the player, and are better able to assess what worked and what did not in each particular match. For both the player and coach to cooperate effectively throughout this long-term process, the coach needs a system in place, starting with preparing the player for the upcoming match. It is much easier to analyse the match if both parties know what the initial tactical plan was and what the mental preparation involved.
Preparing the Player for the Upcoming Match
While every player is different and requires a slightly different approach based on their personality and current form, there are some common procedures that the coach and player should follow. These include the tactical plan and mental preparation.
1. The tactical plan should include the main strategy (plan A) the player should use in the match to maximise their strengths and minimise their weaknesses, while seeking to attack and exploit the opponent’s weaknesses and neutralise their strengths. This plan should also include more specific tactics for achieving these goals.
For example, if the general strategy is to exploit the opponent’s weaker movement skills, a more specific tactic would be to serve first serves wide from deuce and add court, then play the next shot in open court in order to move an opponent. This would force the opponent to hit as many shots as possible in not optimal static balance. The tactical plan should also include plan B in case plan A does not work, and possibly even plan C as the last and riskiest approach if the player is still losing after implementing plans A and B.
2. The mental preparation for the match may start a few days beforehand, with daily visualisation of the patterns of play the player will use most, as well as visualisations of how they will handle themselves during the more mentally challenging parts of the match, such as serving for the set, facing break points, or finishing shots at the net. The patterns of play and the key situations in the match that the player needs to prepare for psychologically are, of course, planned together with the coach, who, after some time working with the player, knows best what the player needs to perform at their peak.
Mental preparation should also include relaxation techniques right before the match to control pre-match anxiety, as well as getting the player to the ideal level of activation and reminding them of methods to control it during the match, so they can spend as much time as possible in their ideal performance state (IPS).
The Role and Goal of Practice Matches
One of the best ways to assess a player’s performance before actual competition is to play practice matches. Practice matches provide the player and coach with the opportunity to implement the tactical plans the player needs to use in real matches, as well as to work on mental techniques in a lower-pressure situation. Some of the key mental techniques a player can work on during practice matches are:
- Serve and return rituals with the goal of reaching and maintaining their ideal performance state (IPS)
- Techniques for controlling activation level, which also contribute to reaching IPS
- The ability to monitor and change internal self-talk to a more positive one
- The ability to control focus and ignore external and internal (thoughts, emotions) distractions
Practice matches give the player more freedom to experiment with tactical patterns they are currently working on, as the practice situation does not create as much pressure as a real match. If the player is to eventually use different tactics in real matches, they need to be confident in their skills, and the practice match is an ideal situation to develop that trust in their abilities.
The Role of Notation in Match Analysis
As the process of match notation has improved in recent years through the use of smartphone apps and other sophisticated software, so has the coach’s ability to analyse the match in more detail. More detailed notation enables apps to calculate more comprehensive statistics and draw more accurate graphs, which better show the coach how the player performed in the match.
There are two effective methods for notating tennis matches. The first uses video recordings of the entire match and advanced notation tools, such as Dartfish. The second employs wearable technologies to capture temporal, physiological, and tennis-specific data about players during matches, as with Matchbeep.
