Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

When I was a young coach coming up and wanting to eventually coach competitive players, a close friend of mine got the opportunity to coach a Davis Cup team. I thought this was the ultimate, and I desperately wanted to pick his brains and learn as much as possible about his experience. Something he told me back then stuck with me. He said, "Before you teach, you must first set up the opportunity to teach." This means not to presume that just because you're the "Coach", every player will be ready to follow your teachings without question. Far from it!  Advanced players can be very wary of any advice  from someone they haven't built trust with yet It's a common scenario for highly skilled players to be bombarded with advice on improving their game and ranking from every corner. In the realm of sports, it seems everyone is an expert. This reality further reinforced the need for a cautious coaching strategy. Advanced tennis players meet "experts" ...

  As I broke the news to the best player in the country that I was not selecting him to play in the Davis Cup tie the following week I expected a huge backlash. One of the toughest tasks you perform as a tennis coach is selecting players for teams. Sometimes you have the luxury of seeing the player compete under pressure in matches before you decide, as I did when selecting national teams, but often you don't.  In the case of College coaches in the US, many times you have very little to go on and must make recruitment decisions that at Division 1 schools have repercussions lasting for the next 4 years.  Once money has been committed to a new player, that money can't be used again on a better player later. Picking players for teams is one of the most difficult tasks you will do as a coach  (Thai Davis Cup Team) Selection mistakes made by college coaches have long-term repercussions. Making informed selection choices comes down to three important factors, the cand...