Our most recent colloquium featured Wayne Elderton, one of Canada’s most prestigious coaches and current Tennis Director of the North Vancouver Tennis Centre, who shared his coaching method with the audience: “Coaching tennis as an open skill”.
Elderton explained that the nature of the game can be understood by viewing it through 3 sports science lenses:
- Tennis uses primarily ‘Open Skills’ (in contrast to ‘Closed Skills’)
- Tennis is a ‘Game Sport’
- Tennis is an ‘Impact Sport’
Under these premises he showed his training system step by step.
TENNIS USES PRIMARILY ‘OPEN SKILLS’
Open skills go through a 4-step ‘information-processing’ process (see image).
Based on this premise, we can identify 4 tennis ‘Super-powers’ that all coaches would like their players to have:
- Problem-solving
- Perception (being able to ‘read’ what is happening on the court)
- Decision-making (especially to make quick & accurate decisions under preseeure)
- Technical adaptability (since tennis is, as legendary coach Peter Burwash expresses ‘A game of constant dire emergencies’ )
Thus, it is necessary to construct an open-skill training session that: empowers technical adaptability, emphasizes perception and tactical-technical problem-solving (builds the library of situations they can handle) and prioritizes tactical decision-making (Neutral/Offence/Defence shots in every session).
TENNIS IS A ‘GAME-SPORT’
As a game-sport, tennis requires strategy and tactics, terms that are often confused. Strategy is: A planning process prior to the performance; tactics are: The ‘in-game’ intentions, decisions and actions taken to gain advantage over an opponent.
In addition, coaches need to integrate technics and tactics in their coaching to “expand the library of situations players can successfully handle when they play”. In Wayne’s words, “every tactic in tennis has this mission: ‘Solve problems by managing space and time to stablish your timing and break your opponent’s timing”.
TENNIS IS AN ‘IMPACT SPORT’
Elderton talked then about timing, being the intersection between: Tactics & Technique and Reception & Projection and offered the following reflection: “Pros sacrifice their strokes for the timing. Club players sacrifice their timing for the stroke”.
If you wish to expand this knowledge, you can find a number of Advanced Coaching Education articles and videos available on his acecoach.com website.
