Most tennis academies and private clubs aren’t built around player development.
They’re built around volume.
- More players in programs
- More group sessions
- More private lessons
From a business standpoint, that makes sense. More of everything drives revenue growth, keeps the courts busy, and maintains the impression of an engaged member base.
From a development standpoint, the individual player can get lost in the shuffle. That’s because in a lot of the clubs, no one actually owns the development of the player.
Everyone Is Involved. No One Is Responsible.
A typical competitive junior schedule can look like this:
- 2–3 different group sessions per week, maybe even at different facilities
- Private lessons with one or two different coaches
- 1-2 fitness sessions on the side
On paper, it looks like a lot of work is being done.
But is all of that work pointing in the same direction?
Each coach is running their own session.
Each session has its own focus.
The fitness and tennis coaches might not even know each other.
The player ends up with:
- Different messages
- Different priorities
- No clear direction
It’s not that the coaches aren’t good.
It’s that the system isn’t connected.
Group Training Isn’t the Problem—But It Has Limits
Group sessions are efficient. But they are, by design, generalized. The themes and drills need to be applicable to everyone in the group.
They’re not built around:
- One player’s patterns
- One player’s weaknesses
- One player’s competition schedule
So unless something is built around them, the player just becomes part of the group.
They get better in a general sense, and a hit a large volume of balls.
But their actual development becomes… vague.
Private Lessons Don’t Fix It
Parents often try to solve this by adding private lessons.
That seems logical:
“More individual attention should solve the problem.”
But if those lessons are with different coaches, and there’s no shared plan, it just adds more noise.
Now the player is getting:
- Slightly different technical cues
- Slightly different tactical ideas
- No consistent framework
Fragmentation instead of clarity.
The Missing Link: Communication
In a well-functioning development environment:
- Tennis coaches talk to each other
- Fitness coaches know the physiological demands of tennis
- Competition schedules influence training
- There’s a clear progression
In most environments, that doesn’t happen.
Fitness is done separately. Tennis is done separately. Competition and tournaments happen on weekends, with the club coaches rarely present, and post-match analysis skipped over (if done at all) rather than take as a guide to the next few sessions of practice.
No one is tying it together.
So Who Ends Up Managing It?
The parents.
They’re the ones trying to:
- Piece together a schedule
- Decide which coach to listen to
- Figure out what tournaments to play
- Understand what their child actually needs
All while:
- Working full-time
- Being a parent first
- Not being experts in player development
It’s an impossible role.
And yet, in most systems, it’s the default.
What This Leads To
Over time, you start to see patterns:
- Players training a lot but not improving in a clear direction
- Confusion around identity (“What kind of player am I?”)
- Gaps between practice and competition
- Burnout—from doing a lot without a clear purpose
From the outside, it looks like the player just “stalled.”
In reality, the environment never gave them a coherent path.
What’s Missing Isn’t More Training
Most of these players don’t need:
- More hours
- More clinics
- More lessons
They need:
A plan.
Not a vague idea.
A clear, communicated, evolving plan that answers:
- Who am I on a tennis court? What are my strengths and weaknesses?
- What am I trying to achieve tactically?
- Do I have the physical, technical, and competitive tools to execute my tactical goals under pressure?
- If not, what is the roadmap to achieve those tools?
And most importantly:
Someone with a map and a 30,000 ft view responsible for it.
A Better Model (That Rarely Exists)
At a minimum, every serious player should have:
- One person who oversees development
- Alignment between coaches
- Integration between tennis, fitness, and competition
- Clear communication with the player and parent
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
But it has to be intentional.
Final Thought
Most academies and clubs aren’t doing anything “wrong.”
They’re just optimized for something different.
They’re optimized to run programs—not to manage individual development.
And those are not the same thing.
Until someone takes ownership of the player’s path, progress will always depend more on luck than design.
And that’s a hard way to build a player.
Michal's Musings 