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By Chris Oddo and Richard Pagliaro | Thursday January 18, 2018


Each week at Tennis Now, we'll debate a topic of major interest, while at the same time asking our readers to participate. Today we'll tackle the on-court coaching behemoth. You guys have already spoken--here's our take.

Chris Oddo
Vote: No

I won’t deny that I find on-court coaching very entertaining—for all the wrong reasons. I’ve always loved the tension and drama that it creates when a really heated player like, say, GarbiƱe Muguruza, decides to use her coach as a punching bag to release some of the tension that a bad outing has created. It’s like watching a car crash. We lock our eyes on an utterly undesirable entity and fixate. Who could forget the time that Stephen Armitraj told Alison Riske to “Shut the F up” in 2015? The incident went viral on Twitter and Riske responded by telling New York Times' writer Ben Rothenberg that Armitraj wasn’t her coach. She went on to say that he took time while on vacation to help her notch a Top 10 win. Good result for Riske, bad optics for the WTA Tour.


I have long considered how important the exposure that coaches would get from on-court coaching on both the men’s and women’s tour would be. And I have often thought that it would actually make for better tennis because allowing coaches to help their charges make mid-match tactical and technical adjustments would inevitably improve the quality of tennis being played.

But honestly I can’t stomach it in its current format. Forcing the coaches to wear a microphone and offer up critical strategies that should be kept secret to the general public—that’s just not cool. The fact of the matter is that on-court coaching in its current modus operandi is simply a device used to lure more fans into the game. Give them lurid interactions that may go viral, the thinking goes, and they’ll become fans for life.

But it hasn’t worked. It makes the coaches look silly. It makes the players look silly. And it hurts the integrity of the game. What makes tennis special is the warrior mentality. Players must go out there like lone wolves and find solutions on their own. The coaching needs to be done behind the scenes, away from the battle grounds. It’s always been that way, and it always should be.


Richard Pagliaro
Vote: No 

Proponents of on court-coaching claim it makes tennis more entertaining. The reality is like lip-syncing and laugh tracks, it’s a contrived gimmick that diminishes the one-on-one mental battle of match play.

It also unfairly tilts the competitive balance to higher-ranked players. Talk is cheap, coaching isn’t. Elite players are higher earners and therefore can afford to pay the best coaches, whereas for young players trying to break into the Top 100 the cost of a full-time traveling coach can be beyond their means. Some players who can benefit most from the coaching rule can’t afford to employ it.

Tennis has been called physical chess. It’s one of the only sports where athlete is both competitor and coach on court. Self-reliance, tactical awareness, toughness under pressure and problem-solving skills are qualities that some of the greatest champions of all time share. On-court coaching dumbs down the game and violates the very virtues tennis should be instilling in players.

How can players grow and learn to make good decisions on court they’re accustomed to leaning on the coach like a crutch? There’s a cheesy reality-TV quality to some coaching visits and weirdly intrusive psychoanalytical quality to others where you half-expect Dr. Phil to crash proceedings, pull up a chair and coax a cathartic crying session. On-court coaching can reduce strong, powerful athletes to fragile and indecisive states.

Then, there’s the lost-in-translation moments. Since it’s a global game coaches and players can be speaking languages viewers don’t understand. So what are we really gaining other than a minute-long view of people chatting? Often, player conversations with the chair umpire are more revealing that coaching consultations.

Sure, there are many cases when coaching insight inspired players to turn matches around but that short-term fix can come with long-term consequences creating a constant need with players compulsively looking over to coaches after every big point.

Let’s be honest, as Roger Federer said when asked about expanding on-court coaching: “it’s not rocket science out there.”

One of the very cool qualities of the game is every match offers an opportunity to learn and grow. Match play is a time to play ball not talk it.

 

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