The Sidelines

Coach Ricardo and I had an awesome opportunity to travel to the Madrid Open this year for a few days of incredible tennis matches and practices from the very best in the world. During our trip, we did a behind the scenes tour of the facility that included the locker rooms, the places to eat, the gyms where the players prepared, and the offices where all the decisions are made. While we were touring the facility, Coco Gough was playing her second or third round match on the stadium court, and while we were walking by one of the gyms, we saw Coco’s father in the far corner of the place watching the match from an iPad almost hiding from everyone. The reason why he doesn’t watch his daughter play from the stances is because of his inability to control his emotions during the pressure moments, and the negative effect that those emotions that he reflects have on Coco (this is a decision that Coco made). 

Ninety nine percent of the time, when you watch the player’s box during a professional match, two types of emotions are going to be seen from the coaches and people that are there supporting the player. The first one is a complete NEUTRAL, calm and not emotional body language that is shown to make sure that the player understands that the focus needs to be in the present moment and not on the points that have been lost or the negative score board. The second emotion that can be found from the people in the box is that of positive reinforcement and encouragement that would include a fist pump, some positive words like “vamos”, “point by point”, “you can do it”, “stay focused”, and in nowadays, some small coaching advice that is now allowed. It is clear that we rarely see an experienced coach having some sort of meltdown (even if occasionally, it feels almost necessary based on how bad a player might be playing or behaving on a particular match on tour). 

I know from personal experience that a player tries to look at the coach or parent that is watching him during a match with regularity, and I KNOW that the player pays a lot of attention to the body language that he or she sees from the sidelines in his approach to prepare for the next point to be played. We are the adults (coaches and parents), and our responsibility to control our emotions and body language because even from multiple courts away, and even behind the glass window that separates the courts from the audience in the indoor clubs, the kids can tell how we are feeling, and they can pretty much ‘hear’ everything we say.

We all come out with things that our players can improve, but the reality is that at the same time that a player grows and gets better, we have to be responsible to grow and get better for them as well. As someone said the other day, “if you would like for your player or your kid to be one of the best, you need to make sure that as a coach or a parent, you are one of the best as well to allow for his or her progress to take place”. Remember tennis is a marathon, and sustainability is based on discipline from the player and THE TEAM.