Do beginner tennis players really need to learn technique first?

Most coaching sessions for beginners look the same:

Throwing drills, catching exercises, isolated technique work…

But very little actual tennis.

So when beginners finally play points, everything breaks down.

In this episode, I challenge the idea of “fundamentals” and explore a different approach to beginner coaching — one that focuses on playing, adapting, and learning through the game itself.

You’ll learn:

• Why traditional beginner coaching often fails

• The problem with isolated drills and technique-first learning

• What beginners actually need to improve

• How to design sessions that help players play tennis from day one

If you’re coaching beginners and struggling to get them match-ready, this episode will change how you think about skill development.

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Is tennis dying?

In this episode of the My Tennis Coaching Podcast, I explore a question many people in the sport are starting to ask: Is tennis slowly losing relevance?

With the rapid growth of padel and pickleball, tennis is facing real competition for players, court space, and cultural attention. But the real issue may not be the new sports themselves.

The deeper problem lies inside tennis.

In this conversation, I break down some of the structural challenges holding the sport back, including:

• ​ Path dependence in tennis coaching – why the sport struggles to evolve• Gatekeeping in coach education and development​ The lack of academic research influencing real coaching practice​ Why outdated systems continue to dominate coach education• How innovation is often resisted inside traditional tennis structures• The growing popularity of padel and pickleball and what tennis can learn from them

Tennis has incredible history, culture, and competitive depth. But if the sport wants to remain relevant for the next generation of players and coaches, it needs to be willing to challenge long-standing assumptions about how the game is taught and developed.

This episode is a reflection on where tennis currently stands — and what may need to change.

• ​Is tennis declining?
• ​Path dependence in sport systems
• ​Coach education problems in tennis
• ​Why tennis struggles to modernize
• ​Ecological approaches to coaching
• ​Padel and pickleball growth
• ​The future of tennis coaching

In this episode, I unpack a brilliant question from a top coach:

“What are the non-negotiables for representativeness in tennis—and can you trade some for others?”

We explore:

• Why throw tennis isn’t representative (and what it teaches us)

• The 6 core elements of representative learning design in tennis

• The difference between looking like the game vs. functioning like the game

• What coaches might be getting wrong when designing “game-based” sessions

• How to balance exploration and transfer in your practices

If you’re serious about designing sessions that actually transfer to matches—this episode is a must.