What Are We Teaching Players to Notice?

One of my adult recreational players started playing tennis three months ago.

Recently, he won his first practice match against another student of mine who has been playing for around three years. The result was close, 7-6 in a tiebreak, but the result itself was not what made me particularly proud.

It was the way he played.

He is very tall, and his baseline game is still developing. Over the past few months, I have invited him to explore whether moving forward might be an effective way to cause trouble with the game he has right now.

We have returned to questions such as:

  • What might happen if you move forward after the serve?
  • What effect does that have on the opponent?
  • What seems to be the most effective way for you to make the next ball difficult?

He began to notice that opponents often became uncomfortable when he moved forward. The effect was there, and he could see it, but until this match he had not felt comfortable enough to commit to that part of his game.

Yesterday, something changed. He looked a little like a serve-and-volley player from another era. He watched his opponent, moved forward when opportunities appeared, volleyed, hit drive volleys, and repeatedly used his presence at the net to create problems.

What interested me most came after the match.

The solution I did not give him

He told me:

“I noticed he was scared, so sometimes, even when I wasn’t going to come in, I started running forward while he was watching. Then I moved back again.”

I loved that observation.

Not because it was necessarily the best tactic, and not because every player should try to intimidate an opponent by running towards the net. I loved it because he had noticed that his movement was changing the experience of the person on the other side.

He was not only thinking about his own shots. He saw that approaching the net affected his opponent, then discovered that even the suggestion of approaching could have an effect.

We had explored the net together. I had repeatedly invited him to notice what happened when he moved forward and what kind of trouble his presence might create. But I had never told him to fake an approach and retreat. That solution emerged from what he was noticing in the match.

I had helped direct his attention towards the relationship. What he did with that relationship belonged to him.

Players develop habits of attention

Over these three months, many of our conversations have directed his attention towards the opponent, the effect of his positioning, and what the next ball might become. The questions did not contain the tactic he eventually found. They invited him to search inside the game, to notice the relationships between opponent, ball, space, movement, and intention.

After repeatedly searching in this way, perhaps it should not be surprising that he began to find information there.

Perhaps coaching does not only help players develop actions. It also helps shape what they learn to notice.

I do not want to pretend that this emerged without my influence. By returning to the net as an area for exploration, I was making a coaching choice. I was suggesting that this relationship might deserve his attention.

The difference, for me, is that I was not asking him to reproduce my solution. He remained free to hesitate, reject it, use it occasionally, or discover something there that I had not anticipated.

A coach can help choose an area of search without deciding what the player must find there.

That thought has also made me reflect on players whose attention appears to have developed in a different direction.

Technical attention can support exploration. A player may test a different toss, notice a feeling in the arm, or discover that a particular reference helps organise a movement. I would not want to remove that possibility.

The risk I often notice is that some players no longer seem free to leave that internal search. They serve while monitoring the toss, feet, arm, and rhythm. They miss a backhand and immediately look for something wrong in the movement. Even when the ball produces a useful result, they may distrust it because it did not feel technically correct.

The concern is not that a player notices their body. It is that they can begin to feel trapped inside it.

A useful cue might help for a moment and then release the player back into the game. When it becomes something they feel responsible for controlling on every ball, less attention may remain available for the opponent and the changing possibilities around them.

This is only a contrast, not an argument against technical exploration. It makes me wonder where attention returns first when something goes wrong. One player may immediately ask:

“What is wrong with my movement?”

My beginner was learning to ask:

“What is happening to my opponent because of what I am doing?”

Neither question needs to be forbidden. The useful balance will change with the person and situation. I simply hope players remain free enough to move their attention towards the information the moment requires.

He will need to notice again

Moving forward had already shown signs of being effective, but until yesterday he did not seem comfortable enough to trust it fully. I could have treated that discomfort as something to correct and told him to come forward more often. Instead, we kept the possibility alive and continued to explore what happened there.

In this match, he chose it. Then he went beyond anything we had discussed, noticing that even the suggestion of an approach changed the opponent’s response.

This was still one practice match. He is a beginner, and three months of coaching proves very little. His current approach will also meet new problems. Better opponents may pass him more effectively, disguise what they are feeling, or feel completely comfortable when he moves towards the net.

Then he will need to notice again.

The goal is not to preserve the solution he found in this match. It is to help him remain open to the information that tells him when the solution works, when it does not, and what else might be possible.

That is why this small moment meant so much to me. I was watching a beginner treat tennis as an interaction between two people. I had helped him find somewhere useful to search, but the answer had become genuinely his.

The solution he found will eventually meet a new problem. My hope is that he remains curious enough to notice, and free enough to search again.

You might also enjoy When Success in the Session Only Lasts Until the Next Match.