One of the most common beliefs in tennis is also one of the most damaging:
If a player wants to improve, they need more coaching hours.
Two squads a week.
Private lessons on top.
Extra sessions “just in case”.
It sounds logical.
It feels committed.
And it is completely unsupported by evidence.
This article explains why more coaching does not guarantee development, why this belief persists, and what actually drives learning in tennis instead.
Why the “More Is Better” Model Took Hold
The idea that development scales linearly with hours comes from three places:
- Industrial coaching models – where volume equals productivity
- Survivorship bias – only successful players are remembered
- Misapplied expertise research – stripped of context and nuance
In tennis, this has translated into rigid expectations:
- Fixed weekly hours
- Mandatory squads
- Early specialisation
- Private lessons as a prerequisite for progression
But tennis is not a closed skill.
And learning is not additive.
As I argue in Coaching Tennis (Whelan, 2024), development in tennis is adaptive, relational, and context-dependent, not the accumulation of rehearsed movements.
What the Common Explanation Gets Wrong
1. Hours are confused with learning opportunities
An hour of tennis can mean:
- Basket-fed repetition
- Coach-regulated performance
- Low variability
- Minimal decision-making
Or it can mean:
- Competitive play
- Uncertainty
- Perception under pressure
- Self-regulation
Counting hours without examining what the player is adapting to is meaningless.
Research in ecological dynamics shows that learning depends on exposure to representative information, not time-on-task alone (Araújo et al., 2019; Davids et al., 2008).
2. Quantity replaces quality of interaction
More coaching often means:
- More instruction
- More correction
- More dependency
Which weakens the player’s ability to self-organise.
In open sports like tennis, skill emerges from perception–action coupling, not from repeated execution of prescribed techniques (Gibson, 1979).
This is why increasing coached hours can actually reduce transfer to matches.
What Actually Drives Development Instead
From an ecological perspective, players improve when they are required to:
- Detect relevant affordances
- Make decisions under pressure
- Adapt movement solutions
- Regulate their own behaviour
This does not require more coaching.
It requires better-designed environments.
In Coaching Tennis, I describe how learning accelerates when:
- Match play is prioritised
- Constraints guide behaviour
- Coaches intervene less but observe more
- Players experience variability early
(Whelan, 2024)
Learning happens between sessions as much as within them.
A Practical Tennis Example
The traditional route:
- Player attends two squads
- One private lesson per week
- Minimal match play
- High technical input
The adaptive route:
- One well-designed squad
- Regular competitive play
- Peer variability
- Guided reflection
The second player often progresses faster, not because they trained less, but because they learned more.
This aligns with evidence showing that over-structured environments reduce exploratory behaviour, which is critical for long-term adaptability (Renshaw et al., 2010).
Why This Matters Ethically
Rigid hour-based requirements exclude:
- Multi-sport children
- Late developers
- Families with limited resources
There is no empirical justification for telling a 9- or 10-year-old:
“If you can’t commit to X hours, you won’t make it.”
That belief is not evidence-based.
It is culturally inherited.
And it contributes directly to burnout, dropout, and anxiety.
What This Means for Coaches
If we want better tennis players, we must stop asking:
“How many hours are they doing?”
And start asking:
- What information are they acting on?
- How variable is their environment?
- Are they solving problems or following instructions?
- Does practice look and feel like the game?
This shift, from volume to interaction, is central to modern coaching practice and underpins ecological dynamics in tennis.
For a deeper theoretical foundation, see A Letter to My Younger Coaching Self.
For applied examples, see how I design representative practice at Batchwood.
Closing Position
More coaching hours do not create better players.
Better learning environments do.
Until tennis moves away from time-based assumptions and towards evidence-informed practice design, we will continue to mistake effort for effectiveness.
And we will keep asking children to give more, when the system should be doing better.
References (APA)
Araújo, D., Davids, K., & Hristovski, R. (2019). The ecological dynamics of decision making in sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 42, 93–102.
Davids, K., Button, C., & Bennett, S. (2008). Dynamics of skill acquisition: A constraints-led approach. Human Kinetics.
Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin.
Renshaw, I., Davids, K., Shuttleworth, R., & Chow, J. Y. (2010). Insights from ecological psychology and dynamical systems theory can underpin a philosophy of coaching. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 41(1), 1–19.
Whelan, S. (2024). Coaching Tennis. In Ecological Dynamics in Sport Coaching. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003529972-13
