I’ve been coaching junior tennis in Sarasota for over three decades now, and if you’d asked me in 1996 what I’d know by 2026, I wouldn’t have gotten most of it right. But the most important lesson isn’t complicated: coaching is built on what works, not what sounds good.
That’s been my whole journey as a coach in Sarasota — chasing what actually moves the needle for kids.
The Long Road to Simple Principles
When I started coaching in Sarasota, I was like a lot of young pros: full of drills, full of cueing, convinced that the right metaphor or the right sequence of exercises would unlock every kid’s potential. I had systems. I had flowcharts. I had a lot of noise.
What I didn’t have was data.
Over thirty years, coaching hundreds of juniors at Potter Park, Pineview, Stoneybrook, and other Sarasota courts, I’ve watched what actually gets kids better — and what doesn’t. I’ve scrapped more ideas than I’ve kept. I’ve learned that:
- Kids don’t play better because of clever language; they play better because they’ve hit thousands of live balls in game-like conditions.
- Confidence doesn’t come from being told they’re great; it comes from evidence — from hitting 8 out of 10 targets, from winning a tight match, from watching their footwork improve week to week.
- The fanciest drill in the world is useless if it doesn’t teach the contact point, the movement pattern, or the decision-making that the kid needs in a real rally.
- Physical conditioning that doesn’t match the kid’s stage of development is wasted effort — sometimes it’s harmful.
The Six Pillars: Evidence, Not Invention
About five years ago, I realized I could organize everything I’d learned into six core principles. Not because I invented them — because I’d tested them in court, over years, with real kids and real results. They aren’t marketing slogans. They’re the framework that works.
Accuracy Inside Representative Conditions is the first one. It means this: don’t practice in a vacuum. Don’t feed balls from a machine and call it tennis. Junior players get better at the actual game when they hit live rallies with real targets, missing sometimes, adjusting, adapting. The 85/100 Rule — hitting 8 out of 10 targets in a live situation — is where real confidence is built. I’ve seen it a thousand times. A kid who can hit 8/10 forehands to a target in a live rally walks onto the match court with belief.
The other five pillars stack on top of this one: Live Ball Is the Method, Technique Is Geometry, Confidence Is Built, Not Given, Movement & Conditioning in the Right Order, and Channel the Fire. Each one came from something that worked. Each one came from watching kids improve, and asking why.
Why Sarasota Matters
One thing I’m proud of — Sarasota has been the laboratory for all of this. We don’t have a fancy country club model here. We have public courts at Potter Park, Pineview, Stoneybrook. We have real kids from real Sarasota families — not just the ones who can afford $10,000-a-year programs. And that’s by design.
Because the best coaching isn’t exclusive coaching. The best coaching is evidence-based coaching that works for any kid who’s willing to put in the reps. When you coach in the real community, on public courts, with mixed groups, you learn what actually transfers. You learn what’s hype and what’s sustainable.
I’ve watched kids from Sarasota go to college tennis, go to competitive juniors, learn to love the game for life. And the common thread isn’t money or access to the fanciest facilities. It’s consistency, evidence-based practice, and the willingness to build confidence the right way — one successful rep at a time.
The Hardest Part: Patience
If I had to give one piece of advice to coaches (or parents) who are starting out: the hardest part of coaching isn’t the technical knowledge. It’s the patience to let the system work.
Parents want their kids to be better now. Coaches want to show results this week. But junior tennis development — real development, the kind that gets kids to play at high levels and love the game — takes time.
It takes time to build footwork patterns through thousands of repetitions. It takes time to log the reps until a stroke becomes automatic. It takes time to play enough matches that a kid learns how to manage pressure. It takes time to compile enough evidence of success that real confidence takes root.
When you’re 30 years in, you see it clearly. The kids who made it big aren’t always the ones who were technically perfect at age 8. They’re the ones whose parents and coaches stayed consistent. They’re the ones who kept showing up. They’re the ones who learned to compete and to adjust.
What I’m Still Learning
Even now, I’m learning. Every summer at camp, every private lesson, every group class teaches me something. The neuroscience of skill acquisition changes how I teach footwork. Video analysis lets me see contact points I couldn’t see in 1996. The junior tournament circuit gives me data about what works in match play.
But the fundamentals don’t change. Live ball teaching works. Accuracy before power works. Building confidence through evidence works. Consistency works.
And after thirty years in Sarasota, I’m more convinced of those principles than I’ve ever been.
If you’re thinking about a tennis program for your kid, or if you’re a junior player in Sarasota trying to figure out where to train, look for a coach who can tell you why their method works, not just what it’s called. Look for evidence, not slogans. Look for someone who’s been in the game long enough to know the difference between a trend and a truth.
That’s the Sarasota standard I’m shooting for.
Learn more about evidence-based junior development at SRQ Tennis, or read about the coaching philosophy behind our programs.
Read more on motor learning and skill acquisition from the United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA).