Every August I get the same call. School is about to start, a parent has watched their kid fall in love with tennis over the summer, and now they want to find the right coach to keep it going. It is a good problem to have. It is also harder than it should be, because most of what gets marketed to parents is noise — trophies on a wall, a wall of five-star reviews, a promise that their child will be a star by spring.
My name is Michael Boothman. I have coached in Sarasota for more than 30 years, and I run SRQ Tennis out of the public parks here. I am not going to tell you to pick me. I am going to tell you how to pick well, because a parent who knows what to look for makes every coach in this town better, including me.
Start with what the coach can show you, not tell you
Anyone can say a child is “improving.” The question is whether they can prove it. When you talk to a prospective coach, ask a simple question: how do you know a player is getting better?
A good answer sounds concrete. It sounds like “we count how many forehands land in the target area under live pressure, and we track that number over weeks.” A vague answer sounds like “you can just see their confidence growing.” Confidence is real and it matters, but it is a result, not a method.
This is the heart of one of the six ideas I coach from, the pillar I call Confidence Is Built, Not Given. Kids do not get confident because an adult tells them they are doing great. They get confident because they can see, in numbers they helped generate, that last month they hit 5 out of 10 balls to a target and this month they hit 8. Evidence is what sticks. Praise without evidence washes off by the car ride home.
So the first filter is this: does the coach measure anything? If they cannot describe how they track progress, they are guessing, and you are paying for the guess.
Watch a real session before you commit
Do not sign up off a website or a phone call. Ask to watch a session, or better, ask if your child can try one. Then watch what actually happens on the court.
Here is what I want you to count: how much of the hour is the kid actually rallying, and how much is standing in line? A lot of junior programs run on fed balls — the coach stands at the net with a basket and feeds ball after ball while six kids wait their turn. It looks organized. It photographs well. But research on skill transfer is fairly blunt about this: skills built by repeating one predictable ball in a line do not carry over cleanly to the chaos of a real point.
Look for coaches who keep kids in live, back-and-forth rallies for most of the session. Real tennis is a conversation between two players, and you learn a conversation by having one, not by reciting lines. If the court is quiet and orderly with a long feed line, that is a yellow flag. If the court is a little loud and messy with kids actually playing out points, that is usually a good sign.
Ask about group size, and hold them to it
Group size is not a detail. It is the whole thing. A coach with twelve kids on a court cannot see your child, cannot give feedback that matters, and cannot keep everyone moving. The economics tempt programs to pack courts, so you have to ask directly: how many players per court, maximum?
I cap my groups at six, and I do not bend on it, because past six I stop being a coach and start being a crowd manager. You do not need to use my number. But you do need a number, and you need the coach to name it without flinching.
The red flags that should end the conversation
A few things should make you keep looking:
- Guarantees. Any coach who promises a ranking, a scholarship, or that your child will “become a star” is selling you certainty that does not exist in a developmental sport. Kids grow at their own pace.
- All choreography, no contact. If the entire lesson is about elaborate footwork patterns and grip diagrams but the ball rarely goes where it is supposed to, the coach is teaching the dance instead of the shot. Good ball-striking comes down to two things — hitting the center of the string bed with a square racquet face. The rest supports that or it is decoration.
- No plan you can see. A coach should be able to tell you, in plain words, what your child is working on right now and what comes after it. “We just play and have fun” is fine for a rec class. If you are paying for development, there should be a path.
The questions that actually matter
When you sit down with a coach, these five questions will tell you almost everything:
- How do you measure whether my child is improving?
- What does a typical session look like, minute to minute?
- How many kids are on a court at once?
- What are you working on with my child specifically, and why?
- How do I hear from you when something changes?
Notice what is not on that list: how many trophies, how many years, what level they played. Experience matters, but it is not the same as being a good teacher. Some of the best juniors make impatient coaches. Some players who never cracked a national ranking are extraordinary developers of young athletes. Judge the teaching, not the résumé.
The Sarasota advantage most parents miss
One more thing, specific to where we live. Sarasota has a real gift in its public parks — Potter Park, Pineview, and courts scattered across Lakewood Ranch and out toward Siesta Key. You do not need an expensive club membership to develop a strong junior player. Some of the best development I have seen happens on public courts with a coach who knows what they are doing and a small group of kids who actually get to play.
Do not let a fancy facility do your evaluating for you. A beautiful clubhouse does not hit a single ball for your child. The coach, the group size, and what happens in that hour on the court — that is what you are buying.
Where to go from here
If you want a broader look at how I think about junior development and what a session actually involves, you can read more on my coaching page. And if you want an outside anchor as you compare programs, the USTA’s youth tennis resources are a solid, non-commercial starting point for understanding what age-appropriate development looks like.
The right coach for your child is out there. Ask the hard questions, watch a real session, and trust what you see on the court over what you read on a website. Your kid will be better for it, and so will this town’s tennis.
See you on the court.
— Michael Boothman