Every fall, when school starts and junior programs fill back up, I get the same quiet question from parents standing at the fence in Sarasota: “How is she actually doing?” It is a fair question, and most parents feel a little awkward asking it. They do not want to seem pushy, and they are not sure what a good answer even sounds like.
I am Michael Boothman, and after 30-plus years coaching juniors here in Sarasota, I can tell you the parents who ask good questions tend to have kids who stick with the sport longer. Not because the questions change the coaching, but because they keep everyone honest about what progress looks like. So here is the guide I wish every parent had: the questions worth asking your junior’s tennis coach, and what a straight answer should sound like.
Ask: “What is she working on right now, and how will we know it’s improving?”
This is the most important question on the list, because it separates coaching from babysitting. A coach who is actually developing your child can name the specific thing they are building — a fuller shoulder turn on the forehand, contact out in front, a steadier second serve — and, just as important, how they are measuring it.
That second half matters. One of the pillars I coach by is Confidence Is Built, Not Given. Confidence does not come from a coach telling a kid “great job” 40 times an hour. It comes from evidence — from the child seeing, in real numbers, that the thing they could not do in June they can now do in August. If your coach says your daughter is “getting more consistent,” that is a start. If your coach says “in June she landed 4 of 10 crosscourt forehands to the target zone in a live rally, and last week she landed 7,” that is coaching you can trust. The number does not have to be fancy. It just has to exist.
Ask: “Is she hitting real balls, or mostly fed balls?”
There is a difference between a lesson where a coach feeds ball after ball from a basket and a session where kids actually rally, play points, and solve problems against a live opponent. Both have a place, but if every session is basket-fed, the skills often do not survive contact with a real match.
I lean hard on live ball for a reason: a fed ball arrives the same way every time, but a match never does. When your child has to read a ball off an opponent’s racquet, move to it, and still make a good decision, that is the skill that shows up on tournament day. You do not need to police the ratio. Just ask, and listen for whether the coach thinks about it at all.
Ask: “How big are the groups?”
Group size is not a small detail — it is most of the answer to how much your child actually improves. In a group of ten kids sharing one court, your child might hit a live ball a handful of times in an hour and stand in line for the rest. In a group of five or six, they are moving, hitting, and getting seen constantly.
This is why I cap my groups at six players, and I do not bend on it. If a program cannot tell you their maximum group size, or the answer is “it depends how many sign up,” that tells you something about where your tuition is going. A good coach protects court time the way a good teacher protects attention.
Ask: “What should I be doing — and not doing — on the ride home?”
This one surprises coaches, in a good way. It signals you understand that development does not stop at the fence. The honest answer from most coaches: the ride home should be a decompression zone, not a debrief. Resist the urge to review every point. “I love watching you play” does more for a ten-year-old’s tennis than a breakdown of their backhand ever will.
If you want the longer version of my thinking here, I wrote a whole piece on it — you can find it linked from the coaching page on this site. The short version: your job on the ride home is to be a parent, not an assistant coach. The USTA’s guidance for tennis parents says much the same thing, and it is worth a read.
Ask: “Where do you see her in a year, and what would get her there?”
Notice this is two questions in one, and the second half is the real one. Any coach can offer a rosy projection. The useful part is the path — what specifically has to happen between now and then. A good answer sounds concrete: more match reps, a more reliable serve under pressure, better recovery footwork between shots. A vague answer — “just keep coming and she’ll get there” — is a signal to keep asking.
You are not trying to trap the coach. You are trying to find out whether there is a plan, or just a weekly time slot on the calendar.
What you should NOT ask
A few questions do more harm than good, usually because they put pressure in the wrong place.
Do not ask, in front of your child, “Is she the best one out here?” Ranking your kid against the group in the moment turns a practice into a comparison contest, and it teaches them to measure themselves against other children instead of against their own last week.
Do not ask the coach to promise a result — a ranking, a high school varsity spot, a scholarship. No honest coach can promise those, and the ones who do are selling something. Development is real, but it is not a vending machine.
And try not to ask “why isn’t she winning yet?” in the first few months. Especially with juniors, the players who improve the most often go through a stretch where their results dip while they rebuild a stroke or start competing against tougher kids. A short-term loss is frequently the price of a long-term gain.
The point of asking at all
Here is what all of this comes down to. When you ask your coach specific questions and you get specific answers, you and the coach end up on the same page about what actually matters — effort, skill-building, and steady evidence of progress — instead of drifting toward the scoreboard as the only measure of a good season.
Kids can feel the difference. When the adults around them are calm, curious, and focused on getting better rather than winning right now, the kids play more freely and stick with the sport longer. That is the real goal of fall season, whether your child is at Potter Park, Pineview, or anywhere else in Sarasota: not a trophy in October, but a player who still loves the game in December.
If you have questions about your own junior’s development this fall and you would rather talk it through, you can reach me directly at michael@srq.tennis or 941-239-4703. Ask me the hard questions. The good coaches want you to.
See you on the court, Michael Boothman