The Challenge for Long Term Success by John Cavill

As a parent and a coach, there are so many things to weigh up when looking for long term player success. Every situation is an individual one, although there are common patterns and observations that can be made, especially when comparing players who win lots of matches at a young age.

To set the scene, we must consider what is possible and what is happening before puberty occurs. Initially there isn’t much difference between boys and girls in their body size, composition and physiological responses to exercise during the pre-puberty stage, but there can be massive difference in these areas on an individual basis e.g. extremely large 8 year olds and small 10 year olds. These differences play a huge part in the players physical and psychological performance as mini tennis competition and most training sessions are based on age and NOT the players biological development stage. What furthermore complicates the issue in the UK is the mini tennis rating system which rewards ‘wins’ and results based performance....what a challenge we have!

You see a lot of players dropping out of tennis when they are 14 or 15 years old and usually these players are those who physiologically developed quickly in their younger years and that have now been caught up by those who were later to mature. So what is the reason for this drop out? Unfortunately it is related back to the players feeling of worth and importance that was only dependent on being physically advanced at a young age. Up until this point, the player was able to gain a huge amount of success by being stronger and/or faster than their peers, which gave them a short term advantage. Now, the problem is that the player doesn’t have that physical dominance to succeed but neither do they have the other necessary skills, such as fitness and coordination, which late bloomers would have been developing over the years during the optimal time of their life for advancing these other skills.

The challenge as a coach or parent is to look at the player’s long term development and decide what the eventual goal is....good junior or good adult? You would hope that a player will be playing tennis for more of their adult life than their junior life, so if you are aiming long term, you need to create a plan to develop this, which means that players will have to sacrifice results and winning matches for experimenting and making mistakes. Through this experimentation process, where a player is being put outside of their comfort zone and their skills being constantly challenged, will you see a player improve in their overall development. I have seen the cycle of big kids smashing little kids off the court at a young age and becoming the county number 1, but only a few years later, the tide has turned and the others come through. The psychological pressure for a young child to be number 1 at a young age is huge, as there is only one way to move from being number 1 and that’s down. I always want my players to be ‘up there’ and mixing with the best but not  necessarily ‘the best’. If this is the case then they need to be in a different environment that is challenging them and making them strive to be better.

Puberty takes about four years for boys and girls to go through but usually girls will start 2 years earlier than boys. During puberty, there is an increase in oestrogen for girls and testosterone for boys, which has a significant influence over the body composition and physiological changes. For girls, they have additional biological changes of menstruation and the increase in body fat deposits which is caused from the oestrogen. These fat deposits are particularly in the hips and thighs, but there is also an increase in the rate that the bones are growing.

These can be tough times for some females, as there will also be emotional changes that are triggered through the hormones activity such as mood swings, feelings of depression or spells of irritability mixed with spells of relative calm. It wouldn’t be unusual for a female to feel certain amounts of stress during these rapid changes to their body, which can also lead to insecurity.

During pre puberty, boys and girls grown on average at a rate of 5cm per year. As the child reaches puberty, their peak height velocity or speed in which they grow, dramatically increases with girls usually starting earlier than boys. On average, girls from 11 to 12 years old will grow at rate of 9 cm per year and boys from 13 to 14 years old will grow at a rate of 10 cm per year. A great way to monitor this change is by measuring the player’s height every term so that individual consideration can be applied.

The impact of puberty is an unknown entity so as coaches our approach to talent identification at a young age should be treated with caution. If you really look at the player and decide what they need based on the individual, then you can enjoy the exciting journey of guided discovery with the anticipation of seeing the results in many years to come.

John Cavill runs Tennis Works, a tennis developmental and resource company.  For more information check out http://www.tennisworks.net/