Checking in on sideline coaching: is an open approach helping the game?

TENNIS CHANNEL LIVE: Bjorn Borg visits the TC Live Desk at the BNP Paribas Open.

From the northeast corner of Stadium 3 at the BNP Paribas Open, there came the words.

They were loud. They were clear. They were concise. And they were frequent.

“Come on.”
Next point: “Wide.”
Next point: “Body.”
Next point: “When you go deep, stay.”
Next point: “Finish that shot. Let it fly.”

So it went after every point from that side of the court.

The speaker was a coach, Emilio Sebastian Eguez Paz. His charge—and client—was world no. 155 Elizabeth Mandlik, working hard Friday afternoon versus two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova. Mandlik took in and attempted to implement each command with the focus of an NFL quarterback.

Welcome to pro tennis’ new approach to on-court coaching, where the coach is stationed in one corner of the court and allowed to issue short comments. Approved last summer, this is a shift from the prior WTA rule that permitted coaches to visit players on changeovers for a chat; that is, everywhere save for Grand Slam events. Coaching for both women and men is now the law of the land at all WTA and ATP tournaments, including the majors.

Full disclosure is that I’ve long opposed on-court coaching. So what if coaching is part of all other sports? Let’s allow tennis to have something that separates it from the pack. As Andre Agassi often said, “Tennis is like life. It’s two people, trying to figure things out.” To witness that gladiator-like struggle is the stuff of which tennis legends are made.

Then again, on-court coaching has always been impossible to police.

“When my coach said, ‘Let’s go!’ it meant hit to the forehand,” a ‘70s legend once told me. “When he said, ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’ it meant hit to the backhand.”

And of course, there have been far more elaborate levels of subterfuge such as hand signals. At tournaments where officials are scarce, violations run rampant, be it pushy parents, text messages from friends or other methods that range from the discreet to the blatant.

A significant benefit of on-court coaching is that, with each player countering one another, there exists the potential to improve the quality of play mid-match.

“I like that I can have more of an effect on the outcome,” said Dean Goldfine, a pro coach for more than 30 years who’s worked with Todd Martin, Sebastian Korda and is currently with Ben Shelton.

Many coaches prefer to occupy their new spot in the corner rather than enter the court, an authoritarian, Highway Patrol-like process that made for some disturbing optics.

When you go out on the court, it creates too much drama...It’s much more effective to give them tips from the sidelines. You don’t have these long conversations. Craig Kardon

“When you go out on the court, it creates too much drama,” said Craig Kardon, former coach of Martina Navratilova, Coco Vandeweghe, Mary Pierce and many more. “It’s much more effective to give them tips from the sidelines. You don’t have these long conversations.”

Another approach would be for the coach to be on the court, as is the case during Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup matches.

“That’s the most functional way to do it,” said Brad Stine, once coach of Jim Courier, Kevin Anderson and others, now with Tommy Paul. “You can speak to them on every changeover and you’re sitting on the bench, right next to the match.”

That kind of proximity is particularly functional when you take into account that at some locations, such as Wimbledon’s Centre Court, the coach’s seat is located awkwardly far from the court.

“On the bigger courts, I’m having to scream,” said Goldfine.

Another trick is knowing not just what to say, but how and when to say it.

“If a coach said something to me after every point,” a former pro told me, “I’d tell them to shut up. I don’t want that voice in my head that often. We’d have to figure out what might work best.”

Said Kardon, “You always have to be positive, but sometimes you can get the player relaxed by talking about other things like dinner plans. You have to know your player. But whatever you say, you have to make your case in a 30-second opportunity.”

In the current set-up, there is also the possibility of signal stealing. A friend from the opposition can sit near the opponent’s coach, hear the words and then text them to the player’s coach.

“If somebody does that, that would be pretty sad,” said Goldfine.

The counter is for the coach-player duo to create a personal short-hand or even, like an NFL team, numbered signals for various stratagems.

“I’ve always had a terminology that’s specific to me, be it for footwork or tactics,” said Stine.

Perhaps the biggest question is how on-court coaching will alter tennis to its roots, both now and in the years to come. Should a study be conducted of how a player performs on the coach’s side compared to the coach-free zone?

Kardon envisions a future where coaches can send text messages to players with statistical information. Beyond the pros, it’s easy to imagine juniors wanting to avail themselves of mid-match input. After all, in the developmental stages, they could likely benefit from it more. Or is it vital for a player to draw heavily on tennis’ longstanding credo of self-reliance?

The point of coaching is to improve the quality of the player, not to entertain everybody who’s watching the match. Brad Stine

Said Stine, “Maybe you only have it at the pro level, like in baseball where the majors have wood bats and everyone else has aluminum bats.”

Then there is also the matter of what’s driving the desire for on-court coaching to exist. Many people see it as a new character in the cast, yet another way to tell the story of a match. Others view that rationale with disdain.

“The point of coaching is to improve the quality of the player,” said Stine, “not to entertain everybody who’s watching the match.”

To that point, Stine has no desire to wear a microphone. After all, if indeed tennis wishes to mimic the other sports, can one imagine how New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick would reply if he was asked to have all of his mid-game conversations captured on a microphone? Belichick’s likely answer is unprintable. One awaits further refinements for a new reality that’s both intriguing and arguably inevitable.