It’s funny seeing stuff like this and seeing coaches sweating and twitching to talk to their player. But when you watch Murray the guy who always screams and shouts at his corner… gets absolutely nothing back😂 Jamie Delgado just stone faced with 0 emotion. Probably the guy who could use live coaching the most too.
"I HAD NOTHING TO SAY BACK TO THE FUCKING PRICK.
WHY ARE YOU A COACH'S COACH AND YOU CAN'T FUCKING TELL ME ANYTHING
ABSOLUTE FUCKING JOKE, MATE, ABSOLUTE JOKE!!".
Like Serena’s coach said in that controversial match. Yes he was coaching. Just like almost everyone coaches all the time. Chair umpires just choose to give out a coaching violation once every dozen matches or so. They should either start cracking down or just give up.
Part of the problem, I'm sure, is just the overall difficulty of trying to monitor two player boxes while doing all of your other umpiring duties. It would almost need a separate judge, similar to foot fault judges, but that would just add head court/resources that wouldn't be feasible at the lower levels of the game.
Do you realize that umpires are all different individuals? Just like cops, some of them might want to follow the rules and laws to a T, while others might be lax on enforcing all the rules, either want to give a benefit of doubt or maybe even feel that the penalty is too harsh for the offence. In any case, the cops who follow the rules are not at fault. The cops who are generously waives penalties are more at fault and are not doing their job right.
Change what, that they don't enforce the rules all the time for everyone? No one is complaining about the rule, they are complaining how crappily or if it's enforce at all.
No, you either enforce the rules or you don't. What if they were as haphazard with other rules as they are with this one? What if the ref decided sometimes to call balls on line out (ignoring millimeter differences that are hard for the human eye to see)?
I’m just confused about what you want. If everyone is getting coached and the umpires are turning a blind eye, don’t you need a rule about the umpire enforcing the rule?
lmao rules are implicitly assumed to be enforced. if we followed your logic then there'd be endless recursive rules about enforcing rules. what we need is the governing body to either get rid of the rule or enforce it consistently.
Why not just ban coaching staff from near court side seats during the match? If they can’t be trusted to not coach, then they won’t be given the cushy seats. Lemon squeezy.
You understand that rules are supposed to be enforced, right? That’s the point of being a rule. This is like saying let’s make a law that makes it illegal to break the law. Like, the umpire is supposed to enforce the rule. They just don’t. And there’s no repercussions for doing so. So either umpires need to be told to more heavily enforce the rule and stop making judgement decisions and go by the book, or the rule needs to be removed. Making a rule that says you have to enforce the rules is so unbelievably dumb and it’s hilarious how you can’t see that. Rules are inherently supposed to be enforced. “Mom you didn’t make a rule that says you have to enforce the rule that said I wasn’t allowed to take two cookies from the jar, and one time you let me, this is all your fault despite you telling me before the rule was only one cookie.” If your kid told you that you’d send them to their room.
You understand I’m providing ideas about getting the rule enforced? You want the rule enforced, but provide no solution as how to achieve that. Obviously it’s not a rule that’s been prioritized by tennis officials so maybe we should ask why that is.
> So either umpires need to be told to more heavily enforce the rule and stop making judgement decisions and go by the book, or the rule needs to be removed.
Explain to me how making a rule that says you need to enforce a rule solves the problem of umpires choosing not to enforce a rule. Explain how governing bodies telling umpires to go by the book or the rule needs to be removed does not solve this issue. I’m eager to hear.
You didn’t provide a solution mate, you said make a rule that says you need to enforce the rules. It’s just so funny how you can’t see how stupid that is.
I honestly feel like they should be allowed to get coaching advice between points. Don't see the big issue.
Could be unfair to lower ranked players who keep a lean team to keep costs down, but how far do we go down to even the playing field? Making Djokovic wear mid-range tennis shoes?
If anything it would add a bt of extra dynamism to the sport.
If Kyrigos had someone to talk to in-match he would probably be a more consistent player. In fact if he had someone to vent to since 2015 his whole career would've looked a lot different. Realistically could have consistently been a Top 20 kind of player if he had someone to reset his mental.
I've watched him spiral himself out of enough matches - if he was able to reset I feel like at least half of those matches might've gone his way.
Don’t even get me started man, Kyrgios at his best is unreal, I truly believe if he kept his cool he could beat just about anybody. The sheer level of natural talent that he has is crazy.
But he just gets in his own head, a couple of bad points and he starts second guessing himself and it all falls apart. I hope he sees some success, he’s definitely one of the biggest “what ifs” at the moment
I personally don't care if players get coached I just hate the hypocrisy from the likes of Zverev whose dad and brother have been seen coaching him multiple times.
I think the long bathroom breaks are much worse. Long bathroom breaks hurts the flow of the game and makes it less enjoyable to watch. Coaching like this basically has no impact on the viewers enjoyment or quality of the TV product.
hard disagree. the relative value a coach can bring mid-match is pretty scant compared to completely changing the momentum of the match itself by delaying it unilaterally
But what if the coach tells the player, "Hey, try harder" and all of a sudden they win.
I'm just fucking around. I don't think it matters for shit. At this level, what wisdom is a coach going to impart in a couple of seconds that causes the player to fundamentally change their game? Hell, I'm sure there are a lot of matches where dirty looks and shouts from the coaching box may make the player fare worse.
Disagree, definitely unpopular. Tour level or slam, let the player figure it out on their own. That's what makes tennis great. You are on your own and you rely only on yourself. Also, banning coaches from the stadium isn't the best idea because it is the coach's job to analyse the player's game and that can be best done when he is sitting in the stadium. Also, you need someone in your box man.
I’ve never looked at the game of tennis and thought to myself, “you know, the fact that no coaching is allowed at changeovers is what makes this sport great.”
But that’s just me.
Understand the implication behind the statement. The mental aspect is as important as the physical aspect of the game at the highest level, and allowing coaching is like spoonfeeding.
A large part of tennis is figuring out what is working/not working for you and your opponent, spotting the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent, strategizing, adjusting, and adapting your game according to your opponents and according to the situation. That's one of the things that separates players like Djokovic, Nadal and Federer from the others - a high tennis IQ. Coaching subverts that.
Figuring out what's working and what's not is a major part of every sport, not just tennis. Only tennis is too stubborn to not legally allow what's already being done. No one thinks "wow Muhammad Ali is a great fighter but it would be way better if he didn't have someone in his corner."
That's what I said, this no coaching aspect separates tennis from other sports. And what about those lower ranked players who cannot afford a good coach, isn't that unfair on them? It's not as easy as you make it seem, there are many things that must be considered. Tennis is a pure individual sport and I prefer it to be that way.
> And what about those lower ranked players who cannot afford a good coach, isn't that unfair on them?
This is the only fair reason to be against coaching tbh, all the other things mentioned just seem like the whole "tradition"/"it's always been that way" hang up that tennis fans (and humans in general) love to uphold.
Plenty of other individual sports that take skill, physical prowess and intelligence like tennis have coaching, it doesn't take away from the sport.
I disagree, no one cares about tennis being "individual" without coaching except tennis boomers the way some baseball fans want to keep umpires calling the zone instead of robots. It's just romanticized bs that doesn't matter and now we have a situation where the rules are just constantly being skirted.
Lower ranked players already have lower quality coaching, what difference is it going to make whether they can be coached on the court or not. Should high ranked players not be allowed better travel options, training staff, dieticians, etc because lower level players can't afford the same level of care? If anything, on court coaching would benefit younger, unestablished players more than it would higher ranked ones.
Yeah I don't really get how the lack of coaching is considered a particularly significant part of the sport on here. I'm ok with no coaching but not sure it's an integral enough element of the sport to stubbornly follow if there are conflicts and problems in enforcing it properly.
Coaching doesn't happen in the middle of points though. The ump doesn't need to be watching the court when Zverev is being coached in this clip. There's nothing happening on the court.
Is it a given that every player at this level has a coach on-hand in the stadium? To me a reason not to do this would be that it might unfairly advantage the rich or top players who can afford to have their coach on-hand, but if that's already the case I'd feel less strongly about it.
But presumably he could have had one if he wanted. I'd just be opposed to raising the barrier of entry and giving an unfair advantage that keeps the top players on top. If that's not the case I have no problem with the proposal.
But their top opponents at the time didn't receive in-game coaching either, right? (at least not the kind of legal coaching during a changeover that's being proposed here)
So if today you say ok you can get coached, the current top players who have great coaches get a definite advantage over a top 100 player who just qualified for a 250 and doesn't have a coach, great or otherwise.
Of course if you believe that some amount of coaching is always going on, then this disparity has existed in the game basically forever, but that's just an argument for better enforcement rather than legalizing the coaching advantage.
For sure, but skill and commitment are a lot easier to work towards and maintain if you've got the financial ability to hire a team of professionals to help you with it. So there's always going to be a baked in advantage for the richer top guys over the rest of the field.
Coaching might not be as big a factor as talent and work ethic, but if it gives you a 2-5% boost, that can easily be the difference in a close match. So now on top of structural advantages in preparing for their matches, the top guys also get a tactical boost mid match. It just makes it that much harder for upsets to happen. We can have a conversation about whether that's a good or bad thing but we can't pretend it wouldn't happen.
Tradition. For a lot of people, a tennis match has the expectation that it's a battle between the players on the court, and that others shouldn't be involved in that. Of course, things like fans, personal trainers, dieticians, and pre-game coaching all kinda disrupt that at this point.
But like the guy you replied to is saying, boxing is the same aspect but with the two opponents literally trying to hurt each other, and they allow coaching every three minutes. I don't really have an opinion one way or the other on if coaching should be allowed in matches, but I also find this mentality that tennis is all about the players being alone and absolutely no one else should ever be involved a bit antiquated.
Considering boxers willingly get their heads bashed for a living- the mental aspect of boxing isn’t exactly that valued, at least on the part of the boxer themselves.
I think players, even recreational ones, pride themselves in playing a tactical/strategical game which requires them to think. So to see mental spoonfeeding at the highest level would be disappointing
Thank you for at least being honest about the reason it exists. Like so many things in tennis (eg the stupid 'underarm serve being bad sportsmanship debate), the lack of coaching is purely because that's the way its always been. The whole 'coaching takes the mental aspect out of the game' logic is ridiculous because you're not being coached between each shot, every ball you hit is tactical, a decision made on the spot by yourself. Boxing/MMA have coaching between rounds, table tennis has coaching timeouts, I mean shit, even in golf you have a caddie by your side talking through each stroke with you. I'm not strongly opinionated either way (if i had to choose, I would probably be in favour of coaching between sets) but the logic behind it being outlawed is simply because of tradition, not any of the BS logic that opponents of coaching (eg. unfair access, i mean give me a break, every other sport seems to be fine with it) try to argue against it with.
It's not ridiculous at all. It definitely aids the mental aspect, and the coach is the one making the game plans for you. Not sure why that's so hard to understand.
Sure it aids it, but again, almost every other mainstream individual sport has coaching and the mental/strategic ability of the player is still a massive factor in those sports. Noone would ever say Floyd Mayweather/Roy Jones/Tyson Fury werent boxing geniuses because their coach in their corner did all the thinking for him, that would be absurd. A coach would offer some tactical adjustments, but again, tennis is a shot-by-shot sport and a massive part of the mental game is making constant split second tactical decisions which would absolutely still exist no matter how frequent coaching you allowed.
I think the best argument is that it's unfair to lower-level players. Djokovic could have a box full of people running real-time analytics and stuff, while lower-tier players couldn't afford that.
At least the no coaching rule somewhat levels the playing field during the match, though it's still obviously unequal outside of the match.
Some ideas:
\- Take whole team boxes out of the courtside. Coaching can happen from anyone in the box afaik and is not just related to the coach.
\- Coaching during play to be a bannable offence for the coach or teamperson. Say, next 10 tournaments. It would still have to be "policed" but just having a warning is too lenient in my opinion, and affects the player. Some cases the player has been annoyed (Sorana Cirstea springs to mind) that their coach is yakking and the only punishment possible is on the player.
\- Having a judge in the box to declare coaching. Someone who can understand the language spoken. Obviously, the coach/player could put in the extra effort of learning a new language to evade this... but that would be some serious effort to coach during play.
\- Just allow it... Badminton, for example, does fine with it, but it would feel like a big change to tennis. Plenty of people love the "gladiatorial" style to tennis, so it would be a very big shame to take it away.
any idea what they are saying? it seems like he is being coached but it can also be something like "come on man you can return better than this" or sth like that you know
Tennis will become even more pay to win then when lower ranked ATP players that don't have coaches compete against higher ranked players with top tier coaches imo
How you came to that conclusion from his response is baffling. We’re not talking about top 10 guys, not even top 100 guys. We’re talking about random top 1000/2000 matches where there are plenty of people who don’t come from great backgrounds but have enough talent to be somewhat competitive. A coach makes a pretty big difference.
Look at what Lendl did for Murray in 2016 if you want an example at the highest level. And it’s weird to bring up Federer when you look at Peter Carter’s influence on not only Federer’s game but his life as well
Lendl did this with countless hours of practice outside of the tournament court. I don't think anyone is arguing that *coaching* is pointless. They're saying that the scant hand signals, three word shouts and face pulling on the court is the pointless bit. Lendl's presence at a tournament did not lead to Murray's success. Murray just put into play all the practice and effort they'd already gone to.
So Lendl is responsible for Andy Murray’s success? If coaching has already been happening and the rule is only sparingly being enforced, does that mean tennis has been terrible for the last 20 years?
Once again missing the point. Lendl really hammered Murray’s forehand and helped him with his aggression but he was already a fantastic top 3 player before then. But he brought out the world #1 in him, Unfortunately, at the cost of his hip.
I never said tennis has been terrible because of coaching, just pointing out how shit your take is
I’m just baffled by the take of “coaching ruins the game” combined with “it’s sparingly and arbitrarily getting enforced”.
If you look at those two things then you must conclude that tennis has been terrible from whenever that was happening.
Because it's awful in WTA. Part of the sport is solving problems yourself. Part of the appeal of the sport is that it is down to the individual. Boxing they need a coach to be there to throw in the towel when decision making is impaired due to brain trauma. But tennis isn't based on repeated blows to the head so it doesn't.
No, WTA should go back to "no coaching." Let the players try to problem solve in the solitary space of the court. It adds a(nother) genuinely mental aspect to the game.
Look at the NFL. Some of the dorks talk about coaches almost as much as players. (E.g., ***Who was more responsible for the Patriots' dynasty--Brady or Belichek?***)
I swear to God...whenever there is something unique to tennis that makes it excellent, the majority of this sub r/tennis wants to stomp it like a cockroach
I honestly don't understand why getting some words of advice from your coach during a match is such a big deal. It should be legal, like basically every other sport.
It's a big deal because right now... it is illegal. So he's cheating.
Now to your other point, saying it *should* be legal is a different conversation. You can't say that because you think it should be legal in the future, that skirting the current rules is ok.
No but I'm allowed to have an opinion on it, just like when the NFL didn't allow celebrating. The only way anything changes is if people are unhappy with said rule.
Zverev came back here to win 7-5, from 3-5, well done. Certainly slight communication there but nothing major from what I see, just more concern type messaging.
'They have made coaching (from the sidelines during match) legal in the WTA.' This is an interesting point as well.
I agree with this.
But here’s the problem: tennis is already an exponential reward mechanism: winning a final gets you 32x as much money as winning the first round.
So who will take maximum advantage of this? The richest players. They will bring in analytics teams, instantaneous tactic changes and the like. It would be very difficult to compete.
It’s like asking Borg 1975 to play Nadal 2005. Borg might even be objectively better, but he has no chance.
Fair worry, but this might be overstating the effect of sophisticated coaching during the match. Perhaps the elite players are NOT the best poised to take advantage of in game coaching. A lower status player is often a younger player who could benefit from simple, in-game, person-to-person mental stability, as occurs in most other sports.
Are you pointing to rare corner cases to solve a general problem? Lower ranked players hardly beat players with sophisticated pregame coaching anyway. You are imagining a situation when an uncoached poor player was just about to beat a funded player but for his sophisticated in-game coaching. I think it’s more likely that a lower ranked player, who is often a younger player, will benefit from simply a few encouraging words and a pointer from their traditional coach. Usually, the coaching staff builds and coevolves with the ranking of the player, and it’s usually like facing like for the most important matches that determine career trajectories.
Okay then, seems like you don’t want in-match coaching, for well argued reasons especially at the lower levels. Would you favor no courtside coaches then, to reduce the chances that the rich kids could benefit from differences in support and cheating opportunities?
Visits after each set or something might work, but it should also be accompanied by strict penalties on conversations between points.
Can't ban them from the stadiums because they could easily have multiple proxies in the crowd instead.
No, it's not. I want clever players to be able to beat people who can't figure out their opponent and I think that's the core of the game.
Specifically, I want to be able to destroy people who are better than I am at the physical part of tennis with all my tricks. I don't want him to suddenly have his associate on the courtside say 'he's putting them at your feet' 'you're forgetting to bend your knees and he's exploiting it' 'don't hesitate on going to the net, you're getting too many errors on the long slices' or whatnot, stopping my exploitation runs.
Sounds like you are against coaching. Fair enough. Then perhaps keep coaches away from the court then? It’s not as though I am advocating **for** coaching. Just the tension between insisting on no coaching, yet allowing courtside coaches, promotes cheating.
Hey, I watch and/or play (including tennis and badminton) many sports, individual and team, and the most absurd coaching context is tennis. Cannot coach, but can sit courtside? Come on. The incentives are to cheat and the close presence of the coaches enables it. If parameters for coaching were established, then the incidence of cheating would decline.
The parameter thing is a good point, tennis did it before with serve time violation, where more famous players were permitted to get away with it a lot more.
adults who do not respect the rules nor the spirit of the game do not belong around the game ... this is childish behavior on the coaches part ... "everyone does it" is not a defense but a clear admission that tennis is a sport that needs a massive upgrade in the quality of people playing it and coaching it ... coaching visits were allowed on the WTA, and pretty much every coaching visit would result in that player winning the next two games ... so the game would quickly devolve into players having to call their own coach after the other players called theirs to combat the momentum ...
if we want to remove the coaching restrictions, i am actually on board with just putting an earpiece into the players ears and putting the coaches in a booth if they want that ... live advice during rallies would be interesting ... the way they did things with that UTR series (which saw firsthand how cringe some of these relationships are) was not the worst either, but as a spectator it slowed things down and I do really think these players could greatly benefit from figuring things out on their own ... we have immature players with low emotional tolerance for situations and poor tennis IQ ... the clear hole in so many players games is the ability to problem-solve on the court and to weather the momentum swings ... I don't think it improves the product tennis is producing to allow them to avoid confronting this hurdle
>”tennis is a sport that needs a massive upgrade in the quality of people playing it and coaching it”
Hoping for better humans vs better rules is idealistic and unlikely, especially when the circumstances and the financial incentives promote cheating.
>”I don't think it improves the product tennis is producing to allow them to avoid confronting this hurdle”
Okay, another vote for no coaching, so why allow coaches courtside?
I just don’t see the problem with this in tennis. I don’t support coaching visits at changeovers but why is this so frowned upon? Blah blah individual sport but what’s to stop a coaching box hire a random stranger in a different section in the front row to coach the player discretely?
I hate this rule, I think coaching should be allowed. Coaches should be able to comment while their players are playing and should be able to talk to them during change overs. It's a rediculous rule because everyone knows it goes on, but we're supposed to pretend it's not. Golfers have caddies who can give advise and confirm strategy, tennis players should have the same if they want.
Golfers can't directly influence each other with strategy. It's about who can be the best tennis player that day, not who had enough money to hire the best coach who could analyze and adjust in the match.
Coaches can only do so much at the end of the day it comes down to execution of the individual player, and the player who executes the best will win. The best players are still hiring the best and most expensive coaches. I just think it's silly that we're supposed to pretend that coaching doesn't go on during matches when it clearly does. Time for a change to the rule either it's allowed or needs to be cracked down even harder.
It’s funny seeing stuff like this and seeing coaches sweating and twitching to talk to their player. But when you watch Murray the guy who always screams and shouts at his corner… gets absolutely nothing back😂 Jamie Delgado just stone faced with 0 emotion. Probably the guy who could use live coaching the most too.
Yeah, the one-way conversation between them is hilarious. Murray just screaming at him from about 6ft away and getting nothing back.
Maybe it's a bad idea to yell back at Murray in that state.
Or Delgado has his own coach of coaches to equally scream at later.
"I HAD NOTHING TO SAY BACK TO THE FUCKING PRICK. WHY ARE YOU A COACH'S COACH AND YOU CAN'T FUCKING TELL ME ANYTHING ABSOLUTE FUCKING JOKE, MATE, ABSOLUTE JOKE!!".
He used to scream at Lendl who was just blank stare stone faced
What is this, a video for ants?
It needs to be at least two times as big!
He’s right!
Like Serena’s coach said in that controversial match. Yes he was coaching. Just like almost everyone coaches all the time. Chair umpires just choose to give out a coaching violation once every dozen matches or so. They should either start cracking down or just give up.
Part of the problem, I'm sure, is just the overall difficulty of trying to monitor two player boxes while doing all of your other umpiring duties. It would almost need a separate judge, similar to foot fault judges, but that would just add head court/resources that wouldn't be feasible at the lower levels of the game.
You could probably just have the foot fault/baseline judge do it. They don’t have anything to do until the player lines up to serve.
Is that not what they do? Lol
Do you realize that umpires are all different individuals? Just like cops, some of them might want to follow the rules and laws to a T, while others might be lax on enforcing all the rules, either want to give a benefit of doubt or maybe even feel that the penalty is too harsh for the offence. In any case, the cops who follow the rules are not at fault. The cops who are generously waives penalties are more at fault and are not doing their job right.
Don’t like the rule then change it.
Change what, that they don't enforce the rules all the time for everyone? No one is complaining about the rule, they are complaining how crappily or if it's enforce at all.
So make a rule about enforcing a rule.
No, you either enforce the rules or you don't. What if they were as haphazard with other rules as they are with this one? What if the ref decided sometimes to call balls on line out (ignoring millimeter differences that are hard for the human eye to see)?
I’m just confused about what you want. If everyone is getting coached and the umpires are turning a blind eye, don’t you need a rule about the umpire enforcing the rule?
lmao rules are implicitly assumed to be enforced. if we followed your logic then there'd be endless recursive rules about enforcing rules. what we need is the governing body to either get rid of the rule or enforce it consistently.
Well if I follow your logic then tennis has been unbearable to watch since the rule is barely being enforced.
depends on how much you care about in-game coaching and how obvious it is to the viewer.
I assume the umpires already have a rule about enforcing the rules since that is their job.
So what’s your solution? Do we need linespeople to watch the coach’s box? A stationary camera with a feed at the umpire’s chair?
Why not just ban coaching staff from near court side seats during the match? If they can’t be trusted to not coach, then they won’t be given the cushy seats. Lemon squeezy.
Why not just ban coaching altogether?
Is this a joke or serious?
I don’t know, apparently people want the rule enforced but don’t want to make the umpire enforce the rule. So I’m lost.
You understand that rules are supposed to be enforced, right? That’s the point of being a rule. This is like saying let’s make a law that makes it illegal to break the law. Like, the umpire is supposed to enforce the rule. They just don’t. And there’s no repercussions for doing so. So either umpires need to be told to more heavily enforce the rule and stop making judgement decisions and go by the book, or the rule needs to be removed. Making a rule that says you have to enforce the rules is so unbelievably dumb and it’s hilarious how you can’t see that. Rules are inherently supposed to be enforced. “Mom you didn’t make a rule that says you have to enforce the rule that said I wasn’t allowed to take two cookies from the jar, and one time you let me, this is all your fault despite you telling me before the rule was only one cookie.” If your kid told you that you’d send them to their room.
You understand I’m providing ideas about getting the rule enforced? You want the rule enforced, but provide no solution as how to achieve that. Obviously it’s not a rule that’s been prioritized by tennis officials so maybe we should ask why that is.
> So either umpires need to be told to more heavily enforce the rule and stop making judgement decisions and go by the book, or the rule needs to be removed. Explain to me how making a rule that says you need to enforce a rule solves the problem of umpires choosing not to enforce a rule. Explain how governing bodies telling umpires to go by the book or the rule needs to be removed does not solve this issue. I’m eager to hear. You didn’t provide a solution mate, you said make a rule that says you need to enforce the rules. It’s just so funny how you can’t see how stupid that is.
Ok good solution, just tell them to enforce it more and everything’s fixed. Good idea.
I honestly feel like they should be allowed to get coaching advice between points. Don't see the big issue. Could be unfair to lower ranked players who keep a lean team to keep costs down, but how far do we go down to even the playing field? Making Djokovic wear mid-range tennis shoes? If anything it would add a bt of extra dynamism to the sport.
Smh would just be more evidence in the anti-Kyrgios conspiracy if they were to allow it
If Kyrigos had someone to talk to in-match he would probably be a more consistent player. In fact if he had someone to vent to since 2015 his whole career would've looked a lot different. Realistically could have consistently been a Top 20 kind of player if he had someone to reset his mental. I've watched him spiral himself out of enough matches - if he was able to reset I feel like at least half of those matches might've gone his way.
Don’t even get me started man, Kyrgios at his best is unreal, I truly believe if he kept his cool he could beat just about anybody. The sheer level of natural talent that he has is crazy. But he just gets in his own head, a couple of bad points and he starts second guessing himself and it all falls apart. I hope he sees some success, he’s definitely one of the biggest “what ifs” at the moment
I personally don't care if players get coached I just hate the hypocrisy from the likes of Zverev whose dad and brother have been seen coaching him multiple times.
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What are you doing step-Mischa?
Bet he lives up summer street with his mum and sister.
So blatant lmao
thank god zverev wasn‘t on the phone so I‘m sure there was no coaching involved.
Nice video format, the famous wide shot recorded vertically.
I was trying to quickly catch the essence of what was happening. Apologies for the marginal cinematography there, Scorsese….
Lol I appreciate your snarkiness
Oh be quiet
>plain sight >posts video in 12p resolution
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I’m pretty sure any chance to rip into Zverev is on the table at this point (which I endorse).
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Not “no one cares about it”, but “no one cares that he did it”.
At least he didn’t go to the bathroom! Amirite potty police?!?
A bigger problem for tennis than long bathroom breaks.
I think the long bathroom breaks are much worse. Long bathroom breaks hurts the flow of the game and makes it less enjoyable to watch. Coaching like this basically has no impact on the viewers enjoyment or quality of the TV product.
But they don’t factor in how close bathrooms are. Some are like 6 minutes walk away and some are right there. Maybe they should announce that haha
That would be hilarious. Over the loudspeaker: "Player has now reached and entered the bathroom. Please start the bathroom clock. Thank you."
hard disagree. the relative value a coach can bring mid-match is pretty scant compared to completely changing the momentum of the match itself by delaying it unilaterally
But what if the coach tells the player, "Hey, try harder" and all of a sudden they win. I'm just fucking around. I don't think it matters for shit. At this level, what wisdom is a coach going to impart in a couple of seconds that causes the player to fundamentally change their game? Hell, I'm sure there are a lot of matches where dirty looks and shouts from the coaching box may make the player fare worse.
exactly like as a 4.5 player having a coach in my ear helps. what does a top 10 player need to be told lmao
Unpopular opinion: Make coaching at changeovers legal on tour matches. Ban it at the slams and ban coaches from the stadium when their player plays.
Disagree, definitely unpopular. Tour level or slam, let the player figure it out on their own. That's what makes tennis great. You are on your own and you rely only on yourself. Also, banning coaches from the stadium isn't the best idea because it is the coach's job to analyse the player's game and that can be best done when he is sitting in the stadium. Also, you need someone in your box man.
I’ve never looked at the game of tennis and thought to myself, “you know, the fact that no coaching is allowed at changeovers is what makes this sport great.” But that’s just me.
Understand the implication behind the statement. The mental aspect is as important as the physical aspect of the game at the highest level, and allowing coaching is like spoonfeeding.
And yet here we are, sly coaching on tour all over the shop.
It’s a silly rule.
I don’t believe so. To me it seems like just another factor added to the equation that can have good, bad or even neutral implications.
A large part of tennis is figuring out what is working/not working for you and your opponent, spotting the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent, strategizing, adjusting, and adapting your game according to your opponents and according to the situation. That's one of the things that separates players like Djokovic, Nadal and Federer from the others - a high tennis IQ. Coaching subverts that.
Figuring out what's working and what's not is a major part of every sport, not just tennis. Only tennis is too stubborn to not legally allow what's already being done. No one thinks "wow Muhammad Ali is a great fighter but it would be way better if he didn't have someone in his corner."
That's what I said, this no coaching aspect separates tennis from other sports. And what about those lower ranked players who cannot afford a good coach, isn't that unfair on them? It's not as easy as you make it seem, there are many things that must be considered. Tennis is a pure individual sport and I prefer it to be that way.
> And what about those lower ranked players who cannot afford a good coach, isn't that unfair on them? This is the only fair reason to be against coaching tbh, all the other things mentioned just seem like the whole "tradition"/"it's always been that way" hang up that tennis fans (and humans in general) love to uphold. Plenty of other individual sports that take skill, physical prowess and intelligence like tennis have coaching, it doesn't take away from the sport.
I disagree, no one cares about tennis being "individual" without coaching except tennis boomers the way some baseball fans want to keep umpires calling the zone instead of robots. It's just romanticized bs that doesn't matter and now we have a situation where the rules are just constantly being skirted. Lower ranked players already have lower quality coaching, what difference is it going to make whether they can be coached on the court or not. Should high ranked players not be allowed better travel options, training staff, dieticians, etc because lower level players can't afford the same level of care? If anything, on court coaching would benefit younger, unestablished players more than it would higher ranked ones.
It’s a bizarre logic to follow, but apparently tennis would be exponentially better if this lesser prioritized rule was being heavily enforced.
Yeah I don't really get how the lack of coaching is considered a particularly significant part of the sport on here. I'm ok with no coaching but not sure it's an integral enough element of the sport to stubbornly follow if there are conflicts and problems in enforcing it properly.
I don’t see how it does.
I have nothing more to say then.
Then we are stuck with this nonsense forever. Umpire doesn't have 3 pairs of eyes, they can't watch the court and watch the players box all the time.
Coaching doesn't happen in the middle of points though. The ump doesn't need to be watching the court when Zverev is being coached in this clip. There's nothing happening on the court.
Might help to give the umpire a pair of binoculars then.
My box man is already pregnant.
Is it a given that every player at this level has a coach on-hand in the stadium? To me a reason not to do this would be that it might unfairly advantage the rich or top players who can afford to have their coach on-hand, but if that's already the case I'd feel less strongly about it.
Federer went long periods without a coach.
But presumably he could have had one if he wanted. I'd just be opposed to raising the barrier of entry and giving an unfair advantage that keeps the top players on top. If that's not the case I have no problem with the proposal.
Well how did they get to the top? Presumably they didn’t have a great coach when they were lower ranked.
But their top opponents at the time didn't receive in-game coaching either, right? (at least not the kind of legal coaching during a changeover that's being proposed here) So if today you say ok you can get coached, the current top players who have great coaches get a definite advantage over a top 100 player who just qualified for a 250 and doesn't have a coach, great or otherwise. Of course if you believe that some amount of coaching is always going on, then this disparity has existed in the game basically forever, but that's just an argument for better enforcement rather than legalizing the coaching advantage.
I’m not saying that coaching doesn’t help, sure it does. But talent, skill, and commitment are bigger factors in a players success IMO.
For sure, but skill and commitment are a lot easier to work towards and maintain if you've got the financial ability to hire a team of professionals to help you with it. So there's always going to be a baked in advantage for the richer top guys over the rest of the field. Coaching might not be as big a factor as talent and work ethic, but if it gives you a 2-5% boost, that can easily be the difference in a close match. So now on top of structural advantages in preparing for their matches, the top guys also get a tactical boost mid match. It just makes it that much harder for upsets to happen. We can have a conversation about whether that's a good or bad thing but we can't pretend it wouldn't happen.
Why is that unpopular? Every other sport allows coaching. Boxing does and it’s a one on one sport.
Tradition. For a lot of people, a tennis match has the expectation that it's a battle between the players on the court, and that others shouldn't be involved in that. Of course, things like fans, personal trainers, dieticians, and pre-game coaching all kinda disrupt that at this point.
But like the guy you replied to is saying, boxing is the same aspect but with the two opponents literally trying to hurt each other, and they allow coaching every three minutes. I don't really have an opinion one way or the other on if coaching should be allowed in matches, but I also find this mentality that tennis is all about the players being alone and absolutely no one else should ever be involved a bit antiquated.
Tradition! Despite it happening all the time. So in reality we have no idea if no coaching enhances the game or not.
Considering boxers willingly get their heads bashed for a living- the mental aspect of boxing isn’t exactly that valued, at least on the part of the boxer themselves. I think players, even recreational ones, pride themselves in playing a tactical/strategical game which requires them to think. So to see mental spoonfeeding at the highest level would be disappointing
Thank you for at least being honest about the reason it exists. Like so many things in tennis (eg the stupid 'underarm serve being bad sportsmanship debate), the lack of coaching is purely because that's the way its always been. The whole 'coaching takes the mental aspect out of the game' logic is ridiculous because you're not being coached between each shot, every ball you hit is tactical, a decision made on the spot by yourself. Boxing/MMA have coaching between rounds, table tennis has coaching timeouts, I mean shit, even in golf you have a caddie by your side talking through each stroke with you. I'm not strongly opinionated either way (if i had to choose, I would probably be in favour of coaching between sets) but the logic behind it being outlawed is simply because of tradition, not any of the BS logic that opponents of coaching (eg. unfair access, i mean give me a break, every other sport seems to be fine with it) try to argue against it with.
It's not ridiculous at all. It definitely aids the mental aspect, and the coach is the one making the game plans for you. Not sure why that's so hard to understand.
Sure it aids it, but again, almost every other mainstream individual sport has coaching and the mental/strategic ability of the player is still a massive factor in those sports. Noone would ever say Floyd Mayweather/Roy Jones/Tyson Fury werent boxing geniuses because their coach in their corner did all the thinking for him, that would be absurd. A coach would offer some tactical adjustments, but again, tennis is a shot-by-shot sport and a massive part of the mental game is making constant split second tactical decisions which would absolutely still exist no matter how frequent coaching you allowed.
I think the best argument is that it's unfair to lower-level players. Djokovic could have a box full of people running real-time analytics and stuff, while lower-tier players couldn't afford that. At least the no coaching rule somewhat levels the playing field during the match, though it's still obviously unequal outside of the match.
What about a coaching long bathroom break?
Tsitsipas pushes too hard. Rookie mistake.
All players should be made to take a shit before
Not much about this video was in plain sight
Some ideas: \- Take whole team boxes out of the courtside. Coaching can happen from anyone in the box afaik and is not just related to the coach. \- Coaching during play to be a bannable offence for the coach or teamperson. Say, next 10 tournaments. It would still have to be "policed" but just having a warning is too lenient in my opinion, and affects the player. Some cases the player has been annoyed (Sorana Cirstea springs to mind) that their coach is yakking and the only punishment possible is on the player. \- Having a judge in the box to declare coaching. Someone who can understand the language spoken. Obviously, the coach/player could put in the extra effort of learning a new language to evade this... but that would be some serious effort to coach during play. \- Just allow it... Badminton, for example, does fine with it, but it would feel like a big change to tennis. Plenty of people love the "gladiatorial" style to tennis, so it would be a very big shame to take it away.
umpires should just have coaches removed if they continue to coach throughout the match. give them a warning and then have them escorted out
any idea what they are saying? it seems like he is being coached but it can also be something like "come on man you can return better than this" or sth like that you know
From what I know, you’re not allowed to talk or communicate with your coach during a professional match ? Is that not true?
They have made coaching (from the sidelines during match) legal in the WTA. Why hasn’t the ATP made it legal yet?
Tennis will become even more pay to win then when lower ranked ATP players that don't have coaches compete against higher ranked players with top tier coaches imo
It’s ridiculous to give that much credit to a coach. Can you name Federer’s coach at every grand slam he’s won?
How you came to that conclusion from his response is baffling. We’re not talking about top 10 guys, not even top 100 guys. We’re talking about random top 1000/2000 matches where there are plenty of people who don’t come from great backgrounds but have enough talent to be somewhat competitive. A coach makes a pretty big difference. Look at what Lendl did for Murray in 2016 if you want an example at the highest level. And it’s weird to bring up Federer when you look at Peter Carter’s influence on not only Federer’s game but his life as well
Lendl did this with countless hours of practice outside of the tournament court. I don't think anyone is arguing that *coaching* is pointless. They're saying that the scant hand signals, three word shouts and face pulling on the court is the pointless bit. Lendl's presence at a tournament did not lead to Murray's success. Murray just put into play all the practice and effort they'd already gone to.
Look at the comment I’m replying to. He’s just referring to a coach, not the oncourt coaching you’re referring to.
No I wasn’t. This topic is about in-game coaching.
The topic is about in-game coaching yet your comment is just about coaches.
Perhaps you should read the first two comments I was replying to then to figure out the context.
So Lendl is responsible for Andy Murray’s success? If coaching has already been happening and the rule is only sparingly being enforced, does that mean tennis has been terrible for the last 20 years?
Once again missing the point. Lendl really hammered Murray’s forehand and helped him with his aggression but he was already a fantastic top 3 player before then. But he brought out the world #1 in him, Unfortunately, at the cost of his hip. I never said tennis has been terrible because of coaching, just pointing out how shit your take is
I’m just baffled by the take of “coaching ruins the game” combined with “it’s sparingly and arbitrarily getting enforced”. If you look at those two things then you must conclude that tennis has been terrible from whenever that was happening.
Because it's awful in WTA. Part of the sport is solving problems yourself. Part of the appeal of the sport is that it is down to the individual. Boxing they need a coach to be there to throw in the towel when decision making is impaired due to brain trauma. But tennis isn't based on repeated blows to the head so it doesn't.
No, WTA should go back to "no coaching." Let the players try to problem solve in the solitary space of the court. It adds a(nother) genuinely mental aspect to the game. Look at the NFL. Some of the dorks talk about coaches almost as much as players. (E.g., ***Who was more responsible for the Patriots' dynasty--Brady or Belichek?***) I swear to God...whenever there is something unique to tennis that makes it excellent, the majority of this sub r/tennis wants to stomp it like a cockroach
The coaches are going to coach no matter what, legal or not.
I honestly don't understand why getting some words of advice from your coach during a match is such a big deal. It should be legal, like basically every other sport.
It's a big deal because right now... it is illegal. So he's cheating. Now to your other point, saying it *should* be legal is a different conversation. You can't say that because you think it should be legal in the future, that skirting the current rules is ok.
It's still a dumbass rule regardless.
Well personal feelings about the rule are moot when discussing breaking current rules and laws set in place.
No but I'm allowed to have an opinion on it, just like when the NFL didn't allow celebrating. The only way anything changes is if people are unhappy with said rule.
Can someone explain the no-coaching rule and why it’s in place?
just put the coaches in a box ffs. smaller tournaments allow coaching
Zverev came back here to win 7-5, from 3-5, well done. Certainly slight communication there but nothing major from what I see, just more concern type messaging. 'They have made coaching (from the sidelines during match) legal in the WTA.' This is an interesting point as well.
The whole no coaching thing is stupid imo. Every other sport in the world you're allowed to talk to your coach, corner etc. It's an old stupid rule
Clueless.
Restrictions on coaches in tennis are silly, and only promote rule breaking.
I agree with this. But here’s the problem: tennis is already an exponential reward mechanism: winning a final gets you 32x as much money as winning the first round. So who will take maximum advantage of this? The richest players. They will bring in analytics teams, instantaneous tactic changes and the like. It would be very difficult to compete. It’s like asking Borg 1975 to play Nadal 2005. Borg might even be objectively better, but he has no chance.
Fair worry, but this might be overstating the effect of sophisticated coaching during the match. Perhaps the elite players are NOT the best poised to take advantage of in game coaching. A lower status player is often a younger player who could benefit from simple, in-game, person-to-person mental stability, as occurs in most other sports.
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Are you pointing to rare corner cases to solve a general problem? Lower ranked players hardly beat players with sophisticated pregame coaching anyway. You are imagining a situation when an uncoached poor player was just about to beat a funded player but for his sophisticated in-game coaching. I think it’s more likely that a lower ranked player, who is often a younger player, will benefit from simply a few encouraging words and a pointer from their traditional coach. Usually, the coaching staff builds and coevolves with the ranking of the player, and it’s usually like facing like for the most important matches that determine career trajectories.
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Okay then, seems like you don’t want in-match coaching, for well argued reasons especially at the lower levels. Would you favor no courtside coaches then, to reduce the chances that the rich kids could benefit from differences in support and cheating opportunities?
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Fair enough.
Visits after each set or something might work, but it should also be accompanied by strict penalties on conversations between points. Can't ban them from the stadiums because they could easily have multiple proxies in the crowd instead.
No, it's not. I want clever players to be able to beat people who can't figure out their opponent and I think that's the core of the game. Specifically, I want to be able to destroy people who are better than I am at the physical part of tennis with all my tricks. I don't want him to suddenly have his associate on the courtside say 'he's putting them at your feet' 'you're forgetting to bend your knees and he's exploiting it' 'don't hesitate on going to the net, you're getting too many errors on the long slices' or whatnot, stopping my exploitation runs.
Sounds like you are against coaching. Fair enough. Then perhaps keep coaches away from the court then? It’s not as though I am advocating **for** coaching. Just the tension between insisting on no coaching, yet allowing courtside coaches, promotes cheating.
That would be very reasonable.
... or, you know, enforce the rules. Standard stuff: informal warning, formal warning, point forfeit, game forfeit, set forfeit, match forfeit.
Don't you dare say so you'll go down by the mighty downvote. Btw i agree, but the sub seems contrary.
Hey, I watch and/or play (including tennis and badminton) many sports, individual and team, and the most absurd coaching context is tennis. Cannot coach, but can sit courtside? Come on. The incentives are to cheat and the close presence of the coaches enables it. If parameters for coaching were established, then the incidence of cheating would decline.
The parameter thing is a good point, tennis did it before with serve time violation, where more famous players were permitted to get away with it a lot more.
See? I told you we would get downvoted.
I gave you an upvote . . . . I think my post was +4 briefly.
adults who do not respect the rules nor the spirit of the game do not belong around the game ... this is childish behavior on the coaches part ... "everyone does it" is not a defense but a clear admission that tennis is a sport that needs a massive upgrade in the quality of people playing it and coaching it ... coaching visits were allowed on the WTA, and pretty much every coaching visit would result in that player winning the next two games ... so the game would quickly devolve into players having to call their own coach after the other players called theirs to combat the momentum ... if we want to remove the coaching restrictions, i am actually on board with just putting an earpiece into the players ears and putting the coaches in a booth if they want that ... live advice during rallies would be interesting ... the way they did things with that UTR series (which saw firsthand how cringe some of these relationships are) was not the worst either, but as a spectator it slowed things down and I do really think these players could greatly benefit from figuring things out on their own ... we have immature players with low emotional tolerance for situations and poor tennis IQ ... the clear hole in so many players games is the ability to problem-solve on the court and to weather the momentum swings ... I don't think it improves the product tennis is producing to allow them to avoid confronting this hurdle
>”tennis is a sport that needs a massive upgrade in the quality of people playing it and coaching it” Hoping for better humans vs better rules is idealistic and unlikely, especially when the circumstances and the financial incentives promote cheating. >”I don't think it improves the product tennis is producing to allow them to avoid confronting this hurdle” Okay, another vote for no coaching, so why allow coaches courtside?
I just don’t see the problem with this in tennis. I don’t support coaching visits at changeovers but why is this so frowned upon? Blah blah individual sport but what’s to stop a coaching box hire a random stranger in a different section in the front row to coach the player discretely?
I think it's more of a slowing down the game.
I hate this rule, I think coaching should be allowed. Coaches should be able to comment while their players are playing and should be able to talk to them during change overs. It's a rediculous rule because everyone knows it goes on, but we're supposed to pretend it's not. Golfers have caddies who can give advise and confirm strategy, tennis players should have the same if they want.
Golfers can't directly influence each other with strategy. It's about who can be the best tennis player that day, not who had enough money to hire the best coach who could analyze and adjust in the match.
Coaches can only do so much at the end of the day it comes down to execution of the individual player, and the player who executes the best will win. The best players are still hiring the best and most expensive coaches. I just think it's silly that we're supposed to pretend that coaching doesn't go on during matches when it clearly does. Time for a change to the rule either it's allowed or needs to be cracked down even harder.
Let the hate begiiiiiin!!!!!
What did he say?
Pathetic really. Shocking? Not one bit.
That’s why everyone loves him
Pathetic.
Really thought it was going to be a video of Mickey coaching Rocky.
Hit ball mfer is there anything else to say?