Updated
Parents and coaches ask me the same questions every season. These are the short answers. Each one links to the full note, where I show the working.
For a player aged 16 to 18, I use ten to twelve hours a week on court, all of them high quality, averaged across a year. That is court time only. No fitness, no physio, no gym. I work backwards from about fifteen hours a week at 22, which is the logistical ceiling during tournaments for the best players in the world.
Read: How many hours should a junior tennis player practice?
No. One hour of individual practice with your coach is not one hour in a group of four. If your child trains only individually, ten to twelve hours is probably too much. In squads and camps the raw number can be higher, because the density is lower.
Read: How many hours should a junior tennis player practice?
A long session and a hard session are two different things. It is hard to keep full focus over a long session. So when I add volume, I add more short sessions, not longer ones. I plan one really heavy day a week, twice at most. I count the work across the whole day, tennis and fitness together, not each session on its own. I leave about 72 hours before the next heavy day, and a heavy tennis block usually sits around ninety minutes.
Read: When tennis practice should feel harder than the match
You do not need gadgets. Look at the footwork in the last third, how fast the player decides after a feed or a serve, and the type of error. Then see if they still move as well as at the start of practice. If the shots get faster but the legs start making mistakes and the errors keep growing, the work was hard enough. Stop there. Do not extend the session to find freshness again, because that is the opposite of what you want.
Read: When tennis practice should feel harder than the match
One main cue in play. At most a second cue parked, and only if it does not fight the first. At the highest level players cannot really hold more than about two or three cues at once, so a junior should not get five or six.
Read: How many coaching cues should a junior tennis player hold?
Start external by default. External cues point at the job, like where the ball should go or a landing zone. Internal cues point at body parts, and under pace they often make the player stiff. I use internal cues only for safety or a very specific feel.
Read: How many coaching cues should a junior tennis player hold?
Yes. More coaches is fine, but not ideal. More plans is the real problem. One lead owns the technique, the competition calendar and the weekly load for the next 8 to 12 weeks, and everyone else supports that plan or stays out of those three things.
Read: Many coaches, one direction: who leads a junior tennis player?
When the plan is clearly wrong for several weeks, when trust is broken, or when the player moves to a new place on purpose. Not because one bad Saturday made everyone panic. And do not run two leads just in case.
Read: Many coaches, one direction: who leads a junior tennis player?
For a serious junior around 16 to 18, I want roughly one or two tournaments a month, averaged across the year. With doubles, that usually means about 5 to 15 matches a month. A weekend event and a full competition week are not equal. That is why I count matches across the year and stop focusing so much on the number of tournaments.
Read: How many tournaments should a junior tennis player play?
In many junior formats a player can play up to five singles and five doubles matches in one competition week. That is up to ten matches in seven days, with travel and school on top. A week like that needs real space after it, not another entry five days later.
Read: How many tournaments should a junior tennis player play?
Skip if the event has no clear purpose, like testing something you worked on in practice. Skip if it lands inside the rest after the last one. Skip if travel and matches will eat the next training block, if school is already behind, or if the body is already complaining. And skip if nobody owns the calendar.
Read: How many tournaments should a junior tennis player play?
When the calendar is full, protect one real build block between competitions. Keep the technical job to one main cue. Then predict when the first round of the next event is likely to fall and plan backwards from it. For example, I look for a day off three days before the event and then fill the gaps with sessions.
Read: When the calendar won't sit still: planning a junior tennis season
Cut in this order. First the extra entries with no clear purpose. Then new technical projects, then volume just for volume, then parallel plans from different coaches. Keep sleep, the one cue and the minimum fitness that protects the next event.
Read: When the calendar won't sit still: planning a junior tennis season
Not much tennis. Ask one useful question: did you give everything you had? If the answer is yes, say so and give them room to decide the next step with their coach.
After a tough loss, a day off is often right if you have the time. If you do not, and the player is healthy and ready, sometimes it is better to train the next day. Both can be correct. Then decide the next step out loud: train, recover, or skip the next event.