Twice a year, the LTA hosts County Fun Days. This is where all coaches in the County are asked to nominate their ‘best’ students so that the LTA performance team can see the level of players and in their select the ‘best’ children for support and development.

What is it that the LTA team look for?

I’m sure there are criteria that I don’t even know about but here are the 4 main themes:

1) Technical
2) Tactical
3) Physical
4) Mental

1) Technical

Is the child’s shot technique correct. In theory we’re all trying to teach the same way, but in practice we don’t. Even within a team of coaches at a club there are differences unless you’re perhaps at somewhere like the Bollitieri Academy.

But generally there should be a natural technique within certain parameters, this is completely teachable of course.

2) Tactical

What to do in certain situations, where to hit the ball. Again, completely teachable BUT very difficult to have tactical ability if the player doesn’t first have technical ability, so there is a dependency there.

3) Physical

Can the player move correctly, efficiently and have the endurance to last through the physical demands of a match. Even at a young age children can be taught the correct footwork patterns to approach certain shots. As with Technical and Tactical this is completely teachable.

4) Mental

Now this to my mind is really key. This is about the right attitude and for attitude I mean listening, ability to assimilate instructions into the process (the technique, tactics and movement), the ability to work well with other players and the emotional maturity to deal with everyday tennis situations.

I’ve seen very good players who get upset that they lose points in practice. Children like this would not get selected because the mental attribute would cause problems in a squad.

Again this is teachable, but I think to a degree. In a one to one situation we can work on this a lot, but in a group/squad situation, without good listening, the child will really struggle to progress.

Our focus is Safety, fun, learn tennis and safety for us means listening, respecting and trying their best, even in things people see as optional like warm ups. If you don’t give it your best in practice, very hard to suddenly switch on your best in a match!

We focus on this a lot in our groups, we’re maybe not perfect at it, but generally we see respectful groups where the kids really do progress but most importantly love their tennis.