A lot of instruction in tennis is coach-directed. And most is simply the addition of information. Whether positive or negative, this often includes verbal feedback, praise and prompting. There’s also non-verbal feedback like gesturing or modeling - in other words, the coach uses a bodily action to demonstrate what they are seeking from the player.
My take on this - it’s critical… but (and it’s a BIG but), it’s overdone.
I still cannot comprehend how a player can focus on something if a coach is providing continuous feedback. Not only between rallies, but on every single ball. And at times, hollering multiple cues during a single stroke!
There might be instances when this is appropriate - like during a drill that’s pushing the physical limits of a player. Here, positive encouragement can surely be beneficial.
But for learning, developing or consolidating a complex skill or task - like hitting a heavy kick serve under pressure - it’s anything but ideal. It completely disregards how a player is internalizing a given task.
The alternative is to provide feedback intermittently, and then allow the player the freedom to ‘run with it’.
Better yet - and this is the central hypothesis for this post - in an open sport like tennis, players can accelerate learning by using stimulus cueing (what I call ‘self-cueing’). Self-cueing - as I’ll explain in detail below - allows for a rapid change in attentional focus, within an environment that is constantly changing. As is seen on a tennis court.
What is Self-Cueing?
Self-cueing is a form of ‘self-talk’ that aims to enhance learning by bringing attention to a specific part of our environment.
Tennis is an open-skill sport. One that is extremely perceptually driven. Players must react to their external environment and respond to it appropriately (this is called perception-action coupling). You perceive something, then act on what you see. Meaning that decision making is central to one’s ability to perform a given task successfully.
To gain further insights into what a self-cue is, let’s look at a simple timing task. If you’re unfamiliar with timing, check out this article or listen to Tennis Canada education coach, Wayne Elderton, talk about it on the podcast (and hear why he believes it’s the most important technical quality in tennis).
One key feature of timing is making contact with the ball at the correct height off the ground. To do so, you’ll likely have to adjust yourself - moving forwards or backwards on most shots (and not just that, but combining these front/back movements with lateral ones as well).
A drill we often employ to tackle this feature of timing is one called Up/Back/Stay. In this drill, a player must call out ‘up’ when a ball is short, ‘back’ when the ball is deep and ‘stay’ when we’re already in the right spot to meet the ball effectively.
The sooner we can call this out - meaning, the sooner we determine the features of the oncoming ball - the sooner we’ll be able to respond + move accordingly. Beginners often have trouble rallying because of their inexperience perceiving the ball (when they realize they should have moved back, for instance, it’s often too late!).
While beginners will greatly benefit this type of drill - and from the use of self-cues in general - I know many coaches that employ this type of cueing strategy with high-performance players alike (I’ve used them with players of all levels!).
How can that be you ask? Because self-cues can be adapted in a number of ways to help players that are just starting out to work on things like perception whereas more advanced players might incorporate self-cueing to work on anticipation or decision making - within a larger pool of tactical options.
Research on Self-Cueing in Tennis
In a seminal paper, Susan G. Ziegler (1987) tackled this conundrum. Ziegler wanted to know - what’s the difference in learning when I provide beginners with traditional instructions, versus cues (ones that need to be vocalized at the correct timing + sequence of a tennis shot).
According to Ziegler over 30 years ago:
“A void exists in understanding the behavioral change that is possible when the intervention is self-directed by the performer”.
How true is that even today!?
Study Details
There were 3 groups of players, all of which were assessed on return of serve accuracy (i.e. how many returns were hit into a specified area of the court).
All participants were beginners and were given the same instructions on the skill of hitting forehands and backhands (as well as returns in general). Each group was also given the self-cueing (called stimulus cueing in the study) intervention, but at different time intervals during the study:
Group A - after 5 sessions
Group B - after 10 sessions
Group C - after 16 sessions
The self-cues were really simple and directed the participant’s attention to a specific phase of the skill:
Phase 1 - To focus on the oncoming ball, the participant was asked to call out ‘ball’ as soon as they saw it coming towards them.
Phase 2 - To focus on the path/trajectory of the ball as it approached them, subjects were asked to call out ‘bounce’ as the ball contacted the court.
Phase 3 - Focusing on meeting the ball, subjects were asked to call out ‘hit’ at about the moment the ball struck their strings.
Phase 4 - Subjects were asked to call out ‘ready’, after the shot, to prepare for the next one.
As simple as this was, it was equally as effective - the results speak for themselves:
Notice the sudden rise in successful returns once stimulus self-cueing was introduced to each group.
Why Self-Cueing Works Like Magic
Ultimately, self-cueing works really well because it brings attention to the most important aspect of the skill being performed. So instead of focusing on your arm when preparing to hit a return of serve, you’re focusing on tracking the ball all the way to your strings. The latter will increase the chances of hitting the ball on the strings, and ultimately, hitting the ball into the court.
I know what you’re thinking - in the study mentioned, participants were beginners. Sure it might work on someone just starting out, but will it work on someone who’s playing at a really high level? Or in the process of developing their skills?
From my experiences, the answer is an emphatic yes!
The self-cues used in the Ziegler study were rudimentary and related to a very basic + repetitive task. But self-cues can help elite players make better decisions in the fraction of a second that they’re needed during a fast-paced tennis point.
Here’s an example - the window drill. In this drill, the aim is to decide which ‘window’ - over the net - we’re going to aim to hit through depending on the situation. We typically designate 3 differing ‘windows’:
Window 3 - high over the net (about 3 window sizes).
Window 2 - still using shape, we aim to hit lower than window 3 (about 2 window heights above the net).
Window 1 - low over the net + less shape on the ball overall (about one window size over the net).
Turn the sound on to hear the player calling out the ‘window’.
Note - The player is asked to vocalize the window prior to executing their shot by simply calling out 1, 2 or 3 (NOT window 1, window 2, etc.).
Not only does this drill get the player to focus on the incoming ball - identifying key features of their opponent’s shot - it also gets them to adapt their shot (and technique), based on the decision they’ve chosen.
In the end, using self-cues gets players from hitting balls like ball machines, to hitting every shot with purpose and intent.
Again, I only presented a few examples. Hundreds and thousands of others exist. I encourage both coaches and players to use self-cues more often during training - getting the performer to direct their attention to what’s in front of them. Because remember, tennis isn’t diving, we don’t get points for form. It’s a chaotic and unpredictable environment - one that’s in constant flux.