All tennis coaches mean well and try their best to help a player perform better. But it’s not always the case that a coach guides a player to become a better player. To the contrary, there’s been a few shocking, outrageous examples of tennis coaching malpractice over the years.
One I personally witnessed was in Longboat Key, FL, a former top 60 player who actually scored a straight set win over Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon, used to train with her dad on courts next to me. Every single time I saw the practice, he fed her balls from a basket to simulate playing points. Not once in about a dozen times being next to them did I see her practice playing points with another high level player male or female. She only played simulated points from fed balls from her father. As a tournament player myself, about 4.5, I would consider that as a lousy practice method as it is not real tennis. It does not capture the rhythm and tempo of a real point between to players grinding it out. It was no surprise to see the young woman quit tennis about a year later under the age of 25 and ranked around 300.
Jimmy Arias just revealed on Tennis Channel an incident where he saw Luke Jensen being poorly coached on his forehand. This was early in Jensen’s pro career when he was still a good singles player, talented enough to score a singles win vs Andre Agassi in Memphis indoors. Arias said he practiced with young Jensen and noted to himself he felt Jensen had the tools, weapons and attributes to be a successful top 20 singles player but his coach was screwing up Jensen’s forehand with bad instructions. Arias elected not to interfere with Team Jensen, “it’s just one guy less I have to worry about. And I didn’t cause the problem so why should I fix it?” Years later, Arias did discuss the problem with Jensen who he said won the French Open doubles crown with his brother Murphy Jensen around that time.
Without naming specific names, I’ve been told about numerous elite juniors and young ATP and WTA pros who physically broke down before the age of 25 because of excessive over-training for hours and hours every day. Two guys had about ten surgeries each before age 30. Another Asian no. 1 junior is so physically fragile that he injured his thumb this year by just bouncing a basketball. Players and coaches are so obsessed with getting to the top they think six hours a day on court is what it takes. But over years, the accumulation of so much hard work and mileage on a young body can destroy the career of some of the best talents in the game.
I asked around to a former ATP champion if he ever witnessed any coaching malpractice and he responded: “I know a Dutch guy who was no. junior behind Mats Wilander, and some coach changed his forehand grip at age 18. Done. And someone messed up Michelle Gerrard’s forehand, also a promising junior, similar story. Some coaches probably don’t know that after a certain age, you can only do fine tuning if you change something. Changing grip is usually taboo.”
Another example from a former WTA top 30 player and coach about her top 105 WTA player: “A coach changed my player’s serve while I was working with her. Then she started double faulting in a match and I said, ‘You changed it, not me.’ She was looking at me like what’s wrong with it? Stupid coach, he did it without telling me. And she didn’t tell me. I was finished with her from that moment on.”
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Steve · May 10, 2025 at 5:49 am
Okay, I have a big one. You may not know this but Gasquet had and precise and compact forehand early in his career.
You can see it here:
https://youtu.be/nDCc8MSaz3E?si=WAm5FFU82k9DAhkg
In his book he names the coach that turned his forehand to giant, time-sucking loop. The coaches first name was Tariq, I believe. He listed his full name in the book.
Scoop Malinowski · May 10, 2025 at 7:46 am
Tarik Banhabiles? The former coach of Roddick who dumped him and then hired Gilbert and suddenly shot up. Banhabiles never recovered from that and never coached a prominent player again.