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About this Episode
Hosts & Guests
Transcript
You're listening to Tennis Talk 101, a podcast dedicated to the game of tennis.
We explore ideas, experiences and conversations from across the sport.
My name is John Thompson and welcome to another episode of the Tennis Talk 101 podcast.
Today we're going to be doing a little episode on Structure Matters.
Thank you, guys.
That episode will be coming up very shortly.
Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of the Tennis Talk 101 podcast.
Really appreciate you guys listening again.
Today we're going to be doing a little podcast on Structure Matters.
This is a big one for a lot of junior tennis players and parents and their families to understand
that structure really does matter.
It's not just about motivation, not talent, not hype, but structure.
And today we're going to talk about something that honestly sits at the heart of why so many
players and parents struggle in this sport because the reality is a lot of people invest
huge amount of time, money and emotion into their tennis without fully understanding the
journey they're undertaking.
They chase improvement.
They chase rankings.
They chase tournaments, but they don't build structure.
And without structure, development becomes guesswork.
The first little thing we're going to talk about is talent without structure.
Let me say something that might surprise people.
Talent is massively overrated if it isn't supported by structure.
I've seen incredibly talented juniors, beautiful strokes, natural movement, great hands, early
success, but five years later, they haven't progressed and why?
Because they trained hard, but randomly, one week they focus on technique.
Last week, it's match play, then fitness, then tournaments every weekend, no long-term
plan, no progression model, no identity being built.
They weren't developing.
They were just participating.
Structure turns activity into progression and environments that produce players constantly
like elite academies around the world are not successful because of talent pools.
They're successful because of the system.
They're successful because of their habits.
They're successful because of their environments and their consistency with what they do.
Every session has a purpose.
Every block builds on the last one.
Every decision fits into a bigger picture and that structure.
The next one we're going to talk about is structure builds player identity.
Here's a simple question I ask players all the time.
What are you trying to do in the first three shots of a rally?
And most players pause, they don't understand and they don't know.
Not because they're unintelligent, but because no one has structured their development.
If you don't know your patterns, your strengths, your scoring intentions, your high percentage
decisions, then matches become emotional experiences instead of strategic ones.
You rely on feeling and feelings disappear under pressure.
Structure gives you something to fall back on at 30 all at break point in the third set.
You're not guessing you're executing a system and your system reduces panic.
So without structure, you players have zero idea of what you need to do when you're under
pressure.
And that's why you need to totally understand what you're trying to do each session.
You get out on that tennis court and that's called having a structure.
The next thing that we're going to talk about is structure removes emotion.
This applies beyond tennis too.
Structure removes emotion from decision making.
Think about performance tracking.
If you monitor training load, recovery, body metrics, physical output, you stop reacting
emotionally instead of saying, I feel terrible today, you ask, what does the data say?
That shift is powerful because emotion is inconsistent.
Structure is stable and elite performance always leans towards stability.
The same applies to tennis development without structure.
One bad tournament feels like a failure without structure.
It's just feedback inside a long term process.
The next statement we're going to talk about is parents and the biggest mistake parents.
This is where things often go wrong.
Many families believe progress equals playing more tournaments.
So calendars fill up every weekend competing constant travel, constant pressure, but nobody
asks the most important question.
What are we actually building?
Structure isn't playing more matches.
Structure is technical development phases, tactical education, athletic progression, mental
skill training, schedule review and adjustment.
If you cannot clearly explain your child's 12 month development plan, you don't have a pathway.
You have an activity and activity feels productive, but it rarely produces elite outcomes.
The next segment we're going to talk about is structure creates standards.
Here's something powerful about structure.
It creates non-negotiables.
It's structured environments, warm ups matter, recovery matters, preparation matters, behaviors
matter, accountability matters.
It's not a sometimes thing.
It's an everyday thing.
Structures build culture and culture builds identity.
When structure disappears, standards slowly drop.
There's arrived like preparation fades, effort fluctuates.
Then people say they've lost confidence, but often they haven't lost confidence.
They've lost structure.
The next thing we're going to talk about is the hard truth about development.
Talent without structure burns out.
Structure without talent still improves.
I would choose a disciplined, structured, coachable athlete over a talented, but inconsistent
one every single time.
I've coached so many players over the years that have so much talent, but are so
ill-disciplined on and off court, and then they wonder why they don't get to the levels
that their talent at one time showed them they probably could get to, and that there is
such a poor thing to do.
When you have so much natural talent to have zero structure around what you're doing, that
is insane to me.
You need to have structure.
You need to be coachable to actually get the best out of what you're trying to achieve,
because structure compounds, session by session, month by month, year by year.
That compounding effort is what separates players at 15, at 17, and into college and professional
environments.
You see it all the time.
Players that have had structures over their whole career as young tennis players turn into
very structured adults, and that's when it's so important.
When you're going through those phases from 17 through to maybe 22, you need to understand
that structure is going to get you to where you want to get.
Having zero plan, having zero structure, you're leaving everything to chance.
Because remember this, elite tennis isn't built in moments, it's built in systems.
The next thing we're going to talk about is questions for players.
For any of you players listening, think about these questions, and I'm about to ask you,
can you clearly explain your playing identity, your weekly training structure, your physical
development goals, your competition schedule, and why it exists?
If you can't, all you're doing is existing, and that there is not going to get you to
the level you want to get to, what it does is it exposes you by structure and tennis players.
Because most players that can't clearly define or answer those questions, get exposed by
structured tennis players, not because they lack talent, but because they lack direction
and structure.
That is something that is so important in the development phases of what every single player
is trying to achieve without having structure around you, without having a good environment
around you, all you're doing is turning up to an activity.
Just because you think you're getting out on the tennis court and hitting more tennis balls
or you're in a program or you're in a squat environment or you're in an academy, those
structures are not going to get you to where you want to get just because you turn up.
Those programs are not going to get you to where you want to get just because you turn
up.
You need to have structure on and off the court.
You need to understand when you come to these programs, to these academies, to these squads,
to your lessons without you understanding and having a clear plan and a structure behind
what you're trying to achieve, all you're doing is hitting more tennis balls just for
the sake of hitting tennis balls.
I really enjoy asking players what they're trying to achieve when they walk out onto tennis
courts.
A lot of the time the players can't answer that question.
They're waiting for the coach to tell them what they should be doing.
The best players to work with are those that come out on the court and can tell you exactly
what they need to work on and why they're going to work on it.
That tells you so much as a tennis coach about what that player is all about, what they're
thinking about, how they're trying to get better, how they're trying to move forward.
Those players with a clear plan and a structure behind what they're trying to do every time
they walk on a tennis court, they're the ones that you will see improve constantly in matches,
in tournaments.
You will see them improve on training courts.
It's so important for all of you guys to remember that structure is so important.
If you have good structures, not only in practice, not only in your matches, but in everything
you do, what that does, it reduces a lot of anxiety and tension.
Why?
Because structure creates a hell of a lot of clarity around what you're trying to do.
Having good structures protects the standards that you set for yourself.
Again, I do talk about standards a lot and I love talking about standards in environments
because there are so many players that come out onto tennis courts and they like being
around elite tennis players or players that are achieving well and getting good results.
But just because you're hitting with those players doesn't mean you're going to get to
their level.
You have to physically do the work and mentally do the work for yourself to get to that elite
level because having great structures and a great environment around you, that builds
confidence and real confidence is so important.
You have to really start to think every single one of you players that are trying to improve
and trying to get to the elite level.
If you don't have a structured plan or you don't know why you're hitting out onto the tennis
court each day you're actually going there, then what are you actually trying to achieve?
And if it's only to hit more tennis balls or that's not going to get you to the level
of what you're trying to achieve, that's not going to get you to your goals.
Because remember without a structure, motivation comes and goes.
It always does.
Structures stay in place.
And when pressure arrives and it always does, structure is what holds everything together.
If you are serious about going down the elite tennis pathway guys, stop chasing hype,
start building structure because structure matters and that there is something that I love
talking about all the time to all the players that I work with.
If you do not have a structure and you're not educating yourself on all the different
avenues that you want to go down, what are you actually trying to achieve?
Take yourself those questions that I ran through before for all of you players.
Do you actually understand you're playing identity?
Do you understand your weekly training structure?
Do you understand why you're competing on the weekends?
Do you understand your physical development and the goals you're setting for yourself
in that area?
Do you understand that you also need to develop and have a structure around your mental development?
It is so important and there are so many aspects to this sport that so many players miss.
They just think that getting out on tennis courts and hitting as many balls as they can
over and over and over again is what they need to do.
Start to set yourself some goals, start to set yourself some structures and start to understand
what you need to do to get to the level that you're striving to get to.
I really hope you enjoyed that episode, guys.
I really hope that all of you players and parents get out there and start to have some
structures around what you're trying to achieve.
Thank you so much for listening, guys.
Speak to you later.
