Mentoring
The role of the mentor with young tennis players

In years gone by young players looking to make Professional Tennis a career were for the most part thrown out on the satellite circuit and told to fend for themselves. Most parents didn't have the time to accompany their child for weeks on end nor the means to finance a travelling coach.

The result of this lack of guidance was a generation of late bloomers. In the last 20 years if you take out the hand full of freak players, it is rare to find a good pro less than 21 years of age where in Europe and South America it’s quite common.

These days it is commonplace to see the top players with an entourage of helpers and “go-fores” to see to their every whim but the fact is they still need to turn over huge money to cover them.

It’s easy to see that a little help whist travelling can take a huge load off young players shoulders, leaving them to concentrate on more tennis related activities.

The financial burden for parents has certainly not diminished but an attractive alternative to a travelling mentor is to have one at home. That way you can develop some of the equipment you’ll need to survive on the tour before you even leave home.

For a very reasonable fee you can take on a mentor who will provide you with the map that will guide you through to the day you leave home for the tour. By helping you to develop good habits, self-belief and routines, the mentor will also in a sense, be with you throughout the trip as well.

Primarily a mentor will give you the tools to take control of your own destiny. They feed you the truth serum early to establish what beliefs you have in yourself and then they find ways to move you toward those goals and then beyond.

The trust established through mutual achievement can catalyse an athlete’s ability to the point where they can play free of the mental baggage that players tend to drag around with them on court.

If you look at Lleyton Hewitt in his early days, you could really tell that he believed he was invincible. The brain helped him to train, the training helped his game, the game helped his brain and around it goes all the way to the top.

Secondly a mentor can help you develop things such as:

• Pre match / post match routines
• Healthy eating habits
• Personalised training regimes
• Personal hygiene advise (e.g. the challengers of travelling in India)
• Travel routines (hotel/flight/ booking. Visas)
• Acclimatisation
• Budgeting
• Tournament scheduling
• Periodisation
• Telephone pep talks
• Injury care
• Equipment managment

Mentors obviously work in close liaison with parents and coaches. Parents are often thrust into the tennis world with absolutely no previous experience and are expected to know what a “round robin” is, or where to get entry forms / draws etc. A mentor can walk both parents and players through all the processes that can be quite off putting especially when you’re nervous enough with just playing the match itself.

Mentors can be both a way to get knee deep into your sport, and on the other hand they can be the ones who see things from a distance, defiantly worth a go.

By Brad Properjohn
TheTennisCoach.com.au

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