INTRODUCTION
How does one become a tennis champion? What does it take to become a world-class player? Countless coaches, parents, young players, federation officials, and fans of the game have asked this question. Yet, no consensus has been arrived at from those in the field regarding key components needed to be a champion and the sequencing of subsequent activities. Sport science researchers, however, have begun to scientifically study the issue and have identified keys for guiding the progressive development of a world-class player. This article will briefly discuss some of these keys.

The progressive development of a world-class performer is a long-term process that research has suggested takes a minimum of 10 years or 10,000 hours (Erricson, 1996). Further research shows that world-class performers go through distinct phases of talent development. According to Bloom (1985) and Gibbons (1998), elite athlete development is broken into the following three stages.

• Stage 1: Foundation/FUNdamental.
Having fun and developing a love of the game characterize this phase. In addition, the individual is free to explore multiple sports, experiences success but little pressure to perform, and receives encouragement from coaches and parents.

• Stage 2: Refinement/Transitional.
During this phase the athlete evolves into a “serious” player. She no longer wants to just play tennis; she wants to be a good “tennis player.” Most often, the athlete enlists the help of a master coach that specializes in refinement of skills and fundamentals.

• Stage 3: World Class Performance.
This phase is marked by many hours of practice and the honing of technical skill and expertise into personal excellence while competing at the highest level of competition. While the player maintains a love of the game, tennis becomes a serious business and significant part of one’s life.

What is so interesting about these stages is that players do not begin the careers with championships in mind. Instead, they become exposed to tennis, enjoy, derive satisfaction and fall in love with the game. Then after falling in love with the game, they progress into more serious and focused involvement. Thus, in the early years of involvement, the best way to produce a top player is to do the same things needed to grow the game with all children — encourage fun, fundamentals and involvement. Once this foundation is built, a more focused and intense approach evolves.

One variable in the first stage that is particularly important to the ultimate development of the player is the acquisition of fundamentals. The successful acquisition of fundamentals is the cornerstone of continued technical, physical and mental development as the player moves through the developmental stages. After all, it is hard to enjoy and fall in love with the game if you can’t consistently make and return shots.

In addition to making the experience fun and teaching fundamentals, the primary mental skill to focus on in the early years of involvement is the enhancement of self-esteem via heavy doses of positive instruction and encouragement. If this does not occur, it leads to self-doubt, anxiety and motivation concerns in subsequent stages.

In middle stage of involvement, the developing player must learn how to practice with purpose and intensity. She must further refine fundamentals and learn what it takes to become a positive competitor. Goal setting becomes particularly important in this stage. Players must not only learn to set goals, but the right types of goals (specific, challenging but realistic, outcome, process and performance goals). Players must also learn concentration skills, develop stress management strategies for dealing with the pressures that result from intense practice and play, and mental preparation strategies.

In the third, world-class performance stage, the players must find ways to continually challenge and motivate themselves because performance gains will come at a slower pace. Learning to maintain focus and deal with distractions on and off the court are considerably important in this stage, as the successful player will spend more time in the limelight. Finally, the player in this stage must develop self-regulation skills. That is, while coaching is still critical, the player will be must learn to make decisions for herself and manage an increasingly complex physical and social environment.

In summary, world-class players are developed through stages and those involved in tennis must understand these stages. Certain skills are emphasized during each stage and it is important that over zealous parents and coaches do not try to skip stages in an attempt to make players champions before they are ready. The development of tennis talent is a fragile process that takes time and quality support from all those involved.

Stage 1: Fundamental Phase
Age of Players: 6 – 12
Years in Phase: 2 – 4
Learning Theme: Fun and Fundamentals

What We Teach:
Physical skills – Building on the basic coordination skills learnt during Mini Tennis, young players begin to develop their strength, stamina, speed and stability from the age of 9 or 10. Players should focus on these areas at varying intensities depending on their stage of maturity.  During a growth spurt, teenagers seem clumsy and appear a little uncoordinated. At this stage, Academy coaches will concentrate on improving stamina and then, when the player is becoming more mature, training speed and strength become possible and important.

Physical Work – We will mix complex co-ordination drills with speed, endurance and strength work as the player matures.  Core stability is very important to focus on at this age since strong and flexible muscles around the stomach and spine help with a player’s career. Tennis development is helped by playing other sports such as hockey, basketball, netball and soccer.

Technical – All the basic strokes should be consistent and will naturally be hit with increased racket head speed. Footwork is fundamental, helping balance and position for the stroke. The player can return the ball with a variety of speed, spin and with consistency and accuracy.

Tactical – Good tactical awareness will help a player win.  Hitting the ball to depth and using angles is fundamental, but the player is becoming aware of their own strengths and the opponents weaknesses. They also have the ability to use a variety of different tactics to win points.

Mental skills – Enjoyment of sport, Sportsmanship and Respect. This is often overlooked in training, but is a very important part of being a successful sportsman.  Like training your body, training your mind should be part of a training program at a young age.  Learning to concentrate and focus, and understanding the cause and effect of certain drills or types of training is important.  Life as a professional tennis player often involves a very close working relationship with a coach or other players so players need to learn how to interact with others. 

Knowing how to win, and coping with losing is a very important process.  When top players do their post match interviews, they will often say they have learnt a lot from a loss and will build on the experience. 

Recommended Training Hours – 8 to 10 hours / week.

Competition – At this age players should be playing in competitions ranging from club to national tournaments with matches being full sets.  To ensure enough time is allowed for training blocks, it is advised to play a maximum of 40 individual matches over the year.

Type of Instruction & Coaching – Development Coach, Group Instruction.

Type of Competition – Junior Series, Novice Competition.

Stage 2: Refinement / Transitional Phase
Age of Players: 10 – 20
Years in Phase: 4 – 10
Learning Theme: Training and Competing

What We Teach:
Physical skills – Young players should keep working on flexibility, speed, strength and core stability at this stage, with coordination well established, but it’s endurance that becomes most important as our future champions begin to play longer and more intense matches.

Technical – Technically players are well established by this age but will now start to increase the range and power of shots, adding spin and angles mix up the rallies.

Tactical – Players now need to become more aggressive in their tennis. 
This should be reflected on during matches and in their attitude whilst training. 
Match strategy and tactics on different surfaces becomes increasingly important as talented players meet opponents who’ve trained in different climates and on different surfaces.

Mental skills – By the age of 18, players will need to be fully self sufficient and ready for the tour, so the players should begin to plan for themselves.  This includes goal setting, being self-disciplined on and off the court from tennis specific training to eating the right food.  Players will generally understand their routines for practice and match preparation. In general, players should now take responsibility and pride in their performance and act like professionals.

Recommended Training Hours – 15 to 20 hours / week.

Competition – Players will now need to play about 70 individual matches each year, an increase from 40.  These will range from representing local clubs to national competition, and is a balance between confidence building and extending the comfort zone to challenge the player.

Planning for training and competition – (At age 11, maximum 40 matches per year) At age 14, maximum 70 matches per year. At age 16, maximum 90 matches per year. Players will generally keep their Win:Loss ratio at 2:1 to 3:1.

Type of Instruction & Coaching – High performance coach, Established development plan, Systematic training program (Groups and Private).

Type of Competition – ITF tournaments, Hong Kong Nationals, Junior Series, ATF Under 14, World Junior Tennis, Junior Davis Cup/Junior Fed Cup.

Stage 3: World-class Performance Phase
Age of Players: 15 – 30+
Years in Phase: 4 – 10+
Learning Theme: Personal Excellence

What We Teach:
Physical program – Training should allow for early and late maturing players, but to start with we’ll look at an average 15 – 16 (Girl), 17 – 18 (Boy) year old. In general players must work on high intensity individual programs for focusing on explosiveness, endurance, power, strength, flexibility and core stability.  All of this is possible once the player is physically mature. At this stage, physical program is one of the most important aspects of a tennis player.

Technical and Tactical  – Tactical and technical skills should be developed in the game situation.  At this stage all shots should be hit with the appropriate amount of power and spin. A player would be expected to use a variation of different stokes and should be able to adjust their tactics to control points.

Individualized match play – Players will be competing at club, league, county, national and international level. A maximum of 90 individual matches should be played per year.

Mental – The mental game is very important at all ages but vital from here on. Players must want to play and want to win.
There’s a lot to think about.

Players should:

• Be critically objective about their game
• Be able to control their emotions before, during and after practice and matches
• Arrange practice and contribute to their competitive schedule
• Set quality goals, work to them and evaluate them
• Be independent and responsible
• Self disciplined
• Have positive self talk, confidence, thinking and body language
• Prepared for matches
• Focus on attention control
• Have a natural fighting spirit
• Be courageous
• Have the desire to win well
• Use of rituals, relaxation and visualization techniques
• Be fair
• Have respect for other players, coaches and officials
• Have good behavior on court and in practice
• Have pride in performance
• Pleasant to opponents and officials
• Be able to accept results and move on

Recommended Training Hours – 25 to 35 hours / week.

Other sports – These would include hockey, basketball, netball, and soccer which help develop co-ordination, speed and endurance. Swimming, dancing, cycling, cross-country will help endurance, balance and co-ordination.

Tournaments and matches – By 15 – 16 (Girls), 17 – 18 (Boy) a player who wants to reach the top of the game should be involved in setting a tournament schedule. There will be a balance between winning matches which develop confidence and win ranking points, and extending beyond a players comfort zone to gain experience with older and better competitors. About 75% of time is spent playing tournaments.

Type of Instruction & Coaching – High performance coach, Physical and strength conditioning coach, Network of Sports Science specialists.

Type of Competition – ITF Grade A, Future & Challengers, ATP/WTA Tour tournaments, Davis Cup/Fed Cup, Grand Slams, Asian Championship, Asian Games.