With NextGen Finals following WTA’s example, tennis' controversial on-court coaching rule might be here to stay

“You know the China Wall?” “Yes, I saw it.” “Yeah? Now you’re gonna be the Russian Wall. It’s completely new in the market. You know what it is? Listen to me. It’s solid, extremely solid (tennis), and you don’t give any free points. The target is no free points.” [caption id=“attachment_5531771” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Serena Williams with coach Patrick Mouratoglou during a practice session. AFP[/caption] This was just one of many super-interesting exchanges between Daria Kasatkina and her coach Philippe Dahaes at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow a couple of weeks ago. The sheer dad-joke-like nature of Dahaes’ advice – you don’t often hear a coach making up a term like ‘the Russian Wall’ – ensured that the clip of the conversation went viral, and Dahaes became an instant celebrity. Kasatkina even joked later that ‘Russian Wall’ had become her new nickname, and that she was thankful to Dahaes for coining it. That we could see the exchange at all was down to the WTA rule that allows on-court coaching at all events (except the Grand Slams). The rule, which was implemented in 2009, permits every player to call the coach on to the court once every set, at any changeover of her choosing. There have been considerable discussions on on-court coaching ever since it has been introduced, and not all of it has been positive. Some have embraced the novelty of the concept, while some have expressed outrage at how it has irredeemably corrupted tennis. Instances like the Kasatkina-Dahaes comedy have helped enhance the fan experience, but there have been several others which have given the players as well as the sport a seemingly bad look. Alison Riske was once told by her coach to “shut the f*** up”. Garbine Muguruza, on the other hand, travelled to the other end of the unsavoury spectrum; she told her coach to shut the f*** up. In between, there have been several instances of players looking like helpless damsels or inconsolable cry-babies as their coaches look on sheepishly. The debate over on-court coaching assumed even graver importance this September as Serena Williams, her coach Patrick Mouratoglou and chair umpire Carlos Ramos combined to produce the most dramatically ugly episode in recent Grand Slam final history. Since the US Open was a Grand Slam and not a WTA event, the topic of on-court coaching should never even have entered the room. However, by accusing Mouratoglou of illegally coaching Williams and then handing out a string of code violations to the scandalised 23-time Slam champion, Ramos thrust the spotlight on to the issue in the most uncomfortable fashion imaginable. Williams received coaching and at the same time didn’t receive coaching, because while Mouratoglou did intend to give her discreet instructions from the sidelines, she didn’t understand what he was saying and assumed he was just giving her a thumbs-up. Did she really break the rules during that conscientious final? The Grand Slam rulebook states: “Players shall not receive coaching during a match (including the warm-up). Communications of any kind, audible or visible, between a player and a coach may be construed as coaching.” Looking at the letter of the law, it couldn’t be clearer that Williams and Mouratoglou were indeed in contravention of it. It also couldn’t be clearer that the rules for the Slams and the non-Slams are as different as night and day; while one format actively encourages players to communicate with their coaches, the other expressly forbids even so much as a casual hand signal between a player and a coach. Such a wide disparity is always going to pose problems, and in the immediate aftermath of the incident, WTA CEO Steve Simon reiterated his stance that on-court coaching should be uniformly allowed across the sport. Simon, of course, has been singing hosannas about the controversial rule ever since he has taken office, as you’d expect him to. “The on-court coaching has been positive. I want to look at it further,” he had said a year ago. Simon’s – and the WTA’s – persistence has started to pay off. Wimbledon chairman Philip Brook said last month that the time had come to have ‘an adult conversation’ around the issue of on-court coaching. If Wimbledon, an organisation notorious for its strict adherence to tradition, is willing to consider it as an option, then you have to believe there’s a legitimate possibility for it to become a permanent part of tennis. The ATP tour has gone a step further. For the last two years, its newly-minted tournament designed to showcase the best young talent in the world – the NextGen Finals – has been testing on-court coaching, but with a slight difference. Instead of the coaches coming down on to the court, they communicate with their charges through headphones. But the response from the players has been almost unanimously negative. Stefanos Tsistipas says he’s not “a big fan” of on-court coaching, and Taylor Fritz feels that “tennis is individual and how you analyse the match yourself should have an important impact”. Andrey Rublev, meanwhile, doesn’t even think it is “real”, questioning whether any coach would actually reveal his strategies for the whole world – including opposition players and coaches – to “make notes” on. These young players are not the first ones to have given their opinion on on-court coaching. Roger Federer has repeatedly voiced his opposition to it, first in 2014, then in 2017, and just for good luck, a third time this year. The likes of Lindsay Davenport and Mary Carillo have also criticised the rule; Davenport called it a ‘circus’, and Carillo said it made the women look ‘weak and fragile’. The current top two male players in the world, however, think otherwise. Novak Djokovic considers on-court coaching to be a ‘cool idea’. And Rafael Nadal believes it is ‘stupid’ that the coach can only help a player before the match and not during it. It would be fair to say that on-court coaching has become a bit of a divisive issue in the tennis world. And that is not surprising since there are so many obvious arguments in favour of each side. First, the cons. As Carillo rightly said, the image that the sport projects by showcasing female players shedding panic-stricken tears and being egged on by mostly male coaches are not the most progressive image you could think of. Not only does it portray women as trainwrecks who can’t handle the pressures of top-flight tennis, it also suggests that they can’t get by without the help of men. On-court coaching also, as Federer said, unduly tilts the balance in favour of the more wealthy and well-connected players. If you have the best coach in the world at your disposal, you already have an inherent advantage over your opponent in the lead-up to the match. Why extend that unfair advantage to the actual match duration too? As some have suggested in the past, on-court coaching is like training under the best teachers before a test and then having those teachers guide you even while you are actually writing your test answers. In other words, it is a form of cheating. Thirdly, questions have been raised about whether on-court coaching helps the players at all. Flavia Pennetta was once up a set and a break against Sloane Stephens at Indian Wells, but promptly lost that lead after a visit from her coach. As Rublev pointed out, the things that a coach says on the court may not necessarily be the most elaborate pointers; instead, in most cases, they would be vague exhortations which don’t really mean anything, and which have the power to succeed and backfire in equal measure. But there are a few positive aspects to on-court coaching too. For one thing, it is extremely difficult to actually implement the no-coaching rule. Patrick Mouratoglou insisted after the US Open fiasco that ‘everybody does it’, and there have been murmurs for a while now that most top players receive discreet signals from their coaches at crucial points in every match. If it is so rampant, then why haven’t more people been called out for it the way Williams was? Well, all umpires are not as hawk-eyed as Carlos Ramos. And it’s unlikely they will ever be. Unless the authorities set up roving cameras that capture every gesture, movement and eye twitch of every coach, it would be impossible to accurately determine how often a coaching offence is committed. As for the sexist image that on-court coaching projects, the problem would be mitigated a tad if the rule was extended to the ATP tour as well. It wouldn’t just be crying women being consoled by sheepish men then; it would also be crying men being consoled by sheepish men. (On a side note: why aren’t more women encouraged to get into tennis coaching? It would certainly be nice to see more player-coach partnerships like the one between Andy Murray and Amelie Mauresmo). Also, I’m not entirely sold on the idea – as put forward by Federer, Tsitsipas, Fritz and many others – that in tennis you have to find solutions on your own. Sure, waging a lone battle, perhaps with the entire world against you, sounds like a romantic idea worthy of being immortalised in prose. But we all know that reality is a whole lot different. Keeping the pressures of high-stakes professional sport bottled within is not particularly healthy or even productive; it often leads to bad decision-making on the court and occasionally, some cringeworthy play. Having someone to talk with, even if just as an outlet for venting your frustration, could possibly help calm the nerves of the players and consequently improve the quality of tennis on offer too. Lastly, and I may be in the minority on this, but I do think that on-court coaching is thoroughly entertaining to watch – if it is expressed in a language that I am well-versed with. There is something truly captivating about watching players deal with the ups and downs of a match while their coaches try to come up with the perfect words of encouragement, and I don’t know how I would feel if that was suddenly taken away from us. As Steve Simon keeps saying, on-court coaching provides us with unique insights about the million-dollar-earning celebrities that we never get from the rehearsed interviews and staid press conferences. In the heat of the battle, the players tap into their rawest of emotions, and we as spectators get to see those emotions when they speak with their coaches. It may not always make for pleasant viewing – as we’ve learned from Muguruza – but it is always must-see TV. Does that sound exploitative? Maybe even an invasion of the players’ privacy? That, in my opinion, is for the authorities and the players themselves to decide. Tennis organisers have to make up their minds about what they want to prioritise – the players’ comfort, the public image of the sport, or the fan entertainment quotient. If there is a substantial voice of dissent among the players against on-court coaching – especially if they are forced to speak in English, without which the concept doesn’t really add value – then it might be prudent to consult the respective player bodies and put the matter to a vote. We don’t want a situation where a Federer is grumpily glaring at his opponent who is merrily chatting with his coach, while he himself refuses to take any help from a stone-faced Ivan Ljubicic. If the image of the sport is the priority, then I believe a closer look needs to be taken at providing psychological assistance to the players – perhaps even as a supplement to the physical trainers that are always on hand during medical timeouts. There’s nothing wrong in seeking psychological help from a qualified expert during times of duress. And if doing that improves the quality of play, as I think it will, then nobody will complain. But if the priority is fan entertainment, then I say allow on-court coaching across all events, including the Grand Slams. We all know it happens anyway, so we might as well hear detailed descriptions of what’s being said and imbibed during those secretive communications. It would certainly be better to hear the players talk to their coaches between sets than to be subjected to the usual five minutes of intolerably dull ads. And who knows, every once in a while we could even get to see terms like the ‘Russian Wall’ being coined. I know I would pay top dollar if that became a regular feature of tennis.