DW: On-Court Coaching Is Bananas

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour has experimented with on-court coaching at tournaments in Montreal, New Haven and Stuttgart so far this season and wider experimentation is anticipated in 2007. Dee Dutta, Corporate Vice President and Head of Marketing for Sony Ericsson explains: "For Sony Ericsson, our sponsorship of women's tennis is all about connecting players to fans, be it through our technology or through introduction of innovative entertainment concepts. We are committed to respecting the great traditions of women's tennis and the one-on-one gladiatorial battle that makes tennis so exciting, while also testing creative ideas that will enable the sport to continue to compete and succeed in the entertainment marketplace."

Illegal coaching became a hot issue during this year's Italian Open when Roger Federer claimed that Rafael Nadal was being coached from the stands.

Temperatures rose higher at the US Open when cameras clearly revealed Maria Sharapova's entourage communicating with her by means of visual cues and signals. Her father, Yuri, and fitness coach Michael Joyce were seen at various times motioning her to drink and eat bananas. The discontent threatened to boil over. It was the bananagate scandal. "The cheating is out of control," Daniela Hantuchova complained. "There are signals and words instructing the players. I've complained to the umpires, wondering how they can't hear this when I can." Meilen Tu went further. "There's so much cheating going on as it is, they might as well legalise it," she said.

Sharapova was unrepentant. "Right now I'm sitting here as a US Open champion," she said. "And the last thing I think people need to worry about is a banana."

On-court coaching has all the signs of being a half-baked effort to address these concerns. But it will not stop clandestine coaching from the stands.

Nor is it fair. Many lower-ranked players cannot afford to travel with a coach. There are many logistical problems too. What happens, for example, if two players drawn against each other share the same coach? 'Miking up' the coaches is a pretty lame idea if viewers are not provided with some kind of language translation service.

Innovative ideas are fine, but they should be treated with the utmost caution when they involve rule changes that would skew the fundamental nature of the sport. It can hardly be considered a "one-on-one gladiatorial battle" if, at the moment a combatant's shield bites the dust, he simply scratches his head and, in the parlance of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire', opts to phone a friend? At the US Open, Andre Agassi summed it up: "Tennis is ... a sport that forces you to solve problems by yourself. It's a vehicle for education, a great thing for somebody's life. That message needs to be sold better."

All in all, on-court coaching is not just a misguided experiment, it's bananas, it's an unacceptable interference with the very principle of singles competition. It's nonsense for Sony Ericsson to claim that the traditions of the game are being respected. Since when did entertainment become the raison d'etre of sport anyway? Tennis may happen to be entertaining but it does not and should not have to sell itself in the "entertainment marketplace". The WTA Tour seems to be kow-towing to its sponsors in a manner that jeopardises its very integrity.

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.

See Dave's profile and an index of all his posts here.