Examining tennis coaches constructions of their role in a perfromance setting: What is it like to coach an elite junior tennis player?

Abstract

Despite a growing body of research into sports coaching there remains little understanding of what it is like to coach elite junior tennis players. The purpose of this PhD was to examine the lived coaching experience of independent tennis coaches and describe what it is like to be a coach of an elite junior tennis player. Using autoethnography to explore the first authors’ experiences of coaching elite juniors, and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of 8 novice participants (1 – 4 years-experience) and 8 experienced participants (over 10 years-experience) this PhD sought to provide a comprehensive description of how tennis coaches described their experiences of tennis coaching. In total there were eight constructs identified in this PhD and they were; (a) connection, (b) competence, (c) competition, (d) conflict, (d) comprehension, (e) confidence, (f) code, and (g) coping. The eight constructs were classified under three types of coaching construct; contextual constructs (connection, conflict, & competition), efficacy constructs (competence, & confidence), and outcome constructs (comprehension, code, & coping). Acceptance of the challenges in coaching was a factor in experienced coaches describing different constructs compared to novice coaches. The findings of this research contribute to an evolving, problematic epistemology of sports coaching and highlight shortcomings in the capacity of tennis coach education to prepare novice coaches for their initiation into coaching. The findings present governing bodies opportunities to inform coach education literature and help tennis coaches to sustain themselves in an emotionally challenging role.