
One of the biggest differences in today’s generation of tennis students vs. previous generations of tennis students is the amount of tennis that kids watch on TV. In the era of cutting back on kids’ screen time, we may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
In my generation, most of the tennis kids at my club would talk about a match they watched on TV, especially during the Grand Slams. We would also love imitating our favorite players’ tennis strokes. At my small town tennis club in Poughkeepsie, NY, I remember vividly when 3-4 of my tennis friends would all try to copy McEnroe’s service motion (video here). We would laugh hysterically about how crazy his service motion seemed and wondered who on earth would try such a thing. We would also try to copy Pete Sampas’ serve (youtube video), particularly his knee bend and tilt of his shoulders. By learning through copying and imitating physical movements of our tennis heroes, we were figuring things out for ourselves as students. In the 70-80s, we didn’t have packed after-school activity schedules. We were admittedly bored a lot of the time so imitating our favorite tennis stars was our best form of entertainment.
Back in the day, another aspect of our learning was observing the patterns that tennis greats played—serve and volley, service +1 combinations, deep cross-court patterns on clay.
Watching tennis on TV allowed us to visualize our favorite shots (Agassi’s forehand, Chang’s backhand) even when we weren’t on the court. Sports science (research here) now confirms that visualization and mental practice significantly improve real-world tennis performance. Kids from the 70s and 80s were ahead of our time, and we didn’t even know it!
Nowadays, in the era of Brawl Stars and Fortnite, Instagram and TikTok, our kids’ generation finds it difficult to watch tennis on TV. It’s nearly impossible to compete with the instant gratification of a 30-second dopamine hit. Watching a 2-3 hour tennis match on TV can feel downright archaic; it requires patience, a longer attention span, and attentive listening to tennis commentators' insights.
Knowing all of this, as a family, here are some simple ways that our family has tried to bring a little 70’s and 80s back into our kids’ lives:
Subscribed to the Tennis Channel (it’s ~$110 per year, which is the price of 1 private lesson). Using #tennismath, it seems worth it to get at least a lesson every time we watch a match. If you watch 1 professional tennis match a month and actually listen to the professional tennis commentators like Jim Courier discuss tennis, that’s at least 12 more lessons a year for your child. (in our family, there is a special exception to Tennis Channel time from screen time limits)
Become fans of specific tennis stars. Is Nadal or Djokovic your guy? Discuss with your kids what they admire or dislike about their favorites. Our MA boys team loves talking smack about their favorite players.
Laugh at the tennis drama on court. Who is losing their cool and smashing rackets? Does it help or hurt them? What’s the body language and emotions on display during tight points? Do their expressions show determination or defeat?
Discuss tennis at the family dinner table. Ask your kids’ what they thought about how Tiafoe came back (from the dead) against Medvedev (link here)? Use the Socratic method and let your kids teach you from their own observations.
Attended live tennis matches. It’s great to watch Stanford tennis (link here). Most matches are free and it’s in your backyard! Nothing beats watching Div 1 players’ live;
it is truly inspiring to watch their speed, power and spin. If you want to plan a fun family event around tennis, check out Indian Wells (https://bnpparibasopen.com/), which isn’t too far away.
Encouraged (ok forced) our kids to set up weekend tennis dates. You must go outside, goof around and have fun. On the weekends, I’m always happy when I see members of our M-A high school teams ride their bikes over to the tennis courts and rally together. No facetime - just live and in-person, old school fun.
If you have a “if-you-can’t-beat-‘em-then-join-‘em-attitude” and you allow your child to use Youtube or Instagram, here is a fun way to be a subversive parent. Grab your child’s devices and subscribe to the following tennis content creators. Here are some of my favorites:
Essential Tennis https://www.youtube.com/@EssentialTennis
Patrick Morataglou https://www.youtube.com/@patrickmouratoglou_official
Winston Du https://www.youtube.com/@WinstonDu
Top Tennis Training https://www.youtube.com/@TopTennisTrainingOfficial/
Coffee Break Tennis https://www.youtube.com/@CoffeeBreakTennis
Feel Tennis https://www.youtube.com/@feeltennis
Some of my favorite tennis stars’ IG accounts: