Improve Play with Charting

Would you like to know how many first serves your players are getting in during matches? Would you like to see how many points they win when they miss the first serve and have to use a second serve? Does one of your players win more points when he returns deep and down the line, or short and crosscourt?

These and many other matchplay questions can be answered with a tool known as “charting,” whereby statistics are kept during matchplay on players’ performances.

While laptop computers costing several thousand dollars and a training course have been available for decades, simple paper-and-pen stat keeping is a very effective way to help spot your players’ strengths and weaknesses, and bolster your coaching suggestions to your team members.

Start Simple

To get your players into the concept of match charting, have your team members chart each other during practice matches, keeping simple statistics.

Players can use a blank piece of notebook paper or a form you generate on your computer, but keep it simple in the beginning.

Have players chart the following statistics.

First serves in
Second serves in
Double faults
First serve points won/lost
Second serve points won/lost

Returns deep
Returns short
Deep returns won/lost
Short returns won/lost

These few statistics will quickly show your players the importance of getting the first serve in and getting returns back deep.

You may also want to break out a statistic such as “first-serves in on game points” to show the importance of getting the first serve in on a key point, even if it means taking something off the first serve. Remember from our article on first-serve percentages in the October issue of High School Tennis Coach, the pressure on an opponent of waiting for a first-serve is often more important than the speed of the serve.

If you have more players than courts for matches, or if you wish to keep team members who are waiting their turns during a team match into the match, charting is a great way to achieve this.

You may also want to chart the opponents, since you may be playing conference foes twice. Have the person charting also write up a subjective summary after each match “Tom quit after he got broken in the second set,” or, “The opponent usually hit short or into the net whenever he had to hit a running forehand,” or, “opponent serves wide on every big point.”

For each player on your team, you can add one or two statistics that are specific to a particular player, “John, I want you to chart Matt’s approach shots deep/short” or returns deep and to the corner, or ad court points, etc. — whatever a particular player is working on.

For doubles teams, you’ll want to chart serves down the middle vs. wide and wins/losses. Also, chart how many returns were sent back short and crosscourt, with success ratios.

Chart Enough Matches

Remember, there are three types of lies: lies; damn lies; and statistics.

Do not make assumptions about a player’s game based on one set or even one, entire match. A player may have had an exceptionally good or bad match; an opponent may have been weak or strong; or a particular facet of a player’s game may not have been working that day.

It would be best to have parents or other non-friends of players chart matches so you can hold the results until three matches have been played. The more matches played, the more reliable the statistics become.

Statistics also help players who have lost a match find a positive outcome if they see improvement in a particular area of their game on which they are working. This is especially important for players on teams in strong conferences who are not likely to win many matches during the year.

Have your “charters” learn how during practices. Have them practice by charting players playing best-of-three tie-breaks; then, have them chart sets (no-add scoring, tie-break at five-all). Finish by charting full matches during practices.

Do not use charting only to point out weaknesses. Bolster your players’ confidence in particular areas of their game by showing them their strengths. You may want to add one or two statistics to a chart to identify and reinforce a players’ strength.

Charting also helps add credibility to your coaching. If a player has resisted your advice, charting will help them see that they need to make a change because it is affecting their game, rather than because “I’m the coach and I said so.”

Add charting to your practices and matches and use the results to identify strengths and weaknesses, to run more focused practices and to improve match play skills.