How to assess a tennis player: a six-pillar method

Most tennis assessments are a feeling. You watch a player for a term, you form an impression, and when a parent asks “how is she doing?” you reach for words like “improving” and “good attitude”. None of that is wrong. None of it is repeatable either. Hand the same player to another coach and you will get a different story.

A proper assessment fixes that. It scores the player on the things that actually decide matches, with a written guide at each level so the number means the same thing every time. Here is the method.

Score six pillars, not just strokes

A forehand grip and a clean toss are easy to see, so they get all the attention. They are also a fraction of the player. Assess across six pillars:

1. Technical strokes: the mechanics of forehand, backhand, serve, volley and return. Contact point, racket path, grip, recovery.
2. Movement and footwork: split step, first step, recovery to the centre, the ability to load and hit on the move rather than reaching flat-footed.
3. Tactical and decision-making: shot selection, court positioning, recognising patterns, knowing when to build a point and when to finish it.
4. Physical: speed, endurance, balance, the engine that holds technique together in the third set.
5. Mental and competitive: composure on big points, response to errors, resilience at 4-5 down, the things that show up only when it matters.
6. Match application: whether any of the above survives a real, scored match against a real opponent.

That last pillar is the honest one. A player can hit a textbook backhand in a fed drill and lose every rally where it counts. Match application is where coaching dreams meet the scoreboard, and it deserves its own score.

Anchor every level so the score is consistent

A score out of ten is worthless if your 7 is another coach’s 5. The fix is anchoring: write a short, plain-English descriptor for each level, written from a senior benchmark down.

Take movement. A 4 might read: “Splits late, reaches for wide balls, slow to recover, often caught out of position.” A 7: “Consistent split step, efficient first step to both wings, recovers to a sensible position between shots, rarely caught flat-footed.” A coach reads the descriptor, then scores. Two coaches reading the same words land far closer than two coaches scoring on instinct.

Anchor all six pillars this way. The point is not precision for its own sake. It is that a 6 in October and a 6 in March mean the same thing, so when the number moves, real movement happened.

Add the player’s own score and read the gap

Ask the player to assess themselves on the same six pillars before you share your numbers. Then put the two side by side.

The gap is the most useful thing on the page. A player who rates their tactical game an 8 while you have them at a 4 has a blind spot: they think they are choosing shots well, so they will not work on it until you show them the gap. A player who rates their serve a 3 while you have them at a 6 has the opposite problem, a confidence issue dressed up as a skill one, and the coaching is reassurance and reps under pressure, not technique.

You cannot coach a perception gap you have not measured. Self-assessment makes it visible.

Turn the weakest pillar into one goal

An assessment that sits in a folder changed nothing. The output of every assessment is action, and the cleanest action is a single goal drawn from the weakest pillar.

If movement is the lowest score, the goal is movement: a specific, named target like “consistent split step on the opponent’s contact, recovering to the centre between shots”. One pillar, one goal, one focus for the block. Then the next session plan follows from it. The drills serve the goal, the goal came from the assessment, and the loop closes.

Resist setting six goals at once. A player chasing every pillar improves none of them. Pick the one that is holding the rest back, work it, reassess, then move to the next.

Reassess and show the change

The number only earns its keep when you take it again. At the end of the block, score the same six pillars on the same anchored levels, and put then against now. A player who can see their movement go from a 4 to a 6, with the descriptors to prove it is real, trains differently from one who is just told “you’re getting there”.

That before-and-after is also what a parent actually wants. Not “she’s doing well”, but “movement was the weak pillar in October, here is the goal we set, and here is the score today”. For more on tracking change over a full season, see measuring player progress over a season.

The framework is yours to shape

This is a method, not a fixed rubric. The six pillars and the words at each level should reflect how you coach and what your players need. The version above is a starting point for tennis. Edit the pillars, rewrite the anchors, build the drill library that matches your courts. The discipline that matters is the one that does not change: anchored levels, the player’s own score alongside yours, and one goal from the weakest pillar, every cycle.