An open letter to on-court coaching

Dear On-court Coaching,

The tennis world has no shortage of opinions about you. Many fall in your favor, and seemingly just as many are against you. When observers of the sport mention you as a pillar or a detriment to women's tennis, we receive a fusillade of Twitter mentions. Most of these may be mean-spirited, depending on the day or the live match at hand.

Honestly, I fall on the side of disliking you. Your conversations between coaches and players are often painfully dull, meandering or short on words. Unscientifically speaking, they're probably vigorous or interesting perhaps one in every five times they're shown on live television. What's more, you aren't even allowed in major events, which abide by their own rules, not those of the WTA or ATP.

On-court coaching, you're defined by the reason you exist in the first place: You could be great in theory, but largely terrible in execution.

Might Petra Martic have benefited from you in her free-fall against Elina Svitolina at Roland Garros? And might Svitolina in turn have enjoyed a coaching visit against Simona Halep? And do you think Halep herself might have turned around her situation in the French Open final had she been empowered by Darren Cahill?

The world will never know–and it doesn't need to. The truth is that each of these professionals might have benefited in her respective case, and might also have performed better in the end had she been better prepared in lead-up tournaments to harness the situations and turn them to her own advantage.

On-court coaching, you rarely make for great TV. Last year's Roland Garros winner, Garbine Muguruza, and her coach, Sam Sumyk, provide the awkward proof:

Could we just be done with the coach (almost always a man) instructing his energy drink–sipping charge in a conversation (almost always one-sided) about how to handle things?

Well done by Timea Babos' coach for her level-headed positivity earlier this month on grass against Arantxa Rus. Even so, his player melted mentally for all to see:

That instance was no shining endorsement for the value of on-court coaching.

To be fair, let's compare Muguruza's experience to the Miami exchange between Halep and Cahill, thoughtful and passionate and alternately positive and negative:

I will grant you that it was a nifty example of on-court coaching as good TV. It's a conversation that led Cahill to abandon Halep's figurative ship for a time afterward. He returned to a more mentally strong pupil that would win Madrid, citing his walkout as inspiration.

But it's not about one solitary point, but about stringing along a series of them to win the game and the match. For every convo on par with that one, we get maybe four more like this:

Or this:

The funny conversation went viral, but did the exchange help Brengle upset Serena Williams, or add something to the sport in a positive way? Not really.

The ever-fair Jon Wertheim, of Tennis Channel and Sports Illustrated, refers to you, on-court coaching, as the WTA's own blooper reel. He's got harsher words for you as well: "a cheap and cynical gimmick that portrays women as damsels in distress who must rely on others to solve their problems and calm their nerves."

Wertheim's operative question: "Might the over-reliance of on-court coaching and then its absence at big events be responsible for the inconsistent results we see on the women’s side?"

On-court coaching, you're a blemish on the sport. Simple as that.

Sincerely,

Your Former Fan

Follow Jon on Twitter @jonscott9.