ABSTRACT
Coaches who possess the capacity to be receptive and flexible and who can differentiate their instructional practices are ideally positioned to augment learning outcomes to cater for the developmental needs of all their players. Coaches should customise their instruction to the specific learning readiness and needs of the players to impact on the learning experiences of players effectively. A ‘one program fits all’ perspective fails to acknowledge the notion of differentiation, which fosters the promotion of instructional content and behaviour specifically designed to cater to the individual needs and requirements of players. In an athlete-centred coaching viewpoint, the coach must provide players with the personal and informational resources for learning. Implementing a more individualised and context dependent approach is paramount. This advocates development via active participation that is representative of collaboration. It is socially assigned, with a degree of control transferred to the learner. Tennis coaches informed by the key pedagogical tenets of the Game Sense approach and Mosston’s Inclusion Style-E can promote differentiated instruction, which we suggest is a guiding principle of athlete-centred tennis coaching.
