Coaching

Tennis is one of the most fun, dynamic, healthy life-long sports that millions of people love to learn and play. However, it’s not always the easiest sport for people to pick up, and in order to learn it people seek out professional tennis lessons. People seek out lessons through community centres, tennis clubs, and privately from coaches around the city.

Community Centre and Park Board tennis programs

There are many tennis programs offered by the City of Vancouver.

These include a pilot project running in 2023 for city-wide private and group tennis lesson programming.

To sign up, click here for tennis programs at the City of Vancouver website.

Coaching volunteering and mentoring

Coaches looking to grow their professional career in the Vancouver tennis community can reach out to VTS to receive mentoring and advice. Coaches may fill out the volunteering form to get started.

We encourage coaches to to receive Tennis Canada TPA Certification, to volunteer/get paid coaching sanctioned VTS events, and refer them as a coach to the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation to provide safe, professional programming to the public.

Tennis BC also has a wealth of information and resources for tennis coaches and about safeguarding tennis.

Checking a tennis coaches’ credentials

To check a specific coaches’ credentials, you can visit the TPA Canada website below and search for their name. If your coach isn’t on this list, then they aren’t certified to be teaching tennis in a standardized way following the best Tennis Canada principles and methodologies.

List of Certified Coaches on the Tennis Canada website

Unsanctioned tennis coaching on public tennis courts

Unsanctioned coaching on public courts is any coaching that is carried out on public tennis courts without a permit, especially in return for payment, which is the majority of the method by which private tennis coaches in Vancouver operate. This is against park/city rules, and has a whole host of issues associated with it, which are listed below.

Unsanctioned tennis coaching is not permitted on public tennis courts in Vancouver. Therefore, we believe that increasing the amount of sanctioned tennis coaching on public tennis courts (while reducing unsanctioned coaching) will grow tennis participation in the long-term in a safe, sustainable, and professional manner.

The reasons that unsanctioned tennis coaching is not allowed by the City of Vancouver/Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation on public tennis courts are as follows:

• Liability: potential harm to tennis students during unsanctioned programming public facilities (injuries, etc). Legal battles over who is responsible for damages would get very messy if harm occurred, for both students and coaches.
• Qualifications: no idea who is teaching, what their qualifications are, and if they are trusted individuals who should be working with vulnerable populations (no background checks).
• Court usage: unsanctioned coaches monopolize courts for more than the 30-min time frame, especially at popular locations during peak hours.
• Finances: no way of ensuring fair pricing, financially accessible opportunities, sound financial practices (taxes, etc), and no way to ensure for a small amount of revenue to go toward upkeep.

There are many private tennis coaches offering their services online on Facebook, Instagram, who are not permitted to be teaching tennis on public tennis courts (especially as a business).

For these reasons, we assist the City of Vancouver in identifying unsanctioned tennis coaching activities on public tennis courts, primarily by sending out Court Steward volunteers at random to public courts around the city. Punishments from the City may include fines.

We encourage the public to report unsanctioned coaching activities in order to help maintain the integrity of tennis education on public tennis courts in the city.