'WHO DO WE BUILD' ?

After two lessons today it dawned on me, who are we building as far as tennis players are concerned ?
Are we creating a 'boutique' generation of tennis players or are we building the future of the sport ?
I refer to the current coaching style that has a coach putting the ball into the 'hitting zone' to build technique over and over again, yet what are we really creating ?
My point is this.
Tennis dishes up a plethora of different situations yet when we teach the sport we really only offer one scenario, the 'perfect' ball.
A young kid who I have a regular lesson with looks like a future Wimbledon player when I put the ball into the hitting zone yet when we play points that same player would struggle to fill a local pennant team.
So what is the right thing to do as far as new students of the game are concerned ?
My first coach, my second coach and any coach who I ever had a tennis lesson with gave me variety of ball, they fed me balls that would make me stretch, they fed me balls that were in my hitting zone and they gave me balls that made me feel as though I was a future World beater.
One thing however was fairly evident in my tennis upbringing, I was not taught to be a 'boutique' tennis player, the one that could go away from a lesson thinking that the game was ridiculously easy. My coaches were rather brutal on me however I would not have had it any other way.
I recall some days as a kid coming off court and thinking 'that was tough though I didn't know I even owned some of those shots'.
I have written fondly in the past regarding the one and only session I ever had with a guy who beat both Becker and Lendl in the early 90's, Neil Borwick from Queensland.
Now I admit, I was 45 at the time but hitting with Neil was possibly one of my greatest ever tennis educations because here was a guy who had beaten the World's best. I had never played against guys of that calibre so it was as though I was a junior coming up against an adult who owned a tennis brain as opposed to a relatively 'sheltered' view on the sport.
It's one thing to own a theory or two, it's another to actually put it into play.
So Neil that day did what Neil knew best, he played to win, he hit shots I had only ever seen on television but what it did make me do was think harder, way harder than I had ever done previously. Neil Borwick reached a career high of around 110 so in a nutshell, that's a 'win' in a sport as tough as tennis.
I came off court thinking this, maybe I own shots I have never even hit before, perhaps a guy like Neil Borwick could make me a better player even at age 45 due to a far greater knowledge on the game that I will ever own.
Different spins, different shot selection, greater variety, a far superior tennis brain.
So back to my point.
If NB had felt sorry for me I suppose he would have gone easy on me, yet he didn't, possibly because I told him I want the 'Lendl, Becker treatment'. 'No favours buddy, give me your best'.
When we teach tennis we have to give some 'tough love' at times because if we keep hand feeding into the hitting zone it may just create a player who will not know what to do with a tennis ball if it goes outside of that comfort zone.
It's like anything in life, no one got anywhere in life without a test.
Creating technique is a must in tennis but creating a smart tennis player I believe is more important. Brad Gilbert won 20 titles in the late 80's and early 90's simply from being a smart tennis player, his shots were average, he would be the first to admit that.
David Goffin currently is a player that many traditionalists would say is a 'Gilbert clone', he simply makes the opposition play. No glamour, just smart tennis.
May just be the toughest thing to teach in tennis, intelligence..........