I have two jobs that sound unrelated. One is coaching tennis to children aged four to twelve with TAG International Tennis Academy. The other is hosting events — corporate functions, family days, community tournaments — as an emcee.
People assume the tennis informs the hosting. It is almost entirely the other way round. Standing in front of a few hundred people who did not choose to listen to you teaches you things about attention that no coaching course covers.
Lesson One: You Have About Seven Seconds
At an event, if you have not given the room a reason to look at you within the first few seconds, you spend the next twenty minutes clawing it back. On a tennis court with five-year-olds, the window is shorter.
This is why I never start a junior session with an explanation. I start with a ball already in motion. The instruction comes after the activity has begun, in about eight words, while they are moving. A coach who opens with a two-minute description of the drill has already lost half the group, and the half they lost were the ones who most needed the structure.
Lesson Two: Energy Is a Budget, Not a Setting
New emcees make one predictable mistake: maximum volume from minute one. By the middle of the programme they have nowhere left to go and the audience has stopped registering the peaks.
Junior coaching works identically. A session that is loud and fast throughout is not high-energy — it is flat. What children respond to is contrast: a genuinely quiet, focused two minutes on a technical point, then something noisy and competitive, then quiet again. The quiet blocks are where the learning happens. The noisy blocks are what buys you the quiet ones.
I plan a 45-minute session for a five-year-old as roughly six blocks, alternating. Not one continuous activity, and not a rigid rotation either — you read the group and adjust, which is the third lesson.
Lesson Three: Read the Room, Not the Run Sheet
Every event has a script. Every good host abandons parts of it. If a segment is landing, you stretch it; if a room has gone cold, you cut and move.
Coaches are often more reluctant to do this, because we feel accountable to the lesson plan. But a drill that is not working for this particular group of children on this particular afternoon is not going to start working because it is written down. The skill worth developing is noticing within thirty seconds — not five minutes — and changing something.
The tells are the same as in a room: eyes drifting, bodies turning away, one child starting a side conversation and two more joining.
Lesson Four: Everyone Needs to Be Seen Once
At a family day, the children who go home happiest are not the ones who won something. They are the ones whose name got said into a microphone.
On court, this is the single most reliable retention tool I know. Every child in a group session should be individually addressed by name, positively and specifically, at least once. Not “good job, everyone” — “Sarah, that was the best ready position you have done all term.” It takes four seconds and it is the difference between a child who asks to come back and a child who has to be persuaded.
Group sizes matter for exactly this reason. Beyond a certain number, you physically cannot get round everybody, and the quiet children become invisible.
Lesson Five: Fun Is Not the Opposite of Serious
There is a lingering idea that a fun children’s session is a soft one. In practice the sessions where children laugh most are the ones with the clearest rules, the tightest structure and the highest expectations — because children relax when they know exactly what is being asked of them.
The same is true of a well-run event. It looks spontaneous because it was planned in detail.
Where This Shows Up in My Coaching
Most visibly at tennis birthday parties, where the two jobs collapse into one — a group of children who mostly do not play tennis, a two-hour window, and a birthday child who needs the day to be theirs. Nothing tests the five lessons above harder.
It also shapes how I run regular kids tennis lessons for ages 4 to 12, and how I approach tennis events and corporate hosting across Singapore. More on the background behind both is on my about page.
For Parents Deciding What Comes Next
If you are not sure whether your child is ready to start at all, I have written a readiness checklist for ages 4 to 6, and a parent’s FAQ on kids tennis lessons in Singapore covering ages, formats, locations and cost.
When children outgrow the early-years stage and want a competitive pathway, they move into the wider TAG junior development programme, where colleagues including Coach Dave Regencia and Coach Bo Alburo — a career-high ITF Men’s 35+ World No. 2 singles player — take them on. Families looking for a lower-barrier racquet sport for younger siblings or parents can also try PickleChoo, the TAG family’s pickleball courts and coaching in Singapore.
Coach Mervyn Goh is an early-childhood tennis specialist with TAG International Tennis Academy in Singapore, coaching children aged 4 to 12, and a corporate emcee and event host.
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