Since its inception, the WTCA has been centered around the premise of supporting female players as well as the coaches who work with them. When Sarah Stone founded the organization in 2015, her primary goal was to create a global community of like-minded coaches in an effort to keep more females in the game of tennis.
For the past three years, Stone and her team have worked tirelessly to build the WTCA’s brand through conferences, educational courses, and a tight-knit social media community. However, the WTCA was just one of the major contributions Stone was making to women’s tennis.
Stone has also continued to coach on the WTA Tour, working with Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia. Krunic has enjoyed prolific success over the course of the past few months, winning her first WTA title at the Libéma Open and reaching a career-high ranking of No. 39 in the world.
While coaching Krunic was very rewarding for Stone, the duo made the decision for Stone to take a less active role at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. Stone felt that by stepping away from coaching on the tour, she would be able to devote more time to the mission of the WTCA.
Stone recalls feeling pulled between the two extremely time-consuming and demanding jobs. “It’s very hard to do both, and I felt a little bit torn between,” she said. “At the WTCA Conference Paris, Alex was playing at Roland Garros and our event was the day before she was set to compete. I ran from the middle of the conference during the lunch hour out to the court to practice with her, and then I came straight back into the conference. I felt like that took away from the time that I wanted to spend with the coaches.”
The WTCA community is all about caring for coaches and ensuring that they have the necessary tools to work with their female players, while also caring for themselves and reducing feelings of burnout. Stone decided that in order to handle the increasing workload of the WTCA it was essential to cut back the amount of touring she was doing. “My biggest goal in coaching is to be able to help 1000s of coaches and 1000s of players, rather than helping one player at a time. I get more out of being there for all of our coaches,” she explained.
“Being a touring coach over the last 15 years has been something I’ve really enjoyed, from working with Samantha Stosur during a time that she won three grand slams, to watching Alexa Glatch qualify at Roland Garros, I wouldn’t change it for the world but I’m really excited about changing gears now and doing a little bit less travel,” said Stone.
With more time on her hands to devote fully to the WTCA, Stone has set her sights on the upcoming second annual WTCA Conference in NYC. “We’ve seen a lot of interest towards the conference. I think that having six Grand Slam champions coming to the conference in New York exceeds what we did last year. A lot of coaching events in the industry are kind of one-and-done, and I think people were waiting to see what we could produce the second time around.”
Since last year’s conference, the WTCA has grown exponentially, which is one of the major reasons why Stone made the decision to focus her full attention on running the organization. “We’re at 43,000 on our social media, and last year we were around 25,000,” she said. “If we’re able to sustain our growth like that, people will recognize that we’re here to stay and that we’ve helped drive change in the industry.”
One of the fundamental changes that the WTCA is trying to drive within the industry to keep more girls and women in the sport, a feat that Stone strongly believes will help the sport as a whole. “We’re trying to make sure that we keep more girls in tennis. Keeping more girls in tennis helps everybody,” she stated. “If 50% of your potential clients drop out of the sport, you’re not going to have a successful business. When girls drop out, everyone loses – the academies lose, the manufactures lose, the coaches lose, and most of all the girls lose.”
“It’s such a fantastic industry, and we want to keep more girls in the game. I think we’re on the right track, but I do think that the reason membership is driving up is because of these conferences and because of our strong brand. It’s something that people want to be associated with,” Stone explained.
In addition to keeping more females in the sport, Stone wants coaches to know that the WTCA cares deeply about their well-being and is truly invested in their future, which is why she and WTCA Chief Business Consultant Tim Bainton are working on developing a program centered around preventing coaching burnout.
The first step in this process will be offered through a free course at the WTCA Conference in NYC, where Bainton and Dr. Charlotte Alabaster will provide attendees with a free course on developing tools for the prevention and reduction of burnout. “Our focus is on building a really strong community where people can be surrounded by like-minded coaches. We want them to feel like we’re providing something truly meaningful to them,” said Stone.
If there is one takeaway Stone wants to leave coaches with, it is that she is in this with them for the long-haul. “Coaches come and go from the industry, but we’re trying to change that narrative. Together, we’re going to be the change-makers that make a difference in our sport.”