There have been many significant changes in tennis over recent years.

Perhaps the most talked about is the overhaul of the US Open mixed doubles event that has received a mixed reaction.

That is not the only significant alteration that has been made to tennis in recent years, with frequent ball changes often criticised.

However, there is another big change in tennis that Coco Gauff’s former coach, Brad Gilbert, has now commented on.

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Brad Gilbert claims ‘lots of cheating’ was happening but a recent rule change has stopped that

Gilbert coached Gauff for 14 months until September 2024, which included helping her win a maiden Grand Slam title at the 2023 US Open.

Now in a new podcast interview on the Tennis Insider with WTA player Caroline Garcia, Gilbert has spoken about a big change he has seen in coaching in recent years.

On-court coaching has been slowly introduced into tennis since 2020, and is now a mainstay at all tour events and Grand Slams.

This enables coaches to issue advice either verbally or through hand signals during their players’ matches, but it must be ‘brief and discreet’.

When discussing this change, Gilbert admitted that he thinks it is a good thing as it prevents cheating from going on.

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However, Gilbert went on to explain that he thinks that some coaches use it a little bit too much, something that he was not keen on doing.

“First of all I am glad that it is allowed because it has stopped the cheating,” said Gilbert. “There was lots of cheating and maybe if you were doing it in a different language you might get away with it.

“But there’s a balance. Now I feel like it’s a little bit too much.

When you have these tablets [iPads]. When I am watching a match I never look at the tablet.

I am still looking with my own eyes and trying to process what they are doing.

“I feel like you can coach too much. Sometimes players look at the coach after every single thing.

They want to know where to serve, and it becomes too much.

“So there’s the balance of too much and none.

But some players want more, some want less and that is the biggest challenge of the coach-player relationship. It is finding that balance.”

Before it was brought into the rules, on-court coaching caused controversy for Serena Williams in the US Open final in 2018.

Which players have criticised on court coaching?

While Gilbert is generally supportive of coaching being introduced to tennis, not everybody feels the same way.

The American is not the only top ATP player that is not keen on this change in tennis, with Denis Shapovalov also criticising the move earlier this year.

In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Shapovalov wrote, “Not just as a tennis player but as a fan of this sport it’s sad to see this new off court coaching rule. Tennis is special because you are out there alone. Why are you trying to change the beauty of this game.”

Despite their disappointment in this change, it appears as though on-court coaching is going to be a mainstay in tennis going forward.

This will also be the case at Wimbledon this year, with the grass court major implementing it since the 2023 event.