Frank Giampaolo
Thirty years coaching, more than a hundred books, a daughter who reached
Frank revisits the moments that mattered.
3 reflections published. Lisa moderated each before they went live.
"After going through personality profiling, my father apologized to me. 'You know what? I raised you wrong. I tried to make you be like me.' That was the first time he told me he loved me."
"Three years on, I'd push every parent harder on this — your child's wiring is set long before tennis. The job isn't to bend it — it's to read it. The parents who learn to do that early are the ones whose kids are still playing in college, still loving the game, when the others have quit."
"A point is maybe four or five seconds long. So they're doing hardware for five seconds. Then they get twenty, twenty-five seconds for software — problem solving, self-awareness, opponent awareness, score management."
"Six years later this is the framework parents most often tell me changed how they watched their kid play. The shift isn't subtle — once you see the twenty-five seconds clearly, you stop yelling about strokes and start asking better questions on the drive home."
"Have them lead the way next time you travel. Find the airport, the parking, the gate, baggage claim. The more kids are used to doing that themselves, the more they get used to problem solving."
"Twelve years on, this is the advice that travels best. I still get emails from parents who tried it once — let the kid navigate the airport — and watched their child's tournament behavior change inside a month. Tennis problem solving is just problem solving."
Frank's recurring themes.
Personality profiling before tactics
Begin every coaching engagement — and every parent conversation — by understanding how the child is wired. Tactics built on the wrong personality model don't hold.
Hardware vs. software
A tennis match is mostly the twenty-five seconds between points, not the four-second exchanges. Parents and coaches who train the software — decision-making, self-awareness — produce more durable players.
Empower the child to lead
Travel, navigate, manage logistics, talk to the coach. Decision-making capacity transfers from life to tennis far more than the other way around.
High-IQ coaching, not telling
The coach who answers every question is robbing the player of the opportunity to figure it out. Better questions beat better answers, every time.
Still in the work.
Frank is based in Newport Beach, where he continues to coach parents and players one-on-one and through his writing. His twelfth book, *The Psychology of Tennis Parenting*, came out in 2024 and has become a quiet staple on the shelves of academy directors across the country. He still consults with coaches who want to embed personality profiling into their player onboarding.
His daughter, who reached #1 nationally and the top 250 WTA by fifteen, now coaches juniors herself. Frank says that's the part of the story he's proudest of — not the rankings, but the fact that she still loves the game enough to teach it.