Does it coach strokes or track matches?
No to both. Smash Coach does not teach your serve, fix your grip, run drills, film your swing, count shots or keep score. If you came looking for lessons, a qualified coach at your club is the person you want. If you wanted something on your wrist to count rallies, this is not that either.
Smash Coach is a training app for adults who play sport. You tell it the days you play tennis and the other sports and classes in your week, and with Pro or during your trial its coach plans the strength, conditioning and mobility sessions that sit around them, in one weekly plan. The coach is AI, not a person. The plan is the work you do off court.
Singles, doubles or hitting: how hard is each?
First, how much does your tennis already ask of you? That depends on the format more than on the sport. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities lists six separate tennis entries, from hitting practice to competitive singles, each scored in METs, multiples of a standard resting rate. Its bands put 3.0 to 5.9 METs at moderate and 6.0 and up at vigorous, and the tennis entries land on both sides of that line.
| How you play | How hard | Where the figure comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Singles | 8.0 METs: vigorous | Compendium, code 15690 |
| General play, competitive | 8.0 METs: vigorous | Compendium, code 15676 |
| General play, moderate effort | 6.8 METs: vigorous | Compendium, code 15675 |
| Doubles | 6.0 METs: vigorous | Compendium, code 15680 |
| Doubles (a second entry) | 4.5 METs: moderate | Compendium, code 15685 |
| Hitting balls, no game | 5.0 METs: moderate | Compendium, code 15695 |
| Match play set up for the study, veteran players | Heart rate about 149 beats a minute; ball in play 22 to 24% of the time | Measured in 20 men aged about 45, 10 advanced and 10 recreational (2009) |
Singles and competitive play sit at 8.0 METs, well into vigorous, and even a general game at moderate effort clears the line at 6.8. Doubles is the awkward one. The Compendium lists it twice, at 6.0 and at 4.5, and does not say what separates the two entries, so a doubles evening sits somewhere around the line between moderate and vigorous. Hitting without a game, at 5.0, is moderate. Every figure is an average for adults aged 19 to 59, and the paper itself calls the Compendium a starting point that does not reflect precise individual values.
The last row is a measurement rather than a rating. In a 2009 study, 20 men aged about 45, ten advanced and ten recreational veteran players, played matches set up for the study, including a one-hour match. Heart rate averaged 148 to 150 beats a minute, rallies lasted about 6 to 8 seconds, and the ball was in play for only 22 to 24% of the time. Level made no significant difference to any of those; the advanced players covered more ground, about 3.6 km against 3.2 km. The authors write that the results indicate match play satisfies the American College of Sports Medicine's recommendations for cardiovascular fitness in healthy adults, independently of ability, and that tennis “seems to be a viable and highly popular mode of healthy activity”.
Twenty men in one setting is a small sample, and your league night will differ. What neither source measures is strength. The WHO's 2020 guidelines ask for something on top of the aerobic minutes: muscle-strengthening work for all the major muscle groups, at moderate intensity or more, on two or more days a week. That is the part a plan around your tennis is for; what to lift, and how close to a match it can sit, is in tennis and the gym.
What does the plan do for a tennis player?
Two steps put tennis into your week:
- On You, under SPORTS STACK, tap + ADD and choose tennis (add a sport or a class).
- Pick Fixed days and tap the days you play, because each day you pick is one session a week, or Flexible if you would rather set how many times a week and let the app choose the days. Set your usual session length and tap Save (sport settings).
Fixed days suit a league. The fixture list and the court booking decide your nights, not you. Flexible suits the player who books a court whenever a partner is free: the app picks the days, and when you end up playing on another day, move that session there and it stays where you put it. Above those settings sits a line about what tennis does to your body; with Pro or during your trial, that is what your coach is working around.
The same screen also has two switches. Turn on Coach warm-up and cool-down and, with Pro or during your trial, your coach writes a short routine for before you go on court and another for afterwards. Turn on Add performance training if the aim is to play better tennis, not only to stay fit around it: it adds a tennis goal, which takes one of your three goal places, so it can be refused when all three are taken.
From there, with Pro or during your trial, your coach plans the strength, conditioning and mobility sessions around your tennis and everything else you do. When a new fixture list moves your nights, change tennis's days and save, and the plan is rebuilt for the new pattern. It changes when something real changes, never on a timer, and moving one session leaves the rest of the week alone (when your plan changes). A cup match or a friendly outside your usual days goes in as Add upcoming session, from the plus at the top of Home or Agenda: it adds one session on one day, and before you commit, a card shows what it does to your week (adding something that is coming).
On the free plan, your tennis still goes on its days, but your coach is paused, so the rest of your plan stays as it is.
What do the tennis articles answer?
- Tennis and the gym: whether the gym goes before or after you play, why the muscles you trained matter more than the order, and lifting through a season.
- Can you play tennis every day: how much is too much, what the research links to elbow trouble and tired legs, and what the days off court can hold.
- HYROX and tennis: for players who also race, where a sport full of pauses meets a race with none.
- Tournament weekend: several matches in two or three days, where the gym goes that week, staying warm between matches and the days after.
The other racket sports, from padel to badminton, and the questions every sport shares are on the sports page.
Between matches, in the app
With Pro or during your trial, the coach chat knows your week. Ask it to move a gym session out of the way because a league match was rearranged, or to shorten one, and the change arrives on a card you Confirm; nothing reaches your plan before that (apply a change).
At the gym, workout mode shows one step at a time, keeps count of your sets and rest, and splits a move done on each side into a left step and a right step; it works on the free plan too. Exercises are shown as clean illustrations: the movement on a plain background, with nothing extra. The team is exploring video and moving images (exercise illustrations).