How people learn: the coaching qualifications, sport by sport.

Racquet sports are learned on court from a coach, not from a web page. What this page can do is explain the qualifications coaches hold in each sport, as the bodies that award them describe them, so the letters after a coach's name mean something.

Get coaching

This page explains what governing bodies, standards bodies and researchers publish. It is not a substitute for lessons from a qualified coach or for medical advice.

This page names qualification schemes and the bodies that run them. It does not recommend any coach, club, academy or programme, and it gives no teaching content. Many of the coaching pages listed below could not be opened directly, so a lot of what follows comes from search summaries; each such point says so.

Tennis

The ITF Coach Education Programme

A search summary of the ITF's coach education article (the page returned no text when opened) names its course levels as Play Tennis (entry level), Beginner and Intermediate Players (formerly Level 1), Advanced Players (formerly Level 2) and High-Performance Players (formerly Level 3). Coaches who pass receive a certificate from their National Association, not from the ITF. The contact hours have changed between versions of the page, so none are given here. The ITF also publishes a scheme for recognising national coach education systems, seen only as a search listing.

United States: the RSPA (formerly USPTA) and PTR

USPTA, now RSPA: the USPTA traces its founding to 1927 as the Professional Lawn Tennis Association of the United States and records its first certification exams in 1969, according to a search summary of its history page. The date is given two ways: that summary says a meeting on 23 September 1927 in New York; Wikipedia says November 1927. In September 2024 the USPTA rebranded as the Racquet Sports Professionals Association (RSPA) and now certifies instructors in tennis, pickleball, padel, squash and platform tennis, with existing memberships and tennis certifications carrying over. That comes from search summaries of the RSPA's brand FAQ and of a Florida Tennis article; neither page could be opened.
PTR: search summaries of a USTA announcement and of a Health and Fitness Association report say the Professional Tennis Registry was founded in 1976 by Dennis Van der Meer, and that in 2020 the USTA gave PTR full accreditation alongside the USPTA, with a unified set of US certification standards. The USTA page itself redirected, so this is unconfirmed.

Separately from qualifications, the USTA's Safe Play programme requires approved people to complete annual U.S. Center for SafeSport training, accept the USTA Safe Play Policy each year and pass a criminal background screen renewed every two years. See safeguarding.

Great Britain: the LTA

The LTA's tennis coaching levels were seen for this site only in explanatory text on an individual coach's listing, not in an LTA qualification guide, so they are not set out here. The LTA's padel courses are covered below.

Pickleball

A search summary of USA Pickleball's coach education page (which returned an error when opened) names two official coach education and certification partners:

Professional Pickleball Registry (PPR): a subsidiary of the Professional Tennis Registry, which became USA Pickleball's education and certification partner in 2018 under a multi-year agreement, according to a search summary of an Athletic Business release.
Pickleball Coaching International (PCI): USA Pickleball's announcement, as summarised in search results, says PCI met USA Pickleball's coach certification protocols and runs a fully online certification programme. The announcement's date was not given in the summary.

The RSPA has also certified pickleball instructors since its 2024 rebrand, according to the same search summaries of its brand FAQ.

Padel

The Padel Paper (5 July 2023) reported that the LTA's first padel coaching qualification was a five-day LTA Padel Instructor course, described as equivalent to LTA tennis Level 2, alongside short courses (Intro to Padel Coaching, How to Coach the Double Glass, and Coaching Kids Padel), with a Padel Coach (Level 3) course planned. A search summary of the LTA's coach tutoring page describes a Padel Coach Tutor Qualification that requires a Padel Tutor Readiness Test. The RSPA has certified padel instructors since its 2024 rebrand, according to the same search summaries. No FIP-level coach certification structure was found.

Squash

England Squash's coaching pathway, as summarised in search results (its pages returned access errors), runs:

Level 1: the Participation Coach Award, for coaching beginners.
Level 2: the Club Coach Award, with prerequisites that include Level 1, an enhanced DBS check, and safeguarding and first aid certificates.
Level 3: the Talent Development Award, preceded by a one-day introductory workshop.

England Squash has said it is revising the pathway. At world level, Wikipedia names a World Squash Coaching and Development Committee, and the 2025 Singles Rules carry a coaching appendix (Appendix 6). The RSPA has certified squash instructors since its 2024 rebrand, according to the same search summaries.

Badminton

The BWF's summary of its coach education pathway, updated March 2025, sets out:

Level	Length and delivery	Entry requirements
Level 1 (CE1)	At least 4 days face to face, run nationally or regionally	Basic badminton knowledge; aged 18 or over
Level 2 (CE2)	At least 6 days	Level 1 and 12 months of coaching after it
Level 3 (CE3)	At least 6 days plus a post-course project, run globally by the BWF	Level 2 and 3 years of coaching in total

The pathway also includes a FastTrack course for former and current international players, courses on coaching players with a disability, and tutor courses. A search summary describes the BWF's Shuttle Time programme as part of its school and coach education resources. Badminton England's own coaching levels were not found.

Who the players are, and how many, is on how many people play.

Sources

Keep reading

How many people play

The ITF's 106 million, SFIA's US pickleball and padel counts against the APP's, the FIP's 40 million against a rival report, and the gaps for squash and badminton.

Safeguarding

The ITF Safeguarding Policy of January 2026, USTA Safe Play's three requirements, the U.S. Center for SafeSport's jurisdiction, the PSA and England Squash policies, the BWF's as excerpted, Pickleball England, and the bodies whose policy was not found.

Learn

How tennis, pickleball, padel, squash and badminton are run: each sport's rule book and edition, its governing bodies and tours, rankings and the Olympics.