Next week, tennis fans will have a closer look at the often anonymous collection of pros, parents, and gurus who train the sport’s best women.

At the Rogers Cup in Montreal and the Pilot Pen in New Haven, Conn., the week before the U.S. Open, the WTA Tour will experiment with on-court coaching during matches. Tennis, it seems, always needs freshening up, whether it’s a summer-long series of tournaments, instant replay, or a new blue paint job. On-court coaching is the latest marketing tool, and it may well survive its test run and become a regular feature of the game.

Here’s one vote for its quick and painless death, as was the case in the men’s tour a few years back. I say this not because I fear coaching will scramble the one-on-one, stroke-versus-stroke, nerves-versus-nerves DNA of tennis. This is not about tradition, or the fact that mental fortitude and willpower have long had as much to do with winning Grand Slam titles as physical ability (see Safin, Marat). Nor is it that a higher-ranked and better-paid player, who can afford a better coach (or a coach, period) will have yet another advantage over a lesser counterpart.

The more convincing arguments against coaching are: A.It will prove boring; B. Early indications are that many players will not summon their coaches to the court, and C. It will show how helpless a coach is to change the course of a match that has gone wrong (in practice, coaches are quite valuable, but this will be less apparent to onlookers who might wonder why a coach even draws a paycheck).

First, the rules of the game. A coach, or perhaps a hitting partner if a player so chooses, will sit nearby the court. Once a set, a player can request a visit during a changeover. Another visit is allowed between sets, unless a player takes a bathroom break. Themost visits in a three-set women’s match would be five (one per set and one between each set). Television crews will film the pep talks and broadcast them once a match resumes.

Coaches may well come armed with valuable advice: hit to her forehand, come to the net more often, or just block back those returns. Most often — one might go so far as to say always — none of this will matter.

A professional tennis player knows what needs to be done on court. It’s the doing that’s difficult, and some things players can’t do on certain days or against certain opponents, while other things they can’t do at all.

How much would Yuri Sharapov help his daughter Maria by whispering instructions into her ear, rather than shouting them from the stands as he does now? (The fact that illegal coaching is commonplace is the best argument in favor of the new format, but why not then allow it for the entire match, rather than once a set?) A succinct indictment of in-match coaching came from Richard Williams at Wimbledon last year, after Venus had beaten Sharapova in the semifinals. Williams, father and coach, said of his rival Sharapov’s endless commands,”I think it confused the girl.”

Sharapov’s words probably motivate Maria off the court. On court, though, it’s just as likely that Sharapova wins in spite of her father, rather than because of him; it’s not hard to imagine a scene where Yuri signals to the chair umpire for a meeting, and Maria tries to wave him off, or rolls her eyes as he comes bounding from his seat.

A tennis player the caliber of Sharapova does not need a consultation in the middle of a match. Other top players seem to agree: In recent weeks, Kim Clijsters, Nicole Vaidisova, and Nathalie Dechy were among those who said they were either against the idea or would not call upon their coaches during matches.

A tennis player usually believes she is trying to do what her coach wants her to do. If she fails, well, that’s the other player’s doing — or some mystifying force of nature, or her strings, or her shoes. It’s doubtful that another dose of common knowledge will do much more than increase frustration.

If there is any purpose for a coach in the middle of a difficult match, it is to shore up a player’s confidence.The best method for this, of course, is lying, as cornermen in boxing have shown for years. “You can do it, champ, just keep pounding it cross-court. One point at a time, one point at a time.”Imagine listening to this as Rafael Nadal sits in his chair on the other side of the court, leading two sets to love, and calmly munches on a banana. It would not be as sad as a man with a bloody nose and an eye swollen shut being told that he had to stick the jab, but perhaps not much more uplifting than that, either.

Many of the recent changes in tennis are for the better.The U.S. Open Series has so far lifted television ratings, and instant replay has proven a success (and enjoyable to watch on television, too). When held up against those innovations, coaching does not compare.A better investment for the women’s tour, perhaps, would be in calculators. Who leads the field in aces? How about firstserve percentage, return games won, or second-serve points won? No one on earth knows the answers to these questions, because the tour does not keep track of these most basic statistics. Perhaps Sony Ericsson, the tour’s sponsor, should sign up for that experiment and leave the coaches to shout, aimlessly, from far-away seats in the stands.

tperrotta@nysun.com