University tennis beginners face simultaneous technical, perceptual, tactical, and psychological demands that may exceed their attentional resources, challenge perceived competence, and diminish engagement. This mini-review synthesizes evidence on cognitive load, self-efficacy, autonomous motivation, multidimensional engagement, ecological dynamics, and beginner tennis pedagogy to explain how instructional design can support both skill acquisition and sustained participation. Evidence on equipment scaling and game-based learning indicates that low-compression balls, smaller courts, simplified rules, and cooperative tasks can increase the number of playable exchanges, enjoyment, and early confidence, although direct tests of cognitive load reduction are scarce and university-specific evidence remains limited. Constraints-led practice can then connect stroke production with perception, positioning, decision-making, and tactical intention, whereas selective technical instruction is most useful when a diagnosable movement feature restricts accuracy, consistency, or transfer. On this basis, this review proposes an evidence-informed, stage-matched (readiness-informed) conceptual framework that organizes individually supported instructional functions into a diagnostic, skill-specific, overlapping, and reversible structure rather than an empirically validated sequence: Stage 1 reduces entry barriers and builds credible mastery experiences; Stage 2 develops adaptive exploration and transfer; and Stage 3 refines limiting technical features while progressively restoring standard conditions. Engagement is positioned as a proposed mediating process linking psychological mechanisms to learning and participation. The framework extends evaluation beyond immediate performance toward retention, transfer, confidence under challenge, and sustained participation as an important but currently undertested outcome. Controlled and longitudinal studies are needed to evaluate the proposed mechanisms, pathways, and boundary conditions across diverse university settings.