How are your points ending?

The purpose of improvement to any part of your game is to win more points right? Well today I'd like to write to you about the types of improvements that are going to make the biggest difference in how many points, games, and matches that you win. The average recreational level player assumes the best way to win more points is to learn how to hit the ball harder, more aggressively, and with more spin. Those are all great things, and certainly will improve the quality of your tennis, however, without a solid foundation of consistency first they are almost completely irrelevant. Why? Because if you don't know how to keep the ball in play first and foremost, trying increase how aggressive you hit the ball is going result in more errors, keeping your ratio of points won to lost the same if not worse.

So lets look quickly at the three main ways that a tennis point can end:



Winner

A shot is hit by either player that is so good, it's not even touched by their opponent.

Forced Error

The shot missed was able to be touched, but was so difficult it wasn't expected to be put back in play, ie, the shot that ended the point wasn't a winner, but just too good to return.

Unforced Error

A missed shot that is the sole fault of the person who hit it, their opponent did nothing to make them hit an error.

How would you guess the majority of your points end? Unless you're above a 5.0 level, the type of shot ending the most points will be an unforced error. That surprises a lot of tennis players who have been playing a long time and think of themselves as accomplished players. Accomplished or not, tennis is still a highly difficult sport, and errors happen much more often than is realized.

As an example I just went to the Australian Open site for this past tournament in 2008, and looked at some stats for day 7 of the 14 day event. In the men's draw, of the 12 players who competed that day, over half of them (seven) had more unforced errors than winners or forced errors. These guys do it for a living every day, and made it half way through one of the four most contested tournaments in the world every year, and yet they made more unwarranted mistakes than either of the other two ways that points end. Granted, the players who made more errors than winners or forced errors usually lost their match, but these are still professionals we're talking about.

I've charted matches for many lessons in past to show them their stats, and to analyze what needs to be worked on the most. Typically the types of numbers that I would see from a competitive club player would be two or three times the unforced errors as compared to winners. So with that being the case, how can such a player (a player like you or I) improve the number of points they win the most?

The answer is by increasing the number of shots you're comfortable hitting in the court in a row, by increasing your mental focus and physical consistency. There is no short cut around this, the only way to increase the above skills and attributes is through solid technique, and as much practice repetition as possible with a specific target in mind.

Is having weapons and hitting the ball agressively still an important part of becoming a better player? Certainly, forcing your opponent to make mistakes is still ultimately a large part of the game, but statistically speaking, most of us are going to see the biggest results in focusing on consistency first and building our ability to put the ball in the court over and over and over. Once that has been well established, adding weapons, power, and spin on top of that are the building blocks to becoming a truly great player.

Straight arm or bent arm, Essential?

Hello and welcome to the Essential Tennis Blog!

Today's blog topic was submitted by a listener of the Essential Tennis Podcast, and his question brings up a topic I feel strongly about. Ahmed wrote to me this week and asked:

"Hi Ian

I read this on a lot on different forums. Could you elaborate on the straight arm vs. Bent arm forehand styles. Seems Nadal and Federer play with a straight while others like Djokovich use the bent arm approach. Did you have a preference? Can you do both??"


Ahmed, to answer your questions, do I have a preference? No. Can you do both? Yes absolutely.

Tennis is much like golf and other technique intensive sports in that all of the top players do certain things the same way, and yet no two players ever look the same while executing their game. How is that possible? Well because every player has a different set of talents, skills, and athletic ability. What is good for one player might not be good for another. This is why its extremely important to be very careful who you get technical information and advice from. There are hundreds and thousands of amateur tennis players out there roving the internet looking for somebody who will listen to their ideas on how to hit a "modern" forehand, or any other stroke. Are their observations and ideas necessarily wrong? No I don't think so. Just because the best player in the world uses a certain technique, does that mean it must be the only way it can be done? No of course not, in fact, Roger Federer does countless things that I would never recommend to most of my students. Why? Well because they aren't Roger Federer, and we both know they never will be.

Does that mean we can't learn anything from the pros? Certainly not, it's always great to keep up with how the best in the world are doing things. In general though, they take good technique, and accelerate and advance it to the extreme, something that most of us don't have the skill and ability to do. Thats why they're on TV playing and we are not.

So, what can we take from the pros? What you should be looking for are things that every pro does without exception, and then implementing those things. Every pro uses their core muscles to power their strokes, every pro aims deep in the court on their ground strokes, every pro pronates on their serve, every pro split steps as their opponent hits the ball.

My point is, I've never thought about whether my arm is bent or straight on my forehand, and I would bet that Federer, Nadal, and Djokovich don't know either if you would ask them.

Now, obviously there are extremes that should be avoided. I'm not saying that it doesn't matter if your arm is fully stretched and extended or not at contact, or that hitting the ball half a foot from your body is good either. What you should all be focusing on, is what is comfortable and achieves the best results for YOU, when used within the basic constrains of good technique. Certain things will not work well period, like attacking from behind the baseline with a downwards swing path, or trying to hit a soft touch volley with your racket face closed. Certain things are essential to success, and certain things are style and personal preference.

So in closing, a 3.5 player shouldn't be concerned with the small nuances of each tiny movement and angle of a professionals swing. That would be like a Ford Escort studying the telemetry of a Formula 1 race car. Rather than getting caught up in the details and debating the differences between pro's swings, focus on the basic similarities instead, thats where we all need to improve.

Stroke review: Overhead

Welcome Essential Tennis readers! It's great to see the community here at EssentialTennis.com start to grow, and I hope as it does more and more people can improve their tennis game.

If you've read many of my blog articles, or listened to many of my podcasts, you know what I'm a huge proponent of coming to the net, both in singles and doubles play. Not only does coming closer to the net give you positional advantage over your opponent, letting you see more of their site of the court allowing you to attack more directly, but you take time away from them at the same time and pressure them.

Starting to make coming to the net a part of your overall tennis strategy means that sooner or later (probably sooner) you're going to get lobbed. This is a good thing! When your opponent puts up a lob it means they're falling back on the, highest, slowest, and most defensive shot in tennis. When that happens, it means you've done your job to pressure them and they're giving you an opportunity to put the ball away. Are all lobs going to be easy to put away? Certainly not, some opponents will have better touch than others and hitting a strong overhead on their deep lob is going to be a challenge.

So how do you hit an overhead correctly? I'll break down the basics into three main parts below.


1. The turn

When that lob goes up into the air you only have a limited amount of time to take advantage of it by getting into a good position to hit an aggressive overhead. The very first thing we must do is turn our body and hitting arm so that both the feet and shoulders are perpendicular to the net with the racket back in an "answer the phone" position. This does two things. Firstly it gets your body in a position to move back in balance, rather than back pedaling with your chest facing the net. Secondly it rotates your core and shoulders so that when we do get into a good position the whole body can be used to rotate back forwards again into contact. Both these things are essential to hitting a solid overhead, the ability to move and position, and the ability to rotate and hit a strong shot.

2. Positioning

After you've rotated to the side and taken the racket back you must immediately start making movements to get underneath the ball. The best overhead swing technique in the world does nothing for you if you're not in position to actually use it, so footwork is huge. I often have students point up towards the ball with their opposite arm as they rotate to the side. This does two things: makes sure that a good rotation was achieved, and it also is a great aid in tracking the ball and moving to the right spot. If your position under the ball makes it possible for you to reach up with your opposite hand and actually catch the ball then rotating your dominant side forwards and up towards that spot in the air should make contact quite easy and comfortable. So have a partner hit some lobs in the air and practice rotating to the side and catching them with your non dominant hand, not making an actual swing at the ball. After completing this several times in a row position yourself in the same way, but this time rotate forwards and reach up with the racket to make contact.

3. Contact

Contact should be made with a full extension of both arm and shoulder, with your racket face square to the ball. At contact your body should be back to parallel to the net having made a 90 degree turn into contact, using that strength in your core and shoulders. Hopefully your positioning was good, and you can make this swing at the ball while in balance, being able to make an aggressive swing at the ball. If your overhead hits the net, make sure that you're making an upwards swing towards the ball. Only if you're very close to the net can you actually swing downwards and actually spike the ball. If you're at the service line or behind you'll have to make an upward swing to clear the ball over the top of the net. If the ball sails long, then your racket face was open (tilted upwards) at contact. Its very important your face is square to the ball at contact or else hitting the ball aggressively isn't possible without missing long.


I know I just went over a lot of technique things, and they could all be described in greater detail. I wanted to simply go over the most important points of hitting a solid overhead. Other important technique things include the grip that you use and the racket face when you take your racket and dominant shoulder back initially. I will go over these in the future.

As always, thanks very much for stopping by and spending time at Essential Tennis. If you ever have any questions or comments feel free to let me know. I look forward to continuing to help everybody improve their tennis!

-Ian