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!
Welcome to the Essential Tennis Blog! Thanks so much for being a reader and dropping by today. Remember to check out the Essential Tennis Podcast as well for even more high quality tennis instruction to improve your game. Simply click the link on the right side of this page.
Today's topic comes from Shawn. He recently wrote me a question about serving and volleying that said:
"I have tried in the past to serve and volley, but I find this exceedingly difficult. I seem to have two choices Serve (spin serve w/ lots of kick), Sprint toward the net (following my serve), Split step inside the service box, Hope I’m under control enough to hit a good volley. Serve (spin serve w/ lots of kick), run 75% speed toward the net (following my serve), Split step a little outside the service box, I am under control, but maybe not close enough to the net to get to everything (I often receive dipping topspin shots at my feet)
Clearly what I would like to do is "a" but be under control at the end. Should I be doing some extra footwork drills to improve my chance of gaining balance after a full sprint? Note that the kick serve is a conscience choice since I find that a fast flat serve comes back way too quickly to get anywhere close to the net."
Shawn, thats a great question, well worded and thought out. Coming to the net immediately after a serve is a great way to mix things up in your singles play, and something that everybody should be doing most of the time in their doubles play. As you say, this skill is very difficult to become comfortable with for the first time. Once you start using a split step correctly though, things become much more manageable. A split step is part of good tennis footwork, and is used to prepare your body by putting yourself in a balanced position.
I will split up this article into the two main components of the split step: the timing, and the technique of a high quality split step. After reading it, make sure to get out and practice!
Technique
The split step is a purposeful "hop" or drop into a good, wide ready position. Here is an old photo of Roddick coming down into a ready position to prepare for a return of serve. You should hit the court with your balance on the inside edge of the balls of your feet, knees bent, feed wider than shoulder width, and weight forwards.
Timing
This is by far the most important part of the split step, and by far the least understood part of serving and volleying by intermediate level players. When you split step has nothing to do with where, and everything to do with when. Shawn the reason why you're having to choose between balance and getting closer to the net is because you're choosing different places on the court to make your split step, instead of timing it with your opponents swing. A correctly timed split step will have the balls of your feet touch down on the court at the same instant your opponent makes contact with their oncoming shot. If you time it too soon, you are wasting time that could be used to get closer to the net. If you time it too late, you won't be in balance until the ball has already been struck by your opponent, which puts you closer to the net but with much less time to actually move to the ball. This means that you should begin your split step right before your opponent or partner makes contact, as they start to make their forward swing is a good time to start from. If your feet are landing first and then they're hitting the ball you started too soon, if they hit the ball and then your feet land second, then you're too late.
Readers, this is an art form and it will take you some practice to start timing perfectly. Don't be discouraged if you don't get it right away. Let me reiterate though that the timing is absolutely crucial. You want to get as close as possible to the net for your first volley or half volley, but getting close and running right past the ball obviously doesn't do us any good, so we need to be in balance as well to move for the ball. At the top of the page is a great series of photos of James Blake serving and volleying. Notice that before making his split step he only gets in two steps. Being in balance is more important than being close! Just make sure you use all the time possible, because I do want you to get as close as possible. The final photo of him in that series shows him just coming down into his split step, It looks like he's already started to identify that his first volley will be to the right and he's leaning in that direction.
Thats all for today. Thanks so much for stopping by and take care.
Greetings and welcome to the Essential Tennis Blog! Thanks very much for coming by and checking out this article. If you find it helpful, make sure to also check out the Essential Tennis Podcast which is also weekly updated with helpful tennis instruction. Simply click the link on the right side of the page.
This week's article is about why you need to be at the net as much as possible in your doubles play. In lower level and intermediate team practices that I teach there seems to be a constant debate over whether coming to the net all the time is good or not. A large amount of players at the 2.0-4.0 level feel its better court coverage to have one player stay back. Well, I'm here to tell you that if you ever want to move up in level (rather than moving up within your level) coming to the net is not only good, its necessary. Below are the main reasons why.
You want to hit down, not up.
Next time you're on a tennis court go stand on the baseline and look over to the other side of the court. How much of the opponents court can you see while looking OVER the top of the net? The answer is none of it. What does that mean for your tennis? As long as you stay on the baseline you are going to have to hit the ball in an upwards direction in order to get it to your opponents side of the court. You can do this either by opening up the racket face, or hitting it more aggressively by closing the face more but swinging upwards to hit it over. In both cases you are lifting the ball upwards, which must happen in order to make your shot from the baseline. The closer and closer you get to the net the more of your opponents court becomes available for you to hit directly at, instead of hitting up. If you're of average height and stand on the service line, now you can see some of the court over the top of the net in no-mans land on the other side. Take two or three more steps in, now you can see to around the service line on the other side. Take two more steps in, now most of the court is at your disposal to hit into.
Why is this important? If you stay at the baseline and hit up, and your opponents come to the net, they have the ability to hit down. That's a problem. You're now lifting the ball up to them, and they have the ability to hit down at you. If you were a volley ball player, what would you rather be doing, setting to your opponents or spiking? Hopefully I don't have to answer that for you. The closer you are to the net the more potential you have to attack. Now you still need to have the technical skills to accomplish this, and so if your net game is not very good coming to the net will become quite frustrating. Does that mean the strategy is poor? No of course not, it means you have to get out and improve your technique.
Take time away from your opponents.
The closer you get to the net the less time your opponents have to react to your shot. This means a mediocre shot at the net can end up winning the point, where an outstanding shot would have been needed from the baseline to throw them off the same amount. Does it mean that it takes time away from yourself as well? Yes. Therefore make sure that you're not running up and kissing the net after hitting a weak shot to your opponents. Hit a shot thats either low to their feet, or strong and with a lot of pace before committing to moving all the way in. Otherwise you could end up being a sitting duck.
Intimidate and pressure.
When both you and your partner move up to the net together your opponents will be pressured to hit a better quality shot. Had one of you stayed back, there would be an easy out to the baseliner, a way to neutralize the point and stay comfortable. With both players at the net ready to put the ball away a better quality shot must be hit by your opponents to avoid getting beat, this will make them uncomfortable and they will make more errors.
Proactive tennis, not passive.
Coming to the net puts matters into your own hands, you're trying to take over and take care of business. This is exactly what your similarly skilled opponents don't want. They want to stay in their comfort zone and not be pressured or rushed. Don't let them feel comfortable! Its your job to make them as uneasy as possible, pressuring them as much as possible. Moving both players to the net as much as possible will do just that, don't sit back and give them an easy way out to avoid hitting to a net player. Get in there and shut them down.
It's what high level players do!
Period. This is the strategy of top level doubles players. Get to the net, get to the net often, and get to the net quickly. Are you happy and satisfied playing at the level you're at right now? Something tells me that if you were you wouldn't be reading this blog. If you or your partner are currently playing one up/one back moving you both to the net will improve your doubles. Will you get lobbed over and passed? Sure you will. Will it be every point? Of course not, if your net game is competent then the balls you put away and the mistakes your opponents make trying to hit a perfect lob or passing shot will far out weigh the great shots that they do end up hitting. If your volleys and overhead aren't good enough to keep from making a lot of errors once you get up there then you need to get out and work on your technique!
Approaching the net is an art form, there are many skills and nuances that must be learned, so if you're not used to being there every point don't be discouraged if it doesn't show immediate results. I plan on continuing to cover specific parts of it along the way. In the mean time if you have any questions about it feel free to let me know! You can always reach me at ian@essentialtennis.com. Take care, and enjoy your tennis.
Welcome everybody! Thanks for visiting the Essential Tennis Blog. Before we get started I just wanted to remind you all of the Essential Tennis Podcast which is available on the iTunes music store. This week I discuss singles strategy and hitting cross court, basic serve technique, and doubles positioning for the serving player. Simply click the link on the right side of this page.
To start off todays blog I would like to thank Tomas in FL who submitted a great question to me last week. Tomas says:
"I am an average player myself always trying to improve my game. Sometimes, and almost by pure luck, I make a self-discovery and those are the things that stays in my mind more permanently. Like last weekend when I played and suddenly I had a perfect hit in the sweetspot - ah that feeling! How did that happened I asked myself the second after I hit. It was the simple thing that I caught the racket after in my left arm after the swing. And then I tried again and again, and it worked for me. The swing improved rapidly because I was forced to end up the swing at the same position."
Tomas I would like to encourage you on your quest to improve your tennis! You may be an "average" player right now, but I guarantee that if you continue to practice with such great attention to feeling and detail great strides will continue to happen in your game.
Tomas' discovery of the correlation between a certain feeling and a certain swing technique boil down to an essential athletic quality that all top performers have: awareness. Awareness means that you're conscious of many things at the same time whether you're actually focusing on them or not. These things include your position on the court, your eye hand coordination and knowing where your racket is facing, where your opponent is, the technique you're using, and how good of balance your body is in. These are all factors that play a huge part in the goings on of every point, and even every individual stroke.
Since the question had to do with technique specifically, I will list what I believe the main four things to be aware of are as you are all trying to improve your tennis strokes. If you're aware of these things as you practice and play, then learning what works and what doesn't becomes second nature, and continuing to improve follows close behind.
Quality of Contact:
Beginning and intermediate club level players just aren't very aware of how cleanly they're hitting the ball. This is a generality of course, I've taught beginners before who have known right away that a missed shot was the result of hitting off center on their string face, but for the most part lower level players just aren't conscious of their quality of contact. Realize that it isn't all or nothing, there are different degrees of contact quality, it isn't simply either strings or frame. When the ball hits your racket three inches off the center of the strings you will not get your full potential from the stroke, and the resulting shot is affected. I often tell students that technique is 100% irrelevant if you can't hit the middle of the racket, and it's true. If you're not already conscious of your quality of contact start paying attention to it right away. You'll be able to tell how clean of a hit it was by the sound, the feel, and the resulting shot. I wrote a whole article on this a few months ago, check the archives.
Tension of Muscles:
In any technique drive sport or skill staying relaxed is extremely important. When your muscles tense up it takes work to move them, and the more work it takes to move your muscles and body the less you're going to get out of your efforts in terms of the resulting tennis shot. Tension for the upper level player is an indicator that something with technique was incorrect, because correct technique should make hitting the ball over the net easy. If technique is poor, then more effort is required to make up for the lack of a quality swing. Next time you go out to hit be aware of how tense or loose your muscles are, chances are you have room to improve how relaxed you are as your swings are executed. Check the archives for a full article on this as well.
Path of the Racket:
Pay close attention to where your swing starts and where it finishes if you're trying to improve your stroke or resulting shots. This is how Tomas improved his forehand, he was aware enough of his movements to notice finishing up higher gave a better quality shot, and so now his game has improved. Where does your racket finish in general when you hit a poor backhand? When you hit a great backhand? It's not by chance or luck when you hit either of these shots, the direction that you moved the racket is going to determine the direction that the ball travels.
Path of the Ball:
This is a direct reflection of the path of your racket, its pure physics. Want the ball to go higher? Start lower and swing up. Want the ball to go straighter? Swing forwards more and less vertically. Want spin on your serve? Hit past the side of the ball, make it rotate. Every resulting shot is caused by the direction and acceleration of the racket at contact, as well as where the strings were facing. I love technique, its my job to study it. I'm quite sure that I could improve somebodies swing simply by watching the ball that they hit into the court, and not even seeing their technique. The resulting path of the ball will tell you all you need to know about what the racket was doing at contact, the ball can't lie.
So there you have it. Whoever says tennis is easy has clearly never tried to become a competent player, haha. Is this a simple thing? Clearly not. However, if you start paying closer attention to the four things above you can improve your strokes and game through your awareness. Keep what produces quality shots, and get rid of what doesn't.
As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me at ian@essentialtennis.com. Take care!
Greetings Essential Tennis readers. Welcome as always.
Just a quick note to remind you to check out the Essential Tennis Podcast available on the iTunes Music Store. If you enjoy my writing then I'm sure the audio will be helpful to you as well. On the podcast its my plan to make it listener oriented, answering questions submitted to me every week. Simply click the link on the right side of this page.
I say "good miss" to my students often when their technique was solid and their resulting shot was close to being very successful. I often get cross eyed looks from people who haven't taken many lessons from me before when I say this, and I find that most people are incredibly difficult on themselves when missing a shot by the smallest of margins. That is why I'm writing on this topic today.
Ever play golf? Many tennis players do. Did you know that there's a best place to miss a putt? Thats right, even when missing the most important shot in golf there is a best place that you can miss. The best place to miss is past the hole and to the "high side" of the hole, meaning the side of the hole that the putt breaks from if there is any curve to the roll of the ball. If the putt breaks from left to right, then the left side of the hole is the "high side". Why is past the hole on the high side the best place to miss a putt? Because without the ball getting to the depth or hight of the cup at some point during the roll of the ball its literally impossible to make the putt! You want to have a possibility of making your putt right? So that means when your putt travels past the hole and on the high side, you at least had a chance of making the putt regardless of how difficult it was.
So what does this have to do with tennis? Plenty. There is a best and worst place to miss every shot, below is a paragraph on each.
Worst place: The worst place to miss any shot in tennis is the net! Wow do I hate the net, and you should too. It's the first obstacle we face while trying to accomplish any stroke in our tennis arsenal. If the shot we hit doesn't make it over the net, it was dead in the water, it never had a chance, never saw the light of day, it is completely doomed. As soon as your shot crosses over the net a whole new set of parameters need to be met before it can be called successful, however you've just passed the first barrier.
I often start off my tennis lessons with a personal goal of not hitting the net one time during the hour I'm with my student. I rarely do feeding drills in my teaching unless I'm working with either a total beginner or somebody who's learning a new stroke or skill, so I'm usually engaged in some kind of cooperative or competitive rally the entire hour. I've only accomplished this goal over a whole hour a hand full of times, it takes conscious effort to be that consistent even when its what I do all day every day. I'd say on average I'll miss in the net half a dozen times or so during a typical lesson, all six of them leaving a certain disdainful feeling behind in my head, haha. Start taking note of where you miss, and if you're missing in the net more often than any other place on the court changes need to happen immediately! Of course what the change needs to be varies very widely depending on which stroke is the offending one. I can 100% guarantee you however that if you cut your net errors in half you WILL be more successful on the tennis court.
So where is the best place to miss? Simply put, anywhere but the net! How good of a miss you had is dependent on where your shot landed in relation to where your target was. If you missed a forehand drive from the baseline within the bounds of the sideline but deep by two feet then thats a great miss. Quite obviously I would rather you not miss the shot at all, but lets be realistic here, you're going to miss sometimes. Tennis is maddeningly difficult to master, and along the way you will miss shots, period. I'm simply suggesting that if you're going to make mistakes, they should be in a place that will lend to future success as much as possible. A ball that hits the net will never ever have a chance of landing in the court. A ball that lands long had the chance of their opponent playing it out of the air first, or wind causing it to drop in, or their opponent errantly thinking the ball was actually in.
If your contact was solid, most of your technique was correct, you had a target in mind and it fit your game and the point situation, and if the ball made it over the net but missed by a small margin then it was a good miss! Don't beat yourself up over it. Simply be aware of what needs to change in order to make the shot next time and move on. Shots that miss due to hitting the frame, poor technique, no target or an improper target, or hitting the net were bad misses. These should not be occurring often, and if they are steps need to be taken immediately to remedy the problems.
Greetings Essential Tennis blog readers. Welcome back for another article which I hope will help your tennis game. If you haven't already, check out the Essential Tennis podcast which is available for download on the Apple iTunes Music Store. There is a link on the right side of this page leading to the .xml file.
Today I'm going to write about the importance of having a target at all times in your tennis practice and play. It's a simple concept, but something that I find very few club level players take advantage of, and even a lot of teaching professionals.
First off, let me encourage you to have a target for each and every shot! It doesn't matter if you're on the practice court, taking a lesson, or competing in a match, you need to have a target for each shot. Why? Because how else are you going to be able to gauge your success? Thats the point of your finely honed strokes right? To be able to actually hit the ball somewhere. Well, having a target is the means to directing your strokes. If you're not actually aiming someplace you're hitting without a purpose or direction. Don't waste your time practicing or playing without having a plan and a target for every shot.
When you aim for a target, you have a mental picture or image of where you'd like the ball to go. This means that you do NOT look at your target as you hit your shot. Refer back several articles to learn how to properly watch the ball during all of your strokes. Your visual focus needs to be on the ball at all times, all the way up until you make contact to ensure you're hitting the ball cleanly as often as possible. However, during this process you should have a mental idea of where your stroke is being directed. Sound complicated? If you're not doing this already get out there and start practicing, I guarantee it will improve your tennis in the long run. The place where you're trying to hit is NOT going anywhere, the court isn't moving and the lines and net are constant. This means taking your focus off the ball to look at your target is unnecessary. What about keeping tabs on your opponent? Use your peripheral vision to do this, and keep the only 3 degrees of sharp focused vision on the ball at all times.
Make your target as specific as possible! My gosh, if I had a dollar for every time in a lesson I ask a student "where were you aiming?" to get the reply "well somewhere over there" while they point to one corner or the other. Sorry, thats not good enough if you have the hopes of becoming a higher level player, and I assume if you're reading this you do have that goal. When I ask that question of a student its usually because they've hit a pretty solid shot and their intentions and strategy was good, but their target was much too general. Aiming for one half of the court or one corner or the other is such a huge amount of court. If the ball lands 6 inches off of your target you lose the point, and 6 inches is an extremely small amount of court, after all you're working with 80 feet if hitting from back behind the baseline. Very few people in the world are good enough to be working in 6 inch areas of the court as a target. If you're behind the baseline trying to hit a strong penetrating shot to your opponents side you need to be leaving yourself 3 or 4 feet of room for error inside each line. Does that sound like a huge amount of space? Then I challenge you to get some rope and make a 4 foot square target and see how many times out of 10 you can hit inside of it with a ground stroke. If you've never attempted something like that before then trust me it's a lot harder than you might think.
So what the above comes down to is that you need a SPECIFIC place to aim for. And the place where your target is needs to be realistic. Don't aim for the line, or even a foot inside the line, thats just not enough room for error, you will miss it more often than you make it. Once in a while an emergency situation arises where you're forced to try a low percentage shot when your opponent is on top of the net getting ready to put the ball away. Fine, go ahead and go for it. Just realize that most tennis points end with an error even at the professional level, so getting the ball in play is going to always be a great play over going for an impossible shot that you only make 2 or 3 times out of ten.
So next time you head out to the court for practice take some targets with you! At the club where I teach we have small plastic cones that I usually use, but anything will do including a ball hopper or making a pyramid of four balls. Set up a target on both sides of the court both in the deuce side corner 4 feet inside the sideline and baseline and get a cross court ground stroke rally going with your partner using only your outside strokes (forehand for a righty). If you're as competitive as I am, wager 10 or 20 push ups for every time you hit your partners target over etc, make it fun. After 15 minutes switch the targets to the other side to work on your backhands. The same can be done with volleys, serves and returns, the possibilities are endless.
So remember to have a purpose for your shots! Practice with a purpose and a target, and take that practice to your matches. Hitting a specific place on the court over and over builds better technique, focus, and confidence in your tennis. Now thats essential.
Today I'm going to write about the return of serve in your doubles play. If you don't play very much doubles then you should! I remember being a teenager just starting to become an overall competent tennis player and absolutely hating it, now I prefer a good doubles match to singles most of the time. Doubles compliments your overall game by forcing you to become comfortable at the net using volleys and overheads, so if you're not already mixing up your play time with both singles and doubles definitely start!
Listen carefully to what I'm about to say since its probably the most important thing I'm going to write in this blog: RETURN CROSS COURT! Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. Do not get suckered into trying all kinds of fancy down the ally passing shot returns of serve, you will not come out ahead on it unless the net player in front of you has no idea what they're doing. I wrote a blog about why to hit cross court several weeks ago, if you haven't read it make sure you do. Not only is the court longer, and the net lower when you aim cross court with your return, but you avoid the person closest to you on the opposing team. Whoever is closest to you at any point in time during a doubles point poses the highest threat to you losing, unless you're on the attack and able to hit aggressively at them.
The only time I would condone hitting down the line on your doubles return of serve is when 1) you're at a 4.0 or above level player and can make an aggressive ground stroke 8 out of 10 times 2) you're receiving a very weak serve 3) the net player has no idea how to volley and is making lots of mistakes. If none of those three things exist in the match then cross court is your play all day long. Sound boring? In my opinion winning is never boring, and a cross court return is the highest percentage shot to hit. Not only is it higher percentage, but it gives you time to come into the net yourself and add pressure to your opponents next shot.
Ok lets get more specific now for you higher level players. What if your opponents are serve and volleying or poaching? If neither of those two things are happening then your return should be relatively stress free, with a full half of the court open to your disposal. If the server is coming in right after the serve your best play is cross court and down at his feet. If you're able to hit heavy top spin along with some good drive that is your best play, making the ball dip down low where he cannot attack on the first volley. If you can't hit heavy top spin, just taking some pace off to drop it lower is great. Either way, if you give the server a nice high volley you'll quite possibly be in trouble, so do your best to keep it not only cross court but low to him as well. If his partner is squirrelly at the net and moving around a lot on your return do your best to keep your focus and just continue to hit cross court. If it's becoming an obvious problem and he's getting to most of your returns easily and putting them away then you'll have to start mixing up your return. This is what they want!! A good net person will make you nervous and confident in where you're hitting, always wondering if they're going or not.
If the server has a tough serve and is coming right in to the net, and the servers partner is covering the net great and putting volleys away with ease, and your last resort is to play double back. Get your partner out of harms way so that your weak returns don't get him killed on every point. Realize that you're not giving up the net outright to your opponents and your points on their serve will most likely be an up hill battle, having to hit big passing shots or great lobs to regain momentum once they both get up there. As an alternative to this you can have your partner stand in no-mans land for your return and have him wait and see how good of a return you're able to produce. If on that particular serve you get in a great low, cross court shot then he has the ability to get right back into the net with you hopefully following him in. If you have trouble and a weak return goes up, he has the ability to scoot back to the baseline quick and prepare to defend the fort.
As always I hope you found this article helpful and informative. Remember to check out the Essential Tennis Podcast to get your tennis instruction on the go! There is a link at the top of this page on the right hand side. Feel free to e-mail me at any time with tennis questions or suggestions for the blog or podcast at ian@essentialtennis.com. Take care
Hustle. There's few things that will give you an advantage like hustle will. Today I'm going to go over my thoughts on giving all the effort you can every time you step onto a tennis court, and changing your mental thoughts about running for the ball.
Few things get to me more than a person who goes out onto a tennis court to play or practice, and watching them not try for a ball. I'm personally extremely competitive, so there's a part of me that doesn't even understand how somebody could just give up on a point or shot that they could have gotten to with just a few seconds of effort. There's three main reasons why a player will not run for any particular shot, I will list them briefly below.
1. The player doesn't think they can get to the ball. A shot is hit short, wide, or over a player and an immediate judgment is made that it's out of reach and so its allowed to pass by completely unchallenged.
2. The player thinks the ball is going out. A shot is struck by a players opponent sailing deep or wide and the player stands and watches it land thinking the point will be over in his or her favor, only to be mistaken.
3. The player sees a shot hit some distance from them, and simply decides they don't want to run for the ball.
All three of these reasons why somebody would not go for a shot are mental mistakes. If you know that you do any of them then you're simply selling yourself short on the tennis court, and you can become a better player by banishing these thoughts from your mental vocabulary. It seems like such a simple thing to ask of a player: when you go to play tennis, run for the ball! However not everybody has the same amount of drive or desire, and so in my lessons I very often find myself in the position of motivational speaker trying to get my students to put out as much effort as possible.
Here are the three main reasons why I want you to run after EVERY ball:
1. You'll get to shots that you never thought possible. I 100% guarantee you this, when you start running for every ball that's hit to your side of the court it won't take very long before you get to a shot that you wouldn't have ever dreamed would be possible. Even if it's only 4 or 6 extra balls that you get to per match compared to before trust me its worth it. Not only are you making your opponents work harder to try and beat you, but you can leave the court with the personal satisfaction of knowing you gave each and every point your best shot.
2. As you run and hustle for every ball, you will get faster! I 100% guarantee this to you as well. If you're not already running for every ball hit on the court, when you begin to do it you will get physically faster. The reason for this is two fold. First of all, when you try for the really hard and difficult shots, you'll simply get a better physical work out, your muscles will get stronger and more used to the higher level of effort. Secondly, over time you'll get better at running full speed. Your coordination and quickness will improve as you practice going for every shot no matter how far away it is.
3. You will win more points, more games, and more matches. Few people realize how big of an effect their hustle has on their opponents. Thats right, how hard you try has a direct effect on your opponent as well. When they hit a great shot to a corner or short in the court that would usually not be returned and see you just bust it trying to run it down, even if you don't get to the shot and make it they'll know immediately that they'd better keep coming up with those great shots. As you continue hustling for their every ball, often times players will start making mistakes because they'll try to make their shots better and better in response to you running them down. This puts pressure on your opponent, they can take no shot for granted once they realize you are going to put in 100% effort for each and every shot they hit. Not only are you going to win more points because you will start getting to and hitting more shots in the court, but you will win more points because of the pressure you put on your opponents to come up with a better shot to beat you with.
So let me encourage you, you can do this! As I said before, the main reasons why people don't hustle are MENTAL ones. I don't care how fast or slow you think you are, make a conscious decision right now that you WILL try for every shot hit to your side of the court. My coach in college would get absolutely livid when somebody would stand and watch a ball travel out by only a few inches. What if it was in? Run, get there, and be ready to return it in case it does land in. If it is in fact out, fine you still win the point, but you were ready to continue play just in case your judgment was a little off.
There are no subjective decisions when it comes to your point play. You will not stand and wonder to yourself "huh, that could be in, but I think its going out". The only decision is an object one, you will run for every ball, no matter what. If you subscribe to this, your tennis game will improve.
In my teaching of both singles and doubles players I encourage my students to come to the net a great deal. I love the net personally, but if approached incorrectly this strategic move can become much more difficult that you bargained for. I will split up this article into three main parts: when to approach, where to place your shot, and where to place yourself when approaching the net in singles. Enjoy!
1. When to approach
This is crucial, and if you're a singles player a good fundamental understanding of the right time to come in is the difference between winning and losing a point. When you come to the net, you take time away from your opponent. However, by placing yourself close to them, you also take time away from yourself. That means you cannot afford to come waltzing in on just any old shot or you'll be a sitting duck. There are three main times that I encourage students to come on up to the net, they are: a. After receiving a weak shot. If your opponent has had trouble with your previous shot and hit a weak reply, get in his or her face and follow the weak shot in! Generally most shots that bounce in front of the service line are considered "weak", due to their lack of pace and depth, these shots will be easy to hit with an aggressive swing and followed in behind. b. After hitting a challenging shot for your opponent. We'll get into this more in depth later on in the article. If you've just completed a stroke that will be tough for your opponent to return, compound their worries by immediately following it in for the put away. This takes good anticipation and some knowledge of your opponents strengths and weaknesses. c. You're headed upwards anyway. Sometimes I'll see students rush in for a short ball barely retrieving it, and then they will try to high tail it back to the baseline again before the next shot is hit to them. If you have lots of forwards momentum getting to a shot, go ahead and let it carry you up to the net. It will be less work than getting back to the baseline, and you will be pressuring your opponent. Just make sure you know where to hit your shot before you come in!
2. Where to place your shot
If you do not challenge your opponent on the way up to the net I guarantee you will not be as successful coming up. Since we're playing singles, in general the best place to aim is down the line. The reason for this is based in geometry. Let's say that you're right handed and just got a short shot to your forehand side. Your opponent is waiting for your shot in the middle of his or her baseline. If you hit cross court the largest part of your court is immediately in front of them because you hit from your right side of the court and placed the ball to the left. You now have a long ways to go in a short amount of time to cover this. If you hit down the middle, your opponent has an equal chance of passing either way, and can probably choose his or her stronger stroke as well. If you hit down the line, you are now automatically much better set up to cover the passing shot because you hit the ball from the right side of the court, and kept it there. Immediately in front of your opponent is you at the net, and passing cross court leaves little room for error, because one step over to your left covers most of that shot.
Now, again this is in general the best place to aim your approach, but I can think of several reasons why you could go someplace else as well. a. Your opponent has a substantially weaker shot on the other side. If cross court leads to a terrible backhand that they have a hard time hitting aggressively go ahead and pressure them by forcing them to attempt a passing shot with the inferior stroke. b. You feel you can finish the point outright cross court. An approach shot is a set up shot, you shouldn't usually be hitting for an outright winner unless it's an exceptionally easy shot. If that shot does occur go ahead and put it away cross court since the net is lower and the court is longer. If it's not very easy, better go down the line most of the time. c. Your opponent is out of position. If your previous shot sent them stumbling into the corner down the line from you, then by all means hit a nice deep or angled shot the other away cross court.
3. Where to place yourself.
Regardless of where you place your approach you need to get yourself in the best possible spot to cover as much of the court as possible. I will quickly go over the depth and width at which you should be positioning yourself after hitting an approach shot.
Depth is easy: get as close as possible! Seriously, however much time you have between when you hit your approach and when your opponent hits their passing shot use it all to get as close as you can to the net. The closer you get the more of the court you will cover if they try to pass you. Now, I can hear half of you screaming from here "but they'll lob me!". This is where knowing your opponent is priceless. Some people you play will love to lob, and will be quite good at it. If that is the case then certainly don't go rushing blindly in with that previous knowledge, hit your approach shot and come in a couple steps in front of the service line. If they do in fact lob turn to the side and set up for your overhead. If they don't lob then get on your horse and close in as quickly as possible to take the volley as close as you can to the net. This will both cut off whatever angle they may have on the passing shot and also make your volley easier.
Width is solely dependent on where you place your approach. What you need to do is "follow the ball". If you hit your shot to the right corner, you should be moving in and placing yourself to the right of the center service line. If you hit your shot to the left corner you should be moving in and placing yourself to the left of the center service line. If you hit down the middle, first of all it had better be a heck of a shot, and second of all place yourself right in the middle. By doing this you cover the easiest place for your opponent to hit past you: straight ahead. While on the run to get to your (hopefully) well hit approach hitting back cross court at an angle sharp enough to get past you is the toughest shot to execute. Now, just like with the lob, you need to know your opponent. If after approaching three times you get passed cross court three times with the same shot then pay attention and cover that side more closely next time you hit them that same shot.
There you have it, the nuts and bolts of coming to the net in singles. If you keep coming to the net and getting passed, then the quality of your approach shots needs to improve. Focus on hitting keeper and with more pace to the corner you have chosen. If getting passed isn't your problem but your opponents keep running down your volleys then your net game needs to improve. Once you get up there behind a solid approach shot the point should be over within one or two volleys or overheads.
Hopefully this was helpful! Comments or questions are always welcomed at ian@essentialtennis.com
I took private lessons from only one professional growing up. I owe a great deal of my passion for tennis to him, as well as a most of my development as a player. During a lesson one day he explained to me the four stages of learning any physical skill, and it's stuck with me to this day. Today's Essential Tennis article won't be as long or technical as the previous few, but the information is very important to understand.
Phase 1: Unconsciously Incompetent
People who are in this phase include everybody who's never played tennis before, along with those who have played for fun, but haven't spent any time pursuing the improvement of any skills or abilities. This is the starting point for every player, no skills, and no knowledge of proper technique.
Phase 2: Consciously Incompetent
Now we have players who are in the beginning stages of improving their games. These players are seeking out information and hep that will benefit their strokes, strategy, and other technique. They now hold knowledge concerning tennis (hopefully it's correct), however, they've yet to experience and practice enough to put these skills into practice consistently. A very large percentage of recreational tennis players fall into this category. They go out and play with their friends once a week for fun or exercise, once in a while they'll flip through Tennis Magazine or discuss a certain stroke with a colleague, but when it comes down to it very few if any of their technique is fundamentally sound.
Phase 3: Consciously Competent
These players play often, and have invested time and effort into really improving their game. There is now an awareness of technique, strategy and stroke production. There is an understanding of right and wrong, good and bad, which elements of their game are strong and which are weak, and they are continuing to improve based on that knowledge. Very few players will get to this point without some kind of professional teaching or coaching, so most consciously competent players are taking lessons either regularly or at least once in a while to make sure they're on the right path. I would say level wise, most of these players fall between 4.0 and 5.0 on the NTRP rating scale.
Phase 4: Unconsciously Competent
This is the ultimate! Only the highest level amateurs (5.0-5.5) and professionally playing tennis competitors ever get a taste of this. This player has the full package in terms technique, every stroke is fundamentally sound and confident after years of repetition and purposeful practice. When this player is operating at full capacity there is no conscious thought! Thats right, they go out and simply perform each part of their game automatically. Each and every stroke has been grooved enough that no thought is needed to perform it correctly. That doesn't mean that this player doesn't make any mistakes. After an error he or she will identify the problem, and the next time said stroke occurs, will be ready to perform it correctly again.
So there you have it, the ladder of tennis success. Only a very small percentage ever reach the top. Please realize that each of these terms is a generality speaking of a players entire game. In other words, one could be at Phase 3 for their backhand, and Phase 4 with their forehand, or have Phase 2 volleys and a Phase 1 serve. For a player to get their entire game to Phase 4 takes a great deal of dedication and work, and its my hope all of you will strive for the excellence that this takes!
Greetings Essential Tennis readers. I hope that you are finding these articles helpful and informative. If you ever have any questions or suggestions feel free to contact me at ian@essentialtennis.com.
Several weeks ago I wrote about the importance of good contact. I daily remind my students that technique becomes almost irrelevant if the strings are not being hit, and so obviously its an extremely high priority on the list of things to accomplish in each and every tennis swing you make. And so, the question is then asked: "Ok great, I understand, but HOW do I hit the strings more often?!".
This task is easier for some people than others. How often you hit your frame or off center on the string face is going to be determined by three main elements: your concentration level, how well you physically watch the ball, and your overall coordination abilities. Below I will cover all three.
Did you know that only a very small percentage of your eye is actually able to focus on a tennis ball, or anything else for that matter? The human eye is able to view almost 180 degrees of vision. Out of those 180 degrees, only two or three of them are actually finely focused and used for daily tasks such as reading, driving, or whatever else your "focus" happens to be on at the time. I often demonstrate this to lessons by picking up two tennis balls, each with a different number on them. I present one to the student about 3 feet away from their eyes and ask for their focus to be on the number of the ball, and to keep it there. I then take the second ball, and start about two feet away from the first one, and ask if they can read the number on the second ball without moving their eyes from the first. The answer is always "no". Then I slowly move the second ball towards the first, to see how far away they can read the number without moving their eyes. Most students can read the second ball once it gets about 2-4 inches from the first. Thats it! From three feet away, you've got about 3 inches of focused eye sight. If that small percentage is not locked on to the ball as it is traveling towards you and meeting your strings, you're using blurry vision to see the ball, and sometimes (depending on your habits) no vision at all! Your focused vision will ONLY stay on the ball if you move your eyes along with the ball through out its path to your racket.
Now that you understand how crucial this watching business is lets discuss the actual technique. What I teach people to do is what I do myself. It's very counter intuitive at first, but I believe its the best way to focus on the ball. After the ball is struck by your opponent your fine vision needs to begin tracking it immediately as you start positioning yourself for your stroke. Now here's the hard part for most people, as the ball approaches and comes into your racket as your make your swing, track the ball with your fine vision all the way to your racket strings, and then LEAVE YOUR EYES THERE. People have an amazingly hard time with this at first. Make your swing, watch the ball hit your racket, and keep your eyes at the point of contact. You will find (if you've never done this before) that you'll have an extremely strong desire to look up and see where the ball is going. Don't, contact is more important, and that needs to be where your focus is. After the ball has left your racket and your swing is complete go ahead and look up to see the resulting shot, and start the process over again when the ball gets to your opponent. Here is an amazing video of Roger Federer doing exactly what I'm describing.
Once you have disciplined yourself to do the above technique, your contact will become better. After you've made it a habit, a great deal of how good of contact you make will be determined by your concentration level. So often during the day I see a player on my court or another set up a great point by hitting a series of strong shots. They work the point well and as a result are rewarded with a weak easy shot that should be an easy put away. They move in for the kill, and shank the ball terribly into the net or outside the court. Sound familiar? Everybody who's ever played tennis has done this. It was the easiest shot of the point! How could this happen? Lack of concentration (or possibly lack of confidence as well, for another article). Do NOT take any shot for granted, no matter how easy. As soon as you lose respect for the swing you're on and stop watching the ball closely your chances of missing the shot go up dramatically. Concentrate on each shot equally and fully, your chances of making good contact will be hugely increased.
Another function of concentration is being aware of exactly where the ball is striking your racket. Not only should you know when you hit your strings and when you don't, but when you errantly strike the ball you need to be aware of exactly where the ball DID hit on your racket. Often times I see students make off center hits in exactly the same place on their frame over and over. Obviously they're making the same error in judgment on each swing, resulting in poor contact. If you're not able to identify where the ball is hitting patterns of contact will be lost on you, as well as valuable improvements that could be made. If you find that on a certain stroke you often hit the top edge of your racket, you're judging the ball to be lower than it actually is, and so make a conscious effort to raise the height of your racket when you make contact next time. This is a combination of concentration and trial and error. Keep paying attention and your contact will continue to improve.
Lastly, good eye-hand coordination will greatly increase your success at hitting your strings. Is it possible to improve your coordination? Absolutely . My #1 tip to students who lack good eye-hand skills is to learn how to juggle. Yes, learn to juggle! I firmly believe anybody can do it if enough time is invested, and your coordination skills will benefit hugely. Think of how easy it will be to watch the ball to your racket when you are able to watch two, three, or even four tennis balls all at once while you juggle. Here is a good link to instructions on how to do it. I taught myself how when I was 10 or 11 from a book, and I'm certain it had a big effect on my development as a player.
Thats all for this week! This turned out to be a longer article than I expected, hopefully some of you read it all the way through and found the information informative. Good luck with your tennis!
In this article I'm going to discuss something thats a large part of my teaching; being relaxed. I find that such a large majority of recreational players are tense and tight while playing and practicing tennis, and very few realize it, nor understand the implications that it has on their game.
First off let me go over why this is so important. You will never realize your full athletic potential unless you learn to train your body and mind to stay relaxed. Obviously there needs to be a mental and physical sharpness and awareness to perform any kind of athletic skill at a competent level. However, actual tension of muscles while trying to execute a stroke, or anxiety of the mind and thoughts during a match are incredibly destructive to ones game. Today I will go over how essential a relaxed body is to your tennis.
As a teacher of tennis I have done my best to study each stroke in tennis very closely. The more I can understand about technique the better I can serve my clients in improving their skills as much as possible. In watching a person's strokes, tension and tightness is definitely way up on the list of things that I try to identify right away. Why? Because any muscle tightness during any tennis stroke immediately make every movement much more work and effort to perform. Worse yet, somebody who is very tight will not only have to work harder, but usually it means that some movements and techniques of any given stroke won't even be completed because their own body is holding them back. Take for example a forehand ground stroke. When behind the baseline and making a swing at the ball you have at the very least 78 feet of court at your disposal. A good ground stroke is lifted over the net and driven deep into the opponents court so as to keep them pushed back away from you and in a position that makes it difficult for them to attack. The longer of a path your racket travels before, during, and after contact the more likely you will accomplish the lift and drive necessary to hit such a shot. The shorter of a path your racket travels, the more effort it takes to hit the same shot. Basically, speed multiplied times length is going to equal your potential for power and spin on your forehand, and every other stroke requiring pace and spin.
Now consider for a moment how many muscles must be summoned and used to create a deep and effective ground stroke. The human body has around 700, so its pretty safe to say dozens, and probably hundreds of muscles are in use depending on how advanced of a swing you have. The more relaxed those used muscles are the more freely they're going to move, and the more potential will be available for both length of swing, and speed of swing. The more of them are tight, the less likely your swing will be long or fast to begin with, and even if you still manage it, it's going to take a great deal more effort than it should. While reading an article recently I saw a great quote coming from the realm of martial arts. I'm sorry I don't have the exact words nor the source, but it stated: "One's ability to create power, is directly proportionate to ones ability to relax". They know their stuff.
Lastly let me talk about where I believe a great deal of tension comes from in the fist place. Failure. Listen to the average tennis player after missing a shot long or wide outside the lines: "oohhh, too much!", "Darn, I hit it too hard again". Rarely is this actually correct. If sound technique is used, a great deal of pace is available for any player to take advantage of. When said "too hard" shot is missed, most players' immediate physical response is to become tentative on the following shot. This may or may not keep the next shot in play, and then the next time a shot is missed, often times the player tightens up even more. This is how people get stuck playing at the same level of tennis year after year. Rather than fix the actual technical reason that the ball left the boundaries of the court, a great deal of players will simply pull back physically to try and rein their shots in. The result after repeating this time and time again is short, tight strokes that take more effort and net less results.
So in conclusion, stay relaxed! If you're a better than average player please don't think you're exempt. Over the past several months I've been really rehashing my backhand ground stroke big time. Through less than great technique I've acquired a great deal of tension on that side, and it has taken a lot of conscious effort to start loosening it up again. If you're an average, or less than average player then you're in luck! This can really help you out a great deal. Next time you go out to practice really be conscious of your muscles as you swing. If your hand, arm, and core feel tight what so ever through out any certain swing, then there's a lot more to be had. Find a tennis professional who knows good fundamental technique and start getting everything you can out of your game!
As always, its my sincere hope that this could have helped your game! Feel free to leave me any questions or comments at tennisproian@gmail.com. See you next week
I'd like to write today about something that all players should be considering as they play and practice. Most lower and mid level recreational players are not even aware that there are patterns of play that are more successful than others. Mid to upper level players may be conscious of it, but I rarely see very many of them take full advantage of it in their point play on the court.
Ever watch a professional tennis match on TV, and wonder to yourself "why do they keep hitting the ball back to each other?". Often times you will see pros get into repetitive cross court court rallys. The reason is, each is waiting for an opportunity to hit down the line that would give them an advantage. Hitting cross court is safer, and they know it, so a smart player will often only hit cross court unless there's an opportunity that out weighs the risk.
Most of the reasons that cross court is better are pure geometry. Tennis is a game of angles, and you need to know how to take advantage of them. Below I will list the three main reasons that you need to be playing and practicing cross court.
1. There's more room to hit to! In fact, a lot more room to hit to. Every tennis court is 78 feet in length. When you aim down the line, thats about how much room you're going to have to lift the ball over the top of the net, and still have it fall safely within the lines. From corner to corner cross court in singles, you have an extra 4 and a half feet! Thats huge. Think about how many ground strokes you miss by a foot or two, if you were smart and aimed to the largest part of the court, these mistakes would be reduced. In doubles, the difference between down the line and cross court is a full 8 feet. Thats larger than a 10% increase in space to hit to. Please re-think that return down the alley.
2. This one is self explanatory, but certainly worth stating. The net is lower in the middle. When you hit from corner to corner on a tennis court, not only are you using the largest amount of court space available, but you're hitting over the lowest part of the net. You've now decreased risk in two different ways. At the net post, a regulation net is 3.5 feet. At the middle, it is 3. So that cross court return in doubles gives you an extra 8 feet of court, and half a foot of net.
3. When you hit at an angle, your opponent has to work harder to get to the ball. Everything else being equal, when you hit cross court, your opponent will have farther to travel to get to the ball, as opposed to hitting down the line. The angled shot will travel farther and farther away from him or her the longer it takes for them to retrieve it, where as a ball hit straight will continue to stay the same distance from them through out its path.
So there you have it. Not only is cross court safer in every regard, but your opponent will have to work harder to get to the ball. It just doesn't make sense to go down the line a lot. Now, as with anything, there are exceptions. Here's a short list of reasons why you may want to go down the line and incur the extra risk:
1. If your opponent has a noticeably weaker side. Sometimes it just makes sense to put the pressure on a weak backhand or forehand. Wait for a relatively easy shot, and then go for it.
2. If your opponent is well out of position. If they're having a hard time recovering towards the middle of the court after a well hit angle from you, then down the line can pay off.
3. If you're approaching the net in singles. This is called "shading", or following the ball as you approach. I will write a full article on this at some point.
4. In doubles, once you get up in front of the service line and get an easy volley or overhead, often times you have a net player directly across from you also at the net. In this instance straight ahead and at the feet of the net player is a great place to aim.
Well hopefully you now have a good understanding of why cross court is in general superior to down the line. Down the line isn't "wrong", but if you're trying it even close to the number of times you're hitting cross court I can pretty much guarantee you're making a lot more mistakes than you should be. Save the high risk shot for when you have the upper hand, and you will be more successful!
In my 40 hours of teaching tennis each week, there is one phrase that I undoubtedly say more often than any other: "Off center!". By this I mean that the student has made contact with the ball somewhere other than the center of their racket. If you're a recreational tennis player then I can just about guarantee you this happens more often than you think.
After making terrible contact on a certain shot and not even coming close to their target I will often ask my students "so why did you miss that shot?". If they've never had a lesson with me before more often than not they will answer "because I didn't turn my shoulders", or "because I didn't swing up" etc, when in fact the ball didn't even hit their strings.
Why am I spending time writing about what seems to be an incredibly obvious thing that needs to be done in order to be a successful tennis player? Because its so important, and because I'm quite convinced most average level tennis players have no idea when they do it correctly or not.
When it comes down to it, whenever you attempt any stroke in tennis if you cannot hit the middle of the racket face then nothing else even matters. Did you hear that? Nothing else matters. All those hours you spent working on that new top spin forehand swing, go right out the window. Why? Well, because your strokes are all formed based on the premise that you're going to be hitting your racket face. When good contact doesn't occur, even the most perfect technique can't guarantee a successful shot, where as perfect technique along with correct contact WILL occur in a good shot every time.
Hitting off center on your racket will basically bring a random result, based on how far off center you actually are. If any part of your frame is hit you can pretty much forget about making your planned shot most of the time.
So how can you tell if you're hitting off center? This is something every tennis player needs to be conscious of, it's extremely important. There are three main ways in which you'll be able to tell if you've made good contact on any shot. They are:
1. The sound. Pay close attention to this. I hear thousands of contacts per day, and could easily tell you blind folded how good of contact any particular shot has been. In trying to teach this to junior clinics, one of my helpers likes to say that a nice shot will make a pretty "ting!" sound, where an off center hit will create a "thunk!" type noise. There's many variations of these sounds depending on how closely you get to the exact center of your strings, or exactly how much of your frame you hit, and everything in between. Listen closely and see the resulting shot, and you should be able to start identifying which is which.
2. The feel. This is another big one, in fact, I would say this is probably the biggest indicator. Often times after not even being close to making good contact, a beginner or intermediate tennis player will say to me "wow I need to start gripping my racket tighter, it keeps slipping in my hand". My reaction to this is "NOOOOO!". Ok, so I don't react that strongly, I would have lost my job by now if I did. If the ball hits right in the middle of your racket, your tennis racket will NOT twist or turn in your hand. It will stay stable because where the ball struck the racket face is right in line with the grip of the racket where your hand is holding it. The farther contact deviates from the center of the strings, the more the racket will want to twist in your hand. You will also feel a twinge and vibration caused by the poor hit, more or less depending on how poor contact was. I like to refer to a shot where great contact was made as a "clean hit", it will sound and feel nice and crisp. Again, if you're not conscious of these things in the first place then you won't be able to tell the difference.
3. The result! If you had a certain target in mind, were in good position, and made a reasonably good swing only to have the ball fly way off course then most likely your contact was poor. Being just a little bit off center will cause softer touch shots and volleys to fall woefully short of their goal, being very fall off center can cause any shot or swing to miss by large margins. Now, there's a myriad of different reasons why you can actually miss any given shot, thats why I can actually earn a living as a tennis professional, heh. Therefore, you need to be reasonably sure that your stroke was correct in order to use this indicator for good contact.
So the next time you miss a shot, try to recall the sound, the feel, and the result. If any one of those three things seemed off its quite possible you just hit off center. If you can recall any two, or even all three being off, then you can be 100% certain of it.
How can you improve your contact? By watching the ball! I will write on that in a later installment of this blog. It's a whole subject in and of itself. Until then, play well!
As a tennis professional I see an extremely wide range of attitudes on the court each and every day. Do you have one that will lead to the greatest amount of success in your career as a tennis player?
First lets visit the two extremes, both of which will do a great deal to affect your improvement and enjoyment of the game:
On one hand, we have the purely social tennis player. Everybody who is a member of a public or private tennis club knows this type quite well. They play purely for the purpose of getting out of the house and seeing friends, and if along the way there is some exersize as well then all the better. Its possible for this type of player to improve if they play enough, but because there isn't much seriousness or focus behind their play there will rarely be a large jump in ability. Is there anything wrong with this? Certainly not, the reason why each person decides to walk out on a tennis court is their own perogitive. This player enjoys their time on the court because there is no pressure to perform up to any certain standard. Any missed shot can easily be shrugged off because, after all, "we're just out here to have fun".
On the other hand we have the player who takes themselves incredibly seriously on the tennis court, and usually, in most other things as well. This player demands "110%" at all times from him or herself, and anything less than that in terms of results is simply a failure. As somebody who considers himself mostly in this category I can tell you that it is both a blessing and a curse. If I'm honest with myself, mostly a curse, haha. Because of my perfectionism there have been times in my tennis career that I have seen huge strides in my ability as a player, and as an athlete in general. This however has to be underscored by the fact that I've also gone long periods of time as a tennis player with absolutely no satisfaction or joy in what it was I was pursuing. Looking back, it just isn't worth the agony of never quite being good enough, or the worry and stress of wondering as I walked out onto the court for a match if I would play "well" that day.
In reality, the optimum attitude for most of us is somewhere in between. Do I want you to be concerned about how well you do? Well sure, you should want to get better and improve. Each time you walk out onto the court you should "leave it all out there" and all those other cliches. Never go out to practice, play, or take a lesson without giving the best effort possible. But please realize this: most of your days will be average. Read that again please. Most of your days will be average. For people like me, that statement is really difficult to accept. However, that is the reality of things, thats a reality of life. Don't let it discourage you, there are always three things that you CAN control: your effort, your focus, and your attitude. If each time you walk out onto a court you CHOSE to have a high level of effort and focus you WILL get better. By also choosing a healthy attitude towards your results, you can not only get better but have more fun and satisfaction along the way. If you can keep a close eye on those three things, your "average" performance will continue to raise.
This doesn't mean that you will stop having bad days on the court, simply that the level of your bad days will become higher than before. It's all relative. Don't let a bad day or match affect your focus and effort, realize that its going to happen some times, and learn to live with it, even laugh at it. Then come back next time hoping for the best once again.
So strive for a healthy attitude for your tennis, and in your life in general. Things that are done just for fun are fine, but don't expect to ever become great at them. Things that are done with the expectation of personal perfection will probably result in competence quickly, but very little satisfaction and a great deal of frustration.
