Thoughts on FYB’s most recent footwork video.

Yesterday Will and Adam over at Fuzzy Yellow Balls released another video focusing on footwork with the well known tennis coach Yann Auzoux. Check out the video below and then I’d like to make a few comments on it:

Mini Tennis: Do It!

I absolutely love that Will and Yann put out a video of the two of them performing a mini tennis rally. This warm up and practice method is hugely underused by recreational players! If you’re one of the many tennis enthusiasts that thinks hitting inside the service boxes is below you, amateur, or a waste of time you’re completely wrong. In FYB’s video both players demonstrate great footwork (which was the focus of course) but what you need to also take note of and try to emulate is their outstanding control of technique and swing. Within a 5 minute long rally (one take!) Will and Yann talk, demonstrate multiple types of footwork patterns, swing between forehand and backhand and even between topspin and slice all without losing control of where the ball was going. All of you reading this should be striving for this as you use mini tennis as a warm up every time you walk out onto a tennis court.

If you try mini tennis with a partner only to be frustrated please don’t give up on it. Will and Yann make it look really easy in their video, but in reality it isn’t. Only through years of practice, great athleticism, and high level skills are they able to rally for that long while demonstrating everything that they did. Start off with a goal of making 15 in a row with your hitting partner. Every shot must land inside the service boxes, no double bounces, no volleys, and you should be using a slower, slightly abbreviated version of your baseline techniques. If 15 is easy for you and your partner then start throwing in different directions on purpose (cross court/down the line rallies) as well as changing up between topspin and slice. Again, make sure that you’re using quality technique! Please don’t cheat the drill and yourself by pushing and poking at the ball with short, jerky technique.

“Not Thinking About It”

Yann makes a comment at the end of this video about Will completing all of those different steps during the rally “without thinking about it”. That should absolutely be your goal whenever learning any new tennis technique whether swing related or footwork, just make sure to keep in mind the amount of time, repetition and work that will be involved in creating this new habit. I think that the walking step, hop step, and inside step can all be used effectively by players on any level, but not everybody will simply pick them up first try and have it benefit their game immediately.

I’m definitely not asserting that Will or Yann made any kind of statement saying that this is easy, or that you’ll get it right away, they didn’t. On the other hand it can be really easy to assume that it’s not very difficult when watching two players as good as them do this type of practice. If you’re below a 4.5 level and don’t currently use the three types of steps described in this video then I would take quite a bit of time with each of the three individually as you try to get comfortable performing them. Don’t try to get all fancy and throw them all in together at the same time until each of them has been practiced enough that it starts to become second nature. How long will that take? Everybody is different. If you’re a great athlete it might only take 5 minutes each, a more average one might take half an hour of solid work, and somebody without much natural talent might not ever get comfortable with some of those steps at all (might be harsh to say but 100% true).

Work On Your Footwork

Lastly, I’d just like to briefly state how important I think footwork is to everybody trying to excel at the sport of tennis. When watching rec players at the club where I teach or at a public courts the types and amounts of footwork used makes it REALLY obvious what level of player is out there immediately. I think that footwork is really under taught both online and on the court since the modern recreational player is enthralled with the huge amounts of spin and power created by professional athletes. Well guess what? Unless your body is in a comfortable position in relationship to the ball you’ll never be able to use that great technique that you spent hours and hours practicing with easy feeds from a ball machine or tennis coach.

The walking step, hop step, and inside step can be great additions to already solid fundamental footwork but make sure that you are already great at the basics! To all of you 3.0 and 3.5 players out there dismissing my last sentence you need to really pay attention here. Simple patterns like the lateral shuffle, cross over step, backward shuffling and cross over (for deep groundstrokes and overheads) and the split step are HUGELY underused by average level players. Take some video of yourself in a baseline exchange and really take a long hard look at it. If you’re making contact at different heights and widths from shot to shot then completely forget about adding what’s be advocated in the video above, get better at the basics first!

Miss Serve and Volley? Get Over It.

Alright, that’s it. I’m tired of reading these rants from old school tennis fans that say our sport is going down the drain since they don’t see the stylistic choices of tennis players past any longer. I can understand where they’re coming from and don’t blame them for missing serve and volley a bit, but it’s time to accept the changes to our sport and stop the whining. Historically grass has been the fastest surface in tennis with low, skidding bounces making ground strokes challenging. Combine this with the lesser athletes and small, heavy wooden rackets of several generations ago and it’s easy to understand why getting to the net as soon as possible was the best play.

Since then serve and volley tennis has all but gone away at Wimbledon and it’s due to three main reasons:

The Grass

I’ve read several blogs recently that seem to regard the “supposed” slowing of the surface at Wimbledon as some kind of conspiracy theory, as if players are just saying this as an excuse. News flash: the type of grass being used has actually changed, it’s a documented fact. The new type (100% rye) plays much, much slower than the combination of rye and creeping red fescue that was previously used. The change was made back in 2001 and shortly thereafter the serve and volley game all but disappeared. Coincidence? No, it’s not.

The Players

Current professional players hit the ball harder and with more spin from everywhere on the court than ever before. It used to be that to hit a winner from the baseline you had to be in a balanced position with your weight moving through the shot and “stepping in”. That has completely gone out the window. Why? Today’s professional players have made training and physical strength into a science. They’re faster, stronger, and more versatile than ever before which makes ridiculous passing shots possible while practically falling over in the corner.

The Gear

Personally, I feel that way too much emphasis is placed on modern rackets and strings, I think the biggest difference between current pros and those 15 years ago is in training and athleticism, not rackets and strings. However, the more powerful rackets and polyester strings have definitely made a difference, no question about it.

Put It Together

So, we have a slower, higher bouncing surface, bigger, stronger, more versatile athletes, and equipment that accentuates both power and spin. Why in the world is anybody surprised that professional players are hesitant to get close to their opponents by coming to the net after taking all of this into account? It’s important that we never forget those who came before us and the lessons that they taught us, however it’s time for everybody complaining about this shift in tactics to put away their whimsical thoughts of the good old days and accept the facts: the times they are a-changin’.

The last thing that I’d like to say about this is that we need to give current professional players more respect. To those of you who are detracting the tactical choices of these players: what is your conclusion as to why exactly the pros are neglecting the serve and volley game? If the grass is the same as before and serve and volley still would be the best strategy to use, then how can you possibly explain why it’s gone away almost completely? Are they just stupid? Do you really know more than they do about winning against the worlds best players in 2010? If it is in fact true that Sampras could come out of retirement right now and dominate the field with his serve and volley game then why doesn’t he? You really think he enjoys the couch more than winning titles? And if serve and volley is so far superior against the modern baseline game then how come not even ONE player on tour hasn’t figured this out yet and even made it to the round of 16 serving and volleying exclusively at Wimbledon, much less won multiple titles?

To those of you who disagree with me, I’d love to see your answers to those questions in the comments below. And if not, quit your whining.

Good Tennis Instruction, Poorly Applied

So often I see and hear tennis instruction that just doesn’t make any sense. Recreational players can latch onto this poor information without knowing the difference and I think it’s really a shame. Below is a post on the ET forums from a new member, he gives a perfect example of what I’m talking about and then I answer his question!

The “Mogul Move”

“The other day I was exploring one tennis website and came across the explanation of Mogul move:

“Contact Move: The body becomes elevated after the hit where the hips shift powerfully sideways and both feet turn and finish pointing in the direction of the target. Again, weight moves sideways after contact and spinning or rotating the hips will cause the ball to be dumped into the net. Hit off a moving unstable stance, the secret to the Mogul Move is staying down throughout the shot instead of jumping or lifting on contact. ”

So how to do it? Only hips should move sideways but the weight should not?

This move is mostly used for a wide forehand, which is a headache for me. I’d really like to master it. In my practice, more often than not, I either dump the ball into net or hit the ball very long. Can someone explain to me why weight moving sideways and rotating hips will cause the ball to be dumped into the net?”

Response From Ian

“You’re describing things that I often read online, things that just don’t make any sense. I think you’re asking a really good question: why will moving your weight sideways while rotating your hips cause the ball to go into the net? This is a perfect example of somebody online trying to teach something pretty advanced to recreational players, and claiming that it will fix a problem that is much, much more fundamental in nature.

Any groundstroke will only really hit the net for one of three reasons:

1. The racket face is too closed at contact, the strings are facing down towards the court.

2. The racket didn’t lift the ball enough, it didn’t start low enough before contact, or didn’t finish high enough after contact. The swing was too straight, or maybe even downwards.

3. The ball hit off the frame, poor contact, it didn’t travel as it should have.

That’s it. Put me in any position on the court, with my feet in any stance, my momentum traveling any direction, my hips turning either direction, using any grip, and I can make the shot. Period. Now, any of those things may cause good technique to become more difficult, and can INDIRECTLY cause you to miss a shot by throwing you into poor mechanics, but which direction your hips are turning, and which direction your weight is moving has nothing to do with the direction that the ball travels.

Is the footwork described a good thing, can it improve your game and be beneficial? Yes, absolutely, I’m not knocking the idea of the mogul move, or saying that it’s wrong. All I’m saying here is that you should be careful what results you’re expecting to get out of instruction like this, and saying that doing a mogul move correctly or incorrectly will either cause you to make or miss forehands is just plain wrong.”

Next time you read tennis instruction online simply ask yourself “does this make sense?”. If you can’t answer “yes” then leave it alone, the vast majority of differences between different levels of tennis players are the basic, fundamental parts of the game. Anything more complicated than that shouldn’t be paid attention to most of the time.

Controlling Your Emotions

I recently answered a great question about keeping your cool on the tennis court. Basically the question asked: “How can we keep from going crazy after stupid errors out on the court?”. I’d like to share my answer with the rest of you because I know many of you reading this can fall into the trap of getting negative while playing tennis!

This is a really good topic. So many of us tennis enthusiasts take our game very seriously, so seriously that any kind of failure or mistake becomes inexcusable. I battled with this while I was in college and wish that I had learned how to deal with it then, I had so many practices and matches that made me just miserable on the court, it was really a shame. Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject:

Keep Tennis in Perspective

This is kind of an obvious thing, but something that I think many of us lose sight of since we take the sport and our improvement so seriously. None of us play professionally, whether or not we win is not going to have any bearing on our income, livelihood, success in life, or if our friends and family love us any more or less at the end of the day. It’s awesome that people love tennis so much that they take it seriously and really try their best to reach their full potential, but at the end of the day it’s just a game, something that we should all be doing for enjoyment! It sucks being so hard on yourself, it’s really not fun at all. Be realistic about the implications of your performance that day and lighten up a little bit. I wish I had started practicing this earlier in life.

Emotional Habits

Next I’d like to make the statement that emotional and physical reactions to both good and poor shots on the tennis court are habits, they’re practiced and learned whether you’re conscious of it or not. Somebody that I teach with recently had a great quote during a clinic: “If you practice being negative, you’ll get good at being negative. If you practice getting angry, you’ll get good at being angry. If you practice being positive, you’ll get good at being positive. What do you want to be good at on the court?”. Many of us fall intro the trap of thinking that when we hit a crappy shot we have to be disgusted with ourselves. Well, it’s your choice. You can make the choice between focusing on the negative emotions and feelings, and projecting those on the court, or to let those feelings pass and move on to the next point you have to play with a level head. I’ve recently started to make a habit out of smiling and making light of my errors, especially the really bad ones. Have a sense of humor about it. It’s not that I’m actually “ok” with screwing up, I’d obviously rather not, but heading out onto the court I know that errors will occur, and I want their occurrence to affect my game play as little as possible that day. Make a conscious effort to practice being positive on the court. It will improve your game.

Break the Cycle

Why will it improve your game? Because nobody plays well when they’re angry. Almost always getting angry and frustrating becomes a terrible cycle on the court. An error is made, your emotions go south, the next point is played with a poor attitude and another error is made furthering that crappy outlook on your game and the match. I’ve only ever known ONE player who honestly played better with a chip on his shoulder and angry at himself or his opponent, it’s an extremely, extremely rare trait. Break the cycle by forming new habits and having more positive emotions on the court.

Making Errors

Lastly, I’d like to reiterate something that I mentioned before: you’re going to make errors. It doesn’t matter how good you become, you will never leave a tennis court without making unforced errors. I’m not pointing this out to be negative or a pessimist, but rather to make sure that you all have a healthy expectation on yourselves out on the court. So many tennis players make those inevitable errors and immediately focus on how stupid they were to make a mistake, as if they’re above it and too good for such things. This kind of attitude will only set you up for frustration and a constant feeling of failure which is simply unrealistic. When errors happen immediately give yourself positive feedback, tell yourself specifically what you’re going to do better next time you get that same shot or are in that same situation on the court. It’s not the end of the world, errors are all just part of the game of tennis, nobody plays without them.

Cheers guys.

-Ian

Overhead Footwork and the Three Step Drop

Moving backwards is not something that us humans do very naturally. This makes sense of course since our bodies are designed to move forward. What does this mean for our tennis games? Moving back to cover a good lob is very often a huge weakness for tennis players, especially doubles players who spend a ton of their time up at the net. In my experience very few recreational level players move correctly when trying to get back towards the baseline for an overhead and this causes lots of problems when even a relatively easy lob gets hit up into the air. Don’t be this person! The lob is the highest, slowest, most defensive shot in tennis, not something that you should be fearful of or afraid to hit. Hopefully this quick article will give you a good idea of how to best move in a backwards direction to cover even the best lob and give you more confidence when you’re up at the net.

Three Step Drop

I want you guys to check out this youtube video of Jay Cutler demonstrating a “three step drop”. The three step drop is a series of steps used by high level football quarterbacks to get themselves off the line of scrimmage quickly and efficiently. The quarterback makes this move to give himself some space to work with and also to buy some time between himself and the oncoming defenders trying to make his life miserable. This guy is a professional athlete, he definitely knows how to move, even backwards away from his own end zone. Obviously his tips on where to hold the ball aren’t applicable to us, but I want you to pay very close attention to what he says about his feet and how he moves them.

Jay begins in essentially a “ready position”. Tennis players should be in a little bit wider of a stance than he demonstrated but everything else is identical: knees bent, facing forwards, and hands in front. From this position he turns himself to the side by bringing his right foot back around his left to put himself into a “square” or “neutral” stance. This is absolutely critical and where things break down for players who are poor at moving back for overheads. Not only does turning to the side give you a much wider base to move back from with your feet but it puts your body in a strong position to hit an overhead from as well. Imagine trying to hit an effective serve in a stance that starts you off facing the net head on, it just doesn’t make sense from a technique perspective.

From this sideways position Jay uses two different types of steps: a cross over step and a shuffle step. In my opinion as long as you get sideways to the net and lead with your right foot either type of step is perfectly fine to get yourself back underneath a deep lob. The cross over step will definitely get you back more quickly than only using a side shuffle, but it definitely takes some more coordination and athleticism to use. Try them both out, as well as combinations of each to see what feels most natural to move you back towards the baseline. When I get an easy lob I only use side shuffles to make adjustments while turned to the side, on a tougher lob that I’m really having to work for I’ll use one or two cross over steps at the most and then shuffle steps from there, just like Cutler did in his demonstration.

Check out the image at the top of this article of Favre and Rodgers as well (can you tell who my favorite football team is?). The images of both players show them in the middle of a cross over step. While their shoulders are perpendicular to the line of scrimmage their hips are actually facing back towards the opposing end zone. This is why they’re able to get back off the line so quickly, it’s almost like running backwards, but with their upper body sideways ready to throw. As I said earlier this takes a lot more athleticism and coordination, but definitely give it a shot. Moving back this way for an overhead is the ultimate in speed and balance.

Get out there on the court and practice this! With some time and repetition you’ll be moving back more quickly and in better balance in no time.

Tennis Video 101

Digital video has revolutionized so many aspects of our lives in the past decade, including how we learn and interact as tennis enthusiasts. It wasn’t so long ago that the only way we could view video of tennis players was either on TV or by checking out tapes at your local library. Nationally recognized tennis pros and coaches would often times come out with instructional videos as well which you could purchase from the backs of magazines or at tennis conventions.

These days absolutely anybody with an entry level camera, entry level computer, and connection to the internet can become a star on the tennis court. Below I’ve outlined the top 5 components of creating your own videos so that you can receive the best feedback and instruction possible. Follow these instructions and your videos will be a pleasure to watch instead of a pain.

Camera

Digital video doesn’t cost an arm and a leg anymore. In fact, you can now get full HD quality video right to your computer screen for less than $200. Hands down my favorite way of shooting high quality digital video on the cheap is the Flip UltraHD camera. This camera fits completely in one hand, takes two hours of HD quality video, and can be had for as little as $155. For examples of the video quality coming from this camera check out the point play analysis shown in the Video section of Essential Tennis.

The Flip Cam isn’t the only option for HD quality video at a cheap price. Take a little around Amazon.com and you’ll be surprised how many different companies are jumping on board to give us tennis players a wide variety of hardware.

Tripod

Sounds like a no brain-er, right? Well believe it or not people submit videos of themselves to me that were shot without the use of a tripod all the time. Do your viewers a favor and make a small investment in one of these incredibly useful devices, otherwise you’ll have myself and other tennis enthusiasts reaching for the motion sickness meds faster than you can say “action!”. This does not have to cost a lot of money! People are always surprised when I tell them that they can pick up a tripod to do the job for under $20, but it’s true. Here’s a link to a full sized tripod on Amazon that costs only $16 with shipping included. A favorite of mine is also the “Gorillapod” mini tripod that has flexible arms to wrap around things like a fence or net post. This is really cool when combined with my little FlipCam, especially since it only costs $17 on Amazon.

Framing

Your video camera is able to “see” a certain amount of space on the court and where you place yourself within that space is your framing. I often times see stroke videos where the subject is literally on the other side of the court, barely taking up any space in the frame. This makes it extremely tough to pick out technique keys and give good feedback to players. On the other hand, if you’re looking for feedback on strategy and point play you want to be able to see as much of the court as possible, which means both players are going to take up much less room in the frame. It totally depends on what you’re trying to get information on, strokes or point play. Do your viewers a favor and put a lot of thought into setting up your camera and tripod properly so that everybody can clearly see what you’re trying to show them!

Stroke technique videos: fill the frame as much as possible without leaving it constantly. Point play videos: place the camera to see as much of the court as possible. At the top of the back fence pointing down is definitely the best.

One more thing about framing your shot for stroke technique. In my opinion the two most useful angles to view tennis strokes from are either directly to the side of the player (90 degrees to the right or left) or directly behind the player looking forwards towards the net. Pointing your camera towards you from the other side of the net or skewed off to the side at a random angle makes it a bit more difficult to give the best technical feedback possible.

Editing

Have you thought about editing your technique or point play videos? I’m not talking about color correction, chroma key, or anything else fancy like that. What I suggest is simply cutting around your most important content to make it easy for your audience to watch. When editing out all of the dead time in a typical 6-4 set there’s actually only 6-10 minutes of actual play time. Not only will it be that much easier and faster to watch, but when all of the points are back to back it’s much easier to pick out patterns in the match play without all of the time searching for balls and taking water breaks in between. Just like tripods and cameras, it’s not necessary to spend a lot of money to get this done. In MacOS iMovie is definitely the way to go, very easy to use and included with the operating system. If you’re a Windows user then a great free option is Windows Movie Maker.

Publishing

Obviously YouTube is the most popular way to put your videos up for the world to see. Some tennis players don’t want their content to be available for just anybody to see, however. Within YouTube are a vast array of privacy settings, including ways to create private links that only certain people can access. It’s totally up to you how public or private your videos will be. Keep in mind that YouTube limits the length of your uploads to only 10 minutes, and file sizes have to be within 2gigs. Alternatives to YouTube include blip.tv, Vimeo.com, and Viddler.com.

Once your videos are published to a video hosting web site make sure to drop by the Forums at Essential Tennis to receive free feedback from certified tennis professionals!

Why I’m Thankful For Tennis

Today is a Holiday here in the United States called “Thanksgiving”. It’s a time to slow down and reflect upon everything that we have to be thankful of which, if we’re honest, is a great deal no matter what circumstances happen to surround us. Below I’d like to briefly write about the different aspects of tennis that I’m truly thankful for, parts of the sport that have made me a better person and improved my life. Hopefully you share my appreciation for these benefits. Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page with your own list of things to be thankful for as it pertains to the sport of tennis!

1. Physical Fitness and Conditioning

I’ve always been blessed to be a very active person through out my life and tennis has been a huge part of that. Training yourself to become a good tennis player includes by default physical conditioning and training, trying to wring as much out of your body as possible so that on the court you can perform to your best. Whether it was push ups after losing to my pro during private lessons, “one ball pick ups” in high school practices, or sprint after sprint in the middle of college practices I’ve always pushed my body as hard as possible, practice after practice and match after match. The benefits of this hard work extend beyond the tennis court. I’m lucky enough to be in very good condition and plan on continuing that for the rest of my life thanks to my enjoyment of tennis. Tennis truly is the “sport of a lifetime”, continue playing tennis and it will reward you physically for years to come.

2. Mental Toughness

It’s difficult to put a price on the overall mental toughness and competitive confidence that playing the sport of tennis for years can give you. Good tennis players are able to perform under pressure so well because they’re all alone out there on the court (unless you’re playing doubles of course). You don’t get teammates to pick you up physically or mentally, nor a coach to give you a kick in the butt when you need it or open your eyes to a strategy that you overlooked. Tennis players learn how to problem solve, trouble shoot, and never back down under the pressure of an attacking opponent. These mental skills are learned over time of course, so if the descriptions above don’t sound like you then don’t despair! Get out there and continue to compete as often as possible. Your learned competitive skills will transfer over to so many different parts of life, both in different sports and otherwise.

3. Strong Friendships

There’s something about the friendships formed around an athletic endeavor, among hard physical work and the thrill of competition in the air. Without a doubt most of my long term friendships over the years have been tennis teammates, guys who I’ve fought alongside with towards a common goal: win for the team. Such a strong bond is formed within these conditions, and I’ve been very fortunate over the years to know many people in this way. If you’re not currently playing on a club team, in a USTA league, or any other kind of team tennis competition I strongly encourage you to start ASAP, regardless of how long you’ve been playing or your ability level.

So how about you? What about tennis are you thankful for?

Effort is a Skill

When asked the question “what skills are needed to be a good tennis player” the first things that come to mind for most of us are athletic abilities such as good eye hand coordination, quickness, agility, or strength and flexibility. Other players may cite more cognitive traits such as being a good strategist, picking out an opponents weakness, or having rock solid mental toughness. Today I’d like to talk briefly about a different type of skill.

I would like to submit to you today that putting in maximum effort is a skill. It’s an athletic trait that can be practiced and learned, not something that you’re either born with or not. This is great news for all of you reading this, it means that you’re capable of great things if you just focus and actually try as hard as you can. I know this may seem kind of corny, and probably overly obvious as well, but please just bear with me for a few more paragraphs.

Separate Yourself

When I graduated from college and started teaching full time I was blind sided by the type of people that I started to work with. I had grown up with a huge appreciation for the tennis lessons I received because I actually paid for most of them myself. I didn’t take a single one for granted, and worked incredibly hard on the court. Imagine my frustration when trying to teach somebody who had shown up at the tennis club that day simply to have something to do with their time, the two of us had completely different ideas about what it meant to “play tennis”.

Many, many recreational tennis players have a very leisurely and laid back attitude about their tennis. Is there anything wrong with this? No, absolutely not. These players have different priorities in life, and tennis isn’t extremely high on their list overall, it’s just a fun activity to participate in. This is where you can gain a huge advantage on the court, by separating yourself from the casual player in attitude and effort level.

Make a Commitment

Next time you step out onto the tennis court, whether it’s for practice or competition, make these commitments to yourself:

• I will run for every ball until I either get to it or it bounces twice.
• When I run for a difficult ball I will actually run full speed, and not slow down at the end.
• I will make at least three steps towards every shot my opponent/partner hits, even if I think it’s going out or into the net.
• I will remain mentally focused on the drill I’m completing or the strategy I’m trying to implement.

If you can make it through an hour of tennis and can honestly say that you’ve completed the above four things I can promise you that your game will advance more quickly. Few people take the game seriously enough to put in this kind of effort both physically and mentally, if you make the commitment to do it every part of your game will be better for it.

Train Your Body

As you continue to follow the four guidelines listed above you will start to notice a difference in your athleticism. Your anticipation and reaction time will start to increase as you build up your habit of immediately making a move for every single ball. Your physical quickness and agility will become greater as you actually try with full effort to run down every single ball, rather than making a subjective decision whether or not you could get there and just watching it bounce twice instead.

These are the types of things that we see in high level players and say to ourselves: “Wow, what an amazing athlete! I wish I could run down shots like that.” The only difference between them and yourself is that they’ve actually practiced running down every ball, over and over, year after year. They’ve built up their reaction time, quickness, and agility over time. You can do the same thing!

At first you may start getting to more shots, but missing due to the difficulty level of them. Don’t get frustrated and stop trying, it will take time to practice the actual stroke needed to make these shots on the run, often times in awkward positions with your body and on the court. Make the commitment, keep working hard, and build your skill at putting in 100% effort!

Doubles: Angle Volleys

In doubles the net is the place to be! I’ve written other articles on why moving forward is ultimately the best strategy for you to develop in your doubles game. Today I’m going to talk about one of the big reasons why moving up to the net is a great idea in doubles: greater ability to angle the ball away.

All too often I see average level tennis players do a great job making their serve or return, they move forward to the net and put themselves in a great position to win, they’re then rewarded with an easy volley and move in for the kill only to hit the volley directly back to an opponent giving them an opportunity to stay in the point. Hitting it towards them low and with lots of pace is one thing (we’ll get to that later), but if you’re not at a level yet where you can do that reliably then you need another option to finish the point. An effective angle is any shot that passes freely between your opponent and the net as it leaves the court to either the right or the left. Here are the two most important things to keep in mind about angling the ball away at the net.

Closer is Better

One extremely important thing to understand when it comes to angling the ball away from your foes is how your position relative to the net affects your effectiveness. The closer you get to the net the more options you have to angle the ball away because you’re able to hit directly at more and more of your opponents side of the court. If you’re like most 3.0 to 3.5 level players it’s very likely that a large percentage of your time at the net is spent positioned right around the service line. Some of you may be saying: “Around the service line is close enough right?”. I disagree, at least when it comes to being able to angle your volleys effectively.

There are 21 feet between the service line and the net. If you’re 6 feet tall that’s about four long strides. When it comes to using angles to put the ball away a good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that volleying to what you can physically see over the top of the net is going to be your best bet. Again, if you’re 6 feet tall and standing on the service line what you’re able to “see” is about half of no man’s land, the last nine feet of the court before the baseline, not very much space when it comes to creating an angle. Does this mean that the whole rest of the court is completely inaccessible to volleys? No absolutely not, with good enough hands it’s possible to land a volley on top of just about any point on the court from the service line, the difference is that it takes a whole lot more skill and precision to perform that type of touch volley as opposed to hitting directly at your target as you try to put the ball away.

Placement Over Power

The second important thing to understand when it comes to angling volleys away is that once you’ve done the work of closing in and you have a good “look” at your target it doesn’t take a very strong shot to finish a point if it’s placed well. This definitely has to be the other most common mistake I see average level club players make when they’re rewarded with an easy volley up close to the net, they correctly attempt to angle the ball away from their opponents but try to hit a much better shot than is necessary resulting in an error instead of winning the point. It’s often very difficult to do in the heat of battle but you have to try your best to relax and stay calm while executing your put away angle, there’s nothing worse than losing a point unnecessarily when you had an opportunity in front of you.

So there you have it. Close in tight, pick a target that will put the ball away from your opponents and off the court, and then place the ball there firmly but under control. Start practicing these types of volleys on purpose and use them more in your competitive points, it will pay off!

You Can Improve. Believe It.

If you’re like most of the readers of Essential Tennis I know that you’re extremely passionate about the game of tennis. It isn’t a game that you play just for fun, just to get exercise, or just to socialize with friends. Certainly those aspects may enhance and improve your tennis playing experience as well but they probably aren’t the primary motivator. You play because you love it, because you can’t get enough of it, because the very first time you walked off of a tennis court after playing you said to yourself: “Wow, I cannot wait to do that again!”.

Just like anybody else who discovers a deep interest for a certain subject or activity you want to understand it and be able to perform it the best of your ability. After all, the better you can play the more satisfying and enjoyable it will be, right? I know exactly what this drive for improvement feels like. I’ve been working hard at my own game for 17 years now and definitely haven’t had enough yet, there are still many things that I’d love to keep improving and become more competent at.

As you follow this path you may get discouraged or have doubts. “But Ian, I just started playing and I’m 45 years old”. “I don’t have the money for hours and hours of private instruction”. “I’ve been trying to learn topspin for 5 years and I just don’t get it”. I hear these types of concerns and excuses all the time both on the court and in electronic correspondence from web site visitors.

Let me encourage you, believe me you can improve your tennis game. I’ve seen marked improvement in people of all ages, sizes, and ability levels. Over that last year I’ve been extremely excited to see people improve their game without even taken a lesson, just by listening to the podcast and posting on the forums at Essential Tennis. How can this be achieved, even by somebody who may have a few special obstacles in their way? If you put into use and focus on the three things below I can all but guarantee that you will improve your tennis game.

1. Effort Level

Nothing inspires me more than a student who just busts themselves over and over again hustling after balls. This could be the #1 difference maker in your game if you’re not already pushing yourself physically to your limits day after day. Make a commitment to yourself that you will give everything you have on both the practice court and during competition. This will pay dividends in the long run big time both physically and mentally. Just for one hour of practice try springing as fast as you can towards every single ball until either you get to it or until it finally bounces twice. Do this on shots that you don’t think you could possibly get to, do it for balls that go out, run full speed for every single ball. Most likely after an hour of this you’ll be physically exhausted, after doing it many times your conditioning and speed will be improved a great deal. By the way, it doesn’t matter if you get to the ball or not, simply promise yourself that you will run every time.

2. Focus and Concentration

When you walk out onto the practice court make sure that you have goals and objectives for every single thing that you work on. Not only should you have these planned out ahead of time, but once you start a certain drill or rally don’t ever stop until you actually achieve it. No more stopping and getting water because it’s getting too hard only to get off the bench and play games to 10 instead of your drill. No more trying for 5 minutes to rally 10 in a row cross court and moving on to something different because you got mentally tired. Keep your focus, stay on task, build your mental muscle.

3. Solid, Fundamental Information

Anything that sounds gimmicky on the internet, or sounds too good to be true is probably not worth investing time, effort, or money in. Good tennis instructional information should make sense, it should be logical, it should be backed up by specific examples seen in high level players. Ever have a web site tell you that you can have a forehand like Roger Federer for $9.99? Move on. Are you a 2.5 player and being told that you need a windshield wiper forehand or kick serve? Take one step at a time, you have to master the fundamentals first. Everybody on the internet thinks that they’re an expert about whatever they’re talking about. Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots and lots of great information about improving your tennis game. However, be aware that there’s also a lot of poor information as well, and information that can even hurt your game or body if followed. I’m not trying to say that this web site is the only place with good tennis instruction information, not at all. Just beware of what type of instruction you buy into on the internet, check it against reality first and always keep in mind whatever level player you are.

Follow these three important guidelines and you can continue to make steady gains in your tennis game. Keep working hard both mentally and physically and continue to feed yourself good instructional information. You really can improve your tennis game!