Essential Tennis Podcast #105

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Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. If you love tennis and want to improve your game, this Podcast is for you. Whether it’s technique, strategy, equipment or the mental game, tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player. And now, here’s Ian!

Ian : Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast, your place for free, expert tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game.

Today’s episode of the Essential Tennis Podcast is brought to you by ProTranscript.com.

Thank you very much for joining me today, and before we get to today’s questions that I’m going to be answering from listeners, I’d like to remind you guys about Essential Tennis Live. Essential Tennis Live is a live call-in show that myself and Ron Miller, from [inaudible] do together every week and that show airs live on Thursday nights at 8:30pm EST.

Ron and I have a great time doing that show– we talk about different topics having to do with tennis every week. We take calls from listeners and there is a live chat room. Check us out this week and you can do that by going to blogtalkradio.com/essentialtennis. Or go to essentialtennis.com slash live and hopefully Ron and myself will see you this week. Alright, let’s go ahead and get down to business. Sit back, relax and get ready for some great tennis instruction. [music] [music] [music]

Alright, let’s kick off today’s show by talking about some singles strategy which I always enjoy talking about. And this question comes to us from James. James wrote to me and said ‘Hi Ian, I thought of something that hopefully might make a good topic for the future– I suppose it would fall under the title of strategy, putting together a plan A and a plan B. This is my dilemma. Having listened to your Podcasts, I have put together my own plan A in singles which is always as follows: serve and volley as much as I can. Generally try and hit to opponents backhands as much as I can. Wait until I hit a very good shot and then attack the net. Try and attack the net as soon as possible and especially against better opponents.

I believe that this is a similar strategy to your own, and I feel puts my strengths, my volleys, against most of my opponents weaknesses– their backhands. I love this strategy, but what I struggle with, is I don’t really have a plan B. Plan A usually works well, although one of my opponents has incredibly good forehand passing shots, and a reasonable backhand so I have to make sure that I only attack the net on a very good approach shot deep to his backhand side. These opportunties are very limited so he usually ends up beating me around 6-2 in set play.

Is this a case where a good plan B could make a difference? And if so, what would be a good strategy? From experience, I know that reverting to baseline to baseline rallies does not work for me as it is not one of my strengths. Grateful for any help that you can offer– James’

Really good question. I want to start off my answer by saying congratulations on being so aware and intentional about forming your plan A to begin with. You’re very aware of your own strengths, you know exactly what you are good at. You know what you’re not the best at and it sounds like you’ve really done a good job forming game plan around what you are most comfortable with and what you’re best at. And everybody listening should really be taking notes on this, and paying attention to how well you formed your plan A. And congratulations on that because a lot of people don’t even have a good plan A. So don’t feel badly that you’re struggling trying to find a plan B because you’ve done a great job up until now. That doesn’t mean that we can’t continue to improve, but I just want to tell you, keep up the good work on continue to play such close attention.

Now, it sounds like this particular opponent that you’re talking about even when you’re playing your plan A strategy well, it sounds like they are a good half level above you. It sounds like this person is really pressuring you and you’re being smart about it. You aren’t just coming in off of which is what you have to do. Unfortunately as you play better and better players, this net rushing strategy is only going to work so well because they are going to have more and more of an offensive reply to whatever you are coming into the net on.

So you do have to be careful. It does sound like you are being reasonable about this. I mean on one hand, you do want to stick with your strengths against this player but on the other hand, you can’t just run in off of any old shot or else he is going to pass you easily. So it sounds like you’ve tried different things but nothing is realy working and I’m basically going to split this up into two sections– I’m going to give you two suggestions of other plan B’s that you can maybe try. And then I’m going to tell you what I think the real answer is.

So I will give you a couple of suggestions which you asked for, but the long term solution to this is going to be a little bit different from having a different plan B, which is what I think you think is the answer is going to be to your question.

So first of all, plan B suggestions from me, using what you have right now and going out and trying to beat this player, you’ve already tried to modify your plan A which I think is probably the smartest plan B, which is to continue to try to attack that backhand and only come into the net when you know you have a good opportunity and not just run in off of anything– that’s your current plan B. I think that’s a pretty good plan personally. It hasn’t worked so well so far, and we’re going to get into what you are going to have to change to make it work better in the future in a little bit.

If you want to go out and play him today and try something a little bit different, I’ve got two other suggestions. First of all, you could stay back on the baseline and push. And nobody seems to respect the pusher but you could just stay back on the baseline and just be steady and consistent and wait for him to make the error.

I know this isn’t very exciting, and I know it’s not your strength– I know staying back at the baseline is not what you are good at, but I’m not suggesting that you stay back there and play aggressively or offensively, what I’m suggesting is that you sit back there and just be steady and consistent– literally just aim for the middle of the court, over on his side of the court and just put it back into play. Try to get him impatient. Try to get him to make a couple of errors, you could still slip in sneaking up to the net and catch him off guard. And kind of confuse him and make him not sure about what kind of game plan you are trying to use exactly.

But this could be a different look that you could give him and I’m guessing this is something you haven’t tried yet because his ground strokes are his strengths and they are not yours, so I’m guessing you probably haven’t tried this. But you could give it a shot and see how it works, at least for 3 or 4 games. And just see what happens. If he ends up dictating every point and he just crushes you, then we’ll know it’s not working. But at least it is something else that you could try.

My second suggestion for plan B would be to stay back and hit short on purpose and bring him up to the net. You didn’t say anything about his volleys at all, and I’m wondering if he has the ability to hit volleys or overheads. You might want to think about staying back, hitting a drop shot or not necessarily a drop shot, but just something low and short that’s going to force him to come forwards and see if he likes to volley or not. See if he likes overheads.

A lot of times baseliners have terrible overheads, so you could hit him a short ball, kind of get him to sneak forwards, get him close to the net, and then just hit the ball up in the air and see if he knows how to hit overheads. You didn’t say anything about his net skills, so I’d like to see you test that out and see if he is competent up at the net– you might want to think about doing that.

Now, let’s go back to what I think is the real answer, the real long term solution to this problem, which is playing against this opponent. And I want to highlight something that you said in your question, which was, ‘I have to make sure that I only attack the net on very good approaches deep to his backhand. These opportunities are very limited, so he usually ends up beating me around 6-2.’

This is really the big problem here, is that you only have limited opportunities to approach the net. Now at some point, you are going to have to increase the level of your ground strokes. You are not going to be able to move up a half a level from where you are now– let’s say you are 3.5 right now. You’re not going to be able to every beat– well I’m not going to say ever, that would be dumb. But you’re never going to consistently beat 4.0 players until you do raise the level of your ground strokes because you pointed out the problem here, you love the net, you love to volley, but you’re not going to be very successful unless you put your opponents at least a little bit off balance first, before you come forwards. Otherwise, like this person you are talking about are going to pass you pretty easily. There is just no way around this.

So as you play better and better opponents, you must have a way of making them uncomfortable before you come into the net. It’s not that you’re going to have to give up your net play, and your plan A or your A strategy of getting to the net and using your volleys. It’s not that you’re going to have to give that up, you just can’t get away with coming to the net after hitting an average shot.

So just being steady from the baseline, is not going to be enough against these players. And coming into the net off an average shot, isn’t going to be enough either, so the long term solution to your problem here James, is that you are going to have to develop a weapon from the baseline. You are going to have to be able to pressure this player consistently if you want to beat him consistently. He’s a half a level above you now, and so you’re going to have to bring the level of your ground strokes up. Now, if you have any questions specifically about raising the level of your ground strokes, I’d be happy to help you. I’m not going to get into that now since I’ve answered your question. And I want to get to other questions today.

But that’s my answer to your question, is that you’re going to have to come up with better ground strokes and that means hitting with top spin, that means swinging aggressively over and over again– not on every shot, but when you have your opportunities, and that means it’s hacking at a backhand and doing it over and over again with an aggressive shot. Then you’ll be able to come forwards and continue to be successful with your volley game. But until you do that, you’re going to be falling back on plan B’s that are basically going to be hoping that he screws up. And that’s only going to get you so far.

So James, hopefully that answers your question. Thank you very much for the great question, and again, keep up the great work. You’re really doing a good job. I’m happy that you are paying such close attention to the game, keep it up and feel free to write me again if you’d like some tips on how to make your ground strokes more aggressive in general. [music] [music] [music]

Next up, I just want to do a quick shout out to two very important people this past week. Two people donated to the Essential Tennis Podcast this last week, and I really appreciate that so much. First off, we’ve got Andrew K in California, who donated $25 to Essential Tennis– thank you Andrew. Also, John M in beautiful Alpina, Michigan, which is in the north eastern corner of Michigan, I’ve been there before and it’s a pretty part of the country. Real close to the Macane bridge. Anyways, John M donated $60 from Alpina, Michigan– thank you John very much. So John and Andrew were my two donators from last week. I appreciate you guys very much and if the Essential Tennis Podcast has helped your tennis game, and you appreciate that, please send me a donation and help support the Podcast and the website.

Just go to essentialtennis. Com and on the front page on the bottom right, there is a button that says donate. Thank you Andrew and John. [music] [music] [music] – Next up is a question from Bruce that also has to do with singles strategy. He wrote to me and said, ‘I’m a 3.5 player, playing in a USTA league– suppose I’m in a rally and neither side has a particular advantage, what are some strategies for gaining an advantage on my opponent and hopefully winning the point? I’m a lefty and I’d like to use this to my advantage if possible.’

You bet Bruce. I happen to be left handed as well and have definitely won many matches by using my left handedness to my advantage and it’s something that is definately fun to do as a lefty. There is not a lot of left handed tennis players out there– I mean there certainly out there, but compared to rightys, it’s just something you are usually not used to when you play a lefty. Not many people practice with lefties. So it’s something that’s often times difficult– so that’s definitely an advantage for you.

Now, I have three different things here in my outline that I think are going to be the biggest things for you to focus on when it comes to gaining the advantage in a singles point. And I’m going to go through them one by one, only one of them really has to do with being a lefty specifically, so the first two apply to all of you listening. The third one is going to be especially for you lefties out there to give you some ideas of what you can do as a left handed player to really gain an advantage throughout a match.

Now, my first of three things that I want you to concentrate on is the use of the directionals. And if you’re not familiar with the directionals, I’m going to talk about that for a couple minutes right now. They were made popular by Paul Wardlaw and are typically referred to as the Wardlaw directionals. And basically it’s a set of rules or guidelines for playing a point that states when you are in a baseline rally, back and forth with an opponent, and you get an outside shot, you should go cross court. When you receive an inside shot, you have the opportunity to more safely go down the line.

Now let me explain inside and outside shot. An outside ball is one that is traveling away from you and is towards the outside of the court. So as an example, if you are right-handed player, since I know most of my listeners are righty. I’m sure you are used to switching things over as I am, over to a right-handed example. But if you guys are a right handed player, and your opponent has struck one of their forehands cross court over to your forehand, and it’s traveling at an angle away from you, away from the center of the court and out towards your forward side, that’s an outside shot– it’s traveling away from you and it’s going farther and farther away from you. It’s an outside ball, it’s going to the outside of the court. An inside ball is a ball that is traveling towards you and it’s coming in towards you. An example of that would be if your opponent strikes a backhand, if they are right handed and they hit a backhand on the ad half of the court, over on their side of the court, and the ball is coming towards you– let’s say you are standing right in the middle of the baseline, and they hit a shot from their backhand side that’s coming towards your forehand.

So, it was basically a down the line shot but it was angling in towards your body.. That’s an opportunity where you can start to hit down the line. Really the most common way that you’ll see an inside forehand is if you’re running around your backhand to hit an inside out forehand. And so, for you rightys out there, that means you are shifting to your left a little bit– you are on the ad half of the court which is your backhand side, but hitting a forehand. That’s often times an opportunity for you to go down the line.

Let’s say your opponent just hit a backhand cross court over to your backhand side, but you run around it to hit a forehand instead and the ball is coming in towards your body , it’s angling in towards your forehand, towards your right side of your body, that would be an inside forehand. At that point in time, you have the opportunity to more safely go down the line, or you can go back cross court and hit the ball inside out. Going down the line would be called inside-in off that particular shot.

Hopefully I haven’t lost you guys. Hopefully I haven’t confused you guys there– I’m trying to explain the difference between inside and outside shots and hopefully make it clear for you guys. If you don’t understand that, I’ve got a video– if you guys go to EssentialTennis.com/video, I’ve got a video where I talk about the directionals.

Anyway, you want to use the directionals Bruce. That’s probably the number one thing to understand and you’re usually going to get mostly outside shots which means you should be usually hitting mostly cross court. And cross court is the way to go for several reasons. The court is the longest when you hit cross court, from corner to corner, you’ve got more space to hit to. The net is lowest when you hit across the center of it– it’s 6″ lower in the middle than it is out at the nut posts. And also, when you strike an outside ball cross court, you are hitting it back where it came from which is usually a little bit easier to time as opposed to the ball coming across your body, traveling away from you and trying to time your string to push it down the line without it trailing farther off to the side and going wide. Not only that, but you’ve got the higher net and the shorter court when you go down the line off an outside ball.

So, those are the three main reasons why cross court is usually the smarter play. And often, times you guys will see professional players, in a cross court rally, kind of feeling themselves out and they’ll hit 4, 6, 8 shots back and forth to each other cross court. And players who don’t understand the directionals, often times will say ‘why are they hitting back to each other? They keep hitting back to the same place.’ And it’s because neither player wants to take that risk of going down the line with an outside shot. It’s not that the pros will never try it, when they have an easy enough shot and they can kind of warrant the risk of going down the line, with an outside shot, they’ll go for it. But, for amateur players, I stress to them to stick with that pattern.

So, that’s number one– be aware of that and even if maybe it’s your weakness and you’re hitting towards your opponents strength, be patient and keep it cross court most of the time. Now that brings me to point number 2– be patient.

Once you understand the directionals and you start to see how they can work for you and once it starts making sense to you, why certain shots should go certain directions, it’s really important especially at your level, to just be patient, stay in the point, keep the rally going and try to work your opponent and you said here that we’re assuming that neither side has much of an advantage and this is really where you want to minimize your errors and minimize your mistakes and stay steady, stay relaxed. Don’t panic, don’t try anything fancy and just play the high percentage directions and the high percentage shots.

And that’s how you are going to win the majority of your points at a 3.5 level. Most points end at a 3.5 level with an error– with somebody just messing up for no good reason. And so, if you can know the directional, and know which direction is safest and smartest, and if you can be patient and steady, and not get all crazy and start going for incredible shots and trying to hit winners, that’s really how you’re going to be the most successful.

Now, eventually you’re going to want to develop some weapons and I talked about that in my first question today. But you really want to have a good solid core and foundation of being steady first and understanding basic tactics and basic strategy like the use of the directionals.

So those are my first two suggestions to you Bruce– first of all, use directionals. Second, be patient, be steady. And now number three, this is going to be for you leftys out there. Bruce, you need to work that backhand– your opponent’s backhand. You need to hammer that backhand over and over again. And this is where the directionals are a beautiful thing for a left-handed player.

Let me describe to you how I play 95% of my singles points. My forehand, and hopefully your forehand is your strength like mine, so this benefits you the most, but my forehand is by far my stronger side from the baseline and usually the opponents that I play, they are right handed and their backhand is their weaker side. And sticking with the directionals, that works out great for a left handed player because when I take my forehand and I hit it cross court, it’s going to my opponents weakness. It’s going to their backhand, it’s going to their weaker side.

So, most forehands that I receive, I hit cross court and my opponent knows that after the 2nd or 3rd game, they know that I’m hitting over 90% of my forehands cross court and I’m going to continue to pressure that backhand over and over again. Now, inevitably, they are going to start trying to hit that backhand down the line because they want to try to get it to my weaker side, to my backhand.

And this is where I have the opportunity to run around my backhand and continue to hit forehands and that’s where often times, I’ll get an inside forehand and I’ll be able to continue to pressure that backhand shot, or I have the opportunity to go inside out and hit it away from my opponent where they were just on the ad side, hitting their weak backhand. If I’m able to run around my backhand and hit a forehand, I can either continue to pressure their backhand, or I can go inside out and get them on the run. Basically, I’m trying to dictate these points using my forehand as often as possible because the more forehands I hit, the easier it is for me to keep it to their backhand side.

And this is such a huge advantage and I love it. Against a player who is my equal of maybe a little less strong than I am, it’s just so much fun to just dictate point after point using my forehand. And I’ve definitely played sets where I’ve hit backhands. I just hit as many forehands as possible and they all go towards my opponents backhand side. And again, I don’t care if they know my strategy or not– they are going to know right out of the gate that they are going to have to use their weakest shot and they are going to have to hit it all day long. Now, if they are stronger than me or even with me, it’s very possible that they’ll play this strategy right back at me and they are looking for forehands to hit to my backhand. And so it’s kind of a battle of who can dictate these points first using their stronger side. And it becoes a really interesting tactical battle.

So that’s for all of you lefties out there and some thoughts on how to dictate points, how to use your strength and pin it against your opponents weakness as often as possible and just do it over and over again.

Also with your serve– last thing I’m going to mention here, the lefty tactics for singles players, Bruce your serve, your left handed serve, naturally goes from left to right. If you have any slice or any spin on your serve at all, it’s traveling from your left to your right and from your opponents point of view, it’s from their right to their left, which means that your serve will naturally trail towards their backhand side. And that’s another great advantage that us lefties have, to be able to get the ball to our opponents weaker side as often as possible that can start off the points in an advantageous way for us for sure and just keep hammering that backhand.

So anyway, Bruce this kind of seems simple but it takes some practice, it takes concentration and it takes some repetition to really see these patterns and be able to play them over and over again. – Please write me back and let me know if you have any follow up on this but again, the three main points were– use the directionals, outside shots should go cross court, be patient and be steady. Remember that most points are going to end with a mistake and find that backhand as a lefty and make them hit as many backhands as possible.

If you follow those three guidelines, I guarantee you are going to win more points. Well, Bruce thanks very much for your great question. Again write me back if you have any follow up, but good luck with your singles points and good luck in your league play this coming season. [music] [music] [music]

Alright, that does it for this weeks show– Essential Tennis Podcast episode #105. Thank you very much for joining me today and if you have questions that you would like me to answer on the Podcast, feel free to send me an email at Ian@essentialtennis.com or if you go to essentialtennis.com and click on Podcasts, on the Podcast page, there is a button that says ‘ask a question’ and that will take you to a little form to fill out and you can ask a question and submit it that way as well.

Well, I hope you guys all have a great week. I hope you get out and play some tennis and here where I’m living, that’s not possible yet, at least not outside, but hopefully where you are, you get a chance to play this week and put to use some of the things that we talked about this week about singles strategy.

Thanks guys. Have a great week. Take care and good luck with your tennis. [music] [music]

Essential Tennis Podcast #104

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[music] Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. If you love tennis and want to improve your game, this podcast is for you. Whether it’s technique, strategy, equipment or the mental game, tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player. And now, here’s Ian! .

Ian : Hi, and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast– your place for free, expert tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game. Today’s episode of the Essential Tennis podcast is brought to you by ProTranscript.com.

Today my guest is Andy Zodan who has been on the show before and we have a great conversation about cooperative helping and how it can help improve your tennis game. Real quickly, I want to remind you guys about the next upcoming Essential Tennis clinic– it’s going to be in Fremont, Nebraska which is near Omaha for complete information, please visit essentialtennis.com/clinics and at this point we’re going to need some more sign-ups for it to go. So please check it out and if you’re interested at all in learning from myself in a live tennis instructional environment on the court for a full weekend, definitely check it out or send an email to me at ian@essentialtennis.com.

Alright, let’s get down to busy. Sit back, relax and get ready for some great tennis instruction. [music] [music] [music]

My guest on today’s espisode of the Essential Tennis podcast is Andy Zodan and Andy is the host of ‘In the Tennis zone’. Which is a tennis radio show in Colorado and you can also hear that as a podcast on the iTunes music store. Andy welcome back to the essential tennis podcast.

Andy : Thanks a lot Ian, it’s great to be with you.

Ian : To start off, why don’t you tell people briefly about your show, and I know that the 3rd season is set to kick off soon, on the 14th?

Andy : Yeah, we start on valentines day and what we’re trying to do Ian, we try to blend tennis at both the local level, from a junior and adult stand point. [inaudible] high profile guests over the course of the first few seasons, including Rob Laver and Billy King, and Brad Gilbert and the Brian Brothers– all kinds of exciting guests.

But we also try to make sure that we recognize some of the junior and adult players and as I say at the local level that work really hard to help us grow our sport and are worthy of our recognition. .

Ian : Well it’s a great show, and I definitely recommend that my listeners go check it out. And I was just looking at it on iTunes– you have something like 200 episodes on iTunes which is awesome.

Andy : Well I think those are probably 200 different segments. We’ve actually done 64 shows– it’s once a week for 32 weeks and I think they break those off into segments. For each 2 hour show, there will be 6 segments so it would be 3 per hour. And we try to give each segment 15-20 minutes so that we’re able to get into some good detail with the topics but not go on and on with it. So I think we found a pretty nice plan.

Ian : Cool, let’s go ahead and get started with today’s topic and I’d like to thank John M in Texas who suggested this topic. I posted on the forums at essentialtennis.com and asked for topic suggestions for a show with you and by the way, Andy and myself have previously done an episode on the podcast, and it was #88. I suggest you guys go check it out– it was a good discussion about using modern techniques that you guys often see the professional players and using and whether or not they are applicable to the amateur game. So it was a good discussion and today’s is going to be as well.

Here is John’s question and topic that he wanted us to talk about– ‘how about elaborating on a topic you discussed in the last podcast with Andy, cooperative tennis. Why is it important? What are the benefits? How can a rec-player incorporate cooperative tennis into their practice routines. Can you provide examples of specific of cooperative drills for ground strokes, volleys etc? I know you stressed cooperative drilling in the ET clinic in Palm Springs. And John was with me in Palm Springs for the last clinic that I did, and we did a lot of cooperative hitting. And it’s something that I believe in a great deal and I believe that the average player is not doing it enough. I think the average player goes out onto the practice courts and hits a few practice balls without any purpose and then plays a couple of sets or baseline games.

So Andy, what’s your take on this, about cooperative hitting and the recreational or club level player?

Andy : Well, I think it’s a great question Ian. It’s something that I spend a tremendous amount of time and if some of the students that I work with on a regular basis heard that question, and I was going to be the one asked to answer it, they would probably have to laugh at how much I stress that. And I think my main point to really get to the bottom line of it all, is that I believe that the most productive practice sessions that you are going to have are the ones that involve great rhythm in your rallies.

For instance, as you say you go out and hit balls without purpose, I don’t think that you are really building a foundation of a game that is going to hold up under pressure. I think that people come out onto the drill court specifically, and they have no pressure what so ever. They can just kind of [inaudible] and go for what they want and not have any consequence to whether the ball goes on or out. And it’s good to be able to work on aggressive tactics as well but I think we forsake the importance of the rhythm in the rallies.

If you go to the US Open and you go back to the practice courts– I remember I used to watch Andre Agassi and Brad Gilbert hitting, and you’d see Brad at the net and Andre hitting ground strokes. It was going back and forth, the exact same shot. There was nothing agressive– obviously, Andre was hitting the ball but it was a very nice rythm. If you watched Muhammad Ali, working out in the gym, you’d see him hitting the speed bag, well he isn’t going to go into the ring and just beat on somebody’s forehead like you would a speed-back.

But he was working on the rhythm and the speed of his hands in a way that wasn’t necessarily what he would be doing competitively. People said to me we don’t do this in a match and I say football players don’t run through tires in a game but they do it as they prepare to become better football players and work on the skills that make them a better player. I look at your asking players to do as the foundation of their game and if you want to build a good foundation to your house, you got to pour a nice 3 foot of concrete slab. You can’t just go 2 inches then go ‘OK, let’s build the house’.

That’s the way your game operates. If you don’t have the type of game that’s going to hold up under pressure- you know one of the best compliment I ever got as a player was when I was hitting with Tommy Ho, and he was a great tour player, and I could never stay on the singles court with Tommy. But I could go out and work with him and at least hit enough balls back to make it a good session for him. And I used to apologize and tell him I can’t stay on the court with you in singles, and he would say ‘well, you are solid and the ball comes back pretty much the same way every time.’ And I took that as a huge compliment from a guy like that.

I’ve always taken a lot of pride in that and I think that players hold up over a period of time if they go out there and they work on the rythm drills that make them consistent and that make them steady and they gain the confidence more and more as that becomes part of their game.

Ian : You said a lot of great stuff in there and let’s go and start to break this down a little bit. The first thing I’d like to talk about is a very common excuse or complaint that I get from my students when trying to implement drills like this that are cooperative and steady. I like that you use the word rhythm to describe these drills but often times, I hear the complaint ‘why am I practicing hitting back to somebody? This doesn’t make any sense. What happens when I go into a match and I’ve been practicing all this type hitting to a person. I’m just going to do that in a match then, aren’t I?’ What’s your response to that? And you’ve kind of answered it a little bit, and I like the analogies you gave about football players and boxers doing things that aren’t necessarily what you do during competition but they just help to lay a groundwork and maybe I just answered the question– sorry. .

Andy : Actually, if you want to have a complete practice regiment, you have to go out and do the things that we’re talking about right now Ian. You have got to go out and have those drills where you’ve got 2 volleyers at the net and two ground strokers at the baseline, and maybe you’re having the volleyers track the ball a little bit and move side-to-side and stay in the formation. And their goal is to not let anything through– they aren’t trying to attack the net, they are trying to defend the net. When you watch the Ryan brothers play doubles, you want 2 guys moving seamlessly together, covering court to where it is almost like two rotating soccer goalies because every ball that is struck, that comes to them, is not necessarily going to put them in position to do something aggressive with that ball. Sometimes it is juts a matter of being a crisp, solid volleyer and making the ground strokers hit 4 or 5 or 6 balls.

A lot of times the players that you work with are going to go out and play against an opponent that if you give that person enough rope with which to hang themselves, inevitably they will. But you can’t just go to that game if you haven’t practiced it. You can’t flip the switch and say ‘well normally, I play really aggressively and that is all I ever do, but these guys are overly aggressive and if we can just play steady, then we can get them to make a bunch of errors– let’s just flip the switch even though we haven’t practiced doing that, it’s not going to happen.

So what you have to do, is you have to go out and practice the drills where you go OK, I’m going to make sure that today when I play the net, I’m going to be the most crisp, solid, error-free volleyer that I can be and that’s going to be my strategy with which to win. Now that’s not your entire strategy and then you have to go out and you have to to apply what you are using in a competitive setting. So if the player’s that you are working with are only coming out onto your court and onto the drill court to try to prepare for match play, they are leaving a lot on the table. Because if they aren’t going and setting up matches with their friends, and going out and playing practice sets, then going ahead and being a little bit more aggressive and using competitive tactics, then I think that they are not getting the whole picture of what it takes to become a complete player.

But if all that you are worried about is every time you are on the tennis court, hitting the ball by somebody, I think you are missing a lot of what the essence of the sport is, which is just that feeling of just a beautiful long rally– guy goes out and hits with his wife in on the park on a Sunday etc. They are playing tennis… They aren’t playing against each other, they are practicing together and there is sort of a beautiful simplicity to that, that I think a lot of people miss out on. If they are only on the tennis court to make a blood and guts affair, I think they miss a lot of what the essence of the sport has to offer in terms of a very peaceful game and something that you can go out and get some nice exercise with and have it be something that’s not necessarily all stressed out and turning into knots.

Learning how to relax and just be that steady player… And you watch some of these pros that you go to locally and you see just the beauty and the ease with which they’ll hit nice drop shots, a nice angle volley or a nice lob etc. You see Federer do that even at the highest level and there is a tremendous artistry to that and when you learn how to play that game, it’s a lot of fun to play and it’s also very effective.

Ian : I like how you describe that a lot. You said there is a beautiful simplicity to watching two players who are able to do this, and are able to control the ball back and forth. And this is the draw for your average player, or even player’s like me or yourself who didn’t make it as a professional player– who didn’t make it to the top ranks– that’s the draw to going and watching professional players. And you talked about going back and watching the practice courts and yeah, there is something beautiful about it.

Seeing two players who are just master of controlling the ball and keeping it in play. And it might seem boring to the average player, and especially if they’ve only been playing for a short period of time, they perhaps just picked it up a year or two ago. They are watching tennis on TV and seeing all these big flashy shots, it might seem boring to a lot of players to walk out onto the tennis court themselves and just try to be steady and consistent. But something that I try to remind my students of, is just the stats in your average tennis match show that most points end with an unforced error.

This is really across the board– there are professional matches where there is more winners then unforced errors, but even at the professional level, often times there is more mistakes for both players then there are winning shots or winners that are hit. And then when you go and you look at your amateur or club player, certainly we can’t expect them to hit more winners then unforced errors. So, I think a lot of times it becomes managing errors and what better way to practice that then to have some kind of focus and try to build a rhythm, like you were talking about Andy.

Anyways, I like to point back to the stats to kind of show what players should be spending most of their time on. Does that make sense?

Andy : Absolutely. I was going to say, you use the word error-management and that was going to be my next point. If you talk to the greatest golfers in the world, they all talk about at one point or another in respect to their performance golf tournaments, golf course management. And I think tennis players have to have that same mindset with respect to what they are going out and doing. And you’re right, every player that comes out and tries to play the sport, can’t necessarily emulate what the top players in the world are doing. No offense to anybody listening, but you just aren’t athletic enough to do what Roger Federer is doing, or what Andy Murray or Nadal is doing. This is a level of athlete that is almost super-human.

And so, when I was growing up , the average to slightly above average athlete could try to emulate what the top players were doing. Weather it was Jimmy Connors or [inaudible] , those strokes gave a lot of margin for error the the average to slightly above average athlete to be able to emulate and try to play [inaudible] , a largely lesser version of those players but nowadays, you can’t just take a kid who is trying to get onto his high school team and say ‘OK, before you go in to those tryouts, I’m going to teach you the [inaudible] forehand. Let’s just face it, it’s not going to happen that soon. You are going to have some kids that are going to come out and with the technology that we’ve got, they are going to watch some TV and be able to emulate some of that stuff and if you see that the kid can do it, you certainly can embrace that and give the kid the opportunity to play to the highest level.

So for every player to come out on the floor and to think that the are going to throw out these weapons on the court that we watched at the Australian Open recently, I think people are kidding themselves. What they should be thinking about, is how can I take today’s technology and the brilliance of what Babala, Prince, Head and all these racket companies have done putting into these frames, and then try to play that steady or maybe old fashion game and play it at a higher level. I think they are going to have much more success with that and I think in large part, probably much more injury free as well.

Ian : I agree. I’ve got 2 more questions for you. After those, I’d like to go back and forth and give a couple– John asked for some drills, some cooperative drills. So I’d like to talk about that for a couple of minutes as well. Just two more questions having to do with the essence of this idea of being cooperative. First of all, what would you say to the player who says to you, after suggesting cooperative tennis drills, what would you say to the person who says ‘well, that’s boring. I’m going to lose interest and that just doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to cooperate back and forth.

Andy : Well what I say about 3 times a week and the answer is, there is a big difference in playing against each other and practicing together. Now, when I played in Austin at the University of Texas on the team out there, we’d go out and we would hit cross court fore and backhands and we would do hours of that and we did that in all the junior programs that I grew up in as well. And the fact of the matter is, is that if you don’t like it, then maybe you are too ADD or maybe there is something that you’re not getting about the importance of being able to hit the same shot over and over again. There is a certain monotony to some of what it takes to become a great player.

But I think that holds true for any sport. I think there are certain things that you have to be able to do that show how bad you want to be great because you are willing to put in the work, and have everything not necessarily ‘Oh, this is so much fun. ‘ Well it’s not always fun. Part of becoming great is putting in the work and work is not always fun and it doesn’t always have to be boring. It doesn’t always have to monotonous but there are going to be elements.

If two people are standing inside the service line doing reflex volley drill, or 15-20 minutes at a time, there is a period of time at which you go, ‘can we go onto something else?’ And you know what? No, we can’t yet. We need to make sure that we are working on our hand speed, that we are working on our hand eye coordination, that we are getting our footwork lined up with where this ball is and trying to get the proper seperation between the body and the ball. All the little things that keep you balanced– those aren’t necessarily a tonne of fun to work on, but if you want to be a great player, those are the things that you’ve just got to suck up and take it for the team.

So I tell them that on a regular basis and I just say, ‘look, there is somethings that you are going to enjoy from this later on and it’s called winning. It’s a lot more fun to win than to lose and I’m not one of those ‘winning is everything’. To me, what I look for is the enjoyment of the game. If you go out and you play well, and you’ve made your opponents do what they had to do to beat you and you come off the court and you lost 7-5, 6-4 but you made them play and you didn’t beat yourself, you are going to gain a certain level of enjoyment from that. But I think that if you only make it about having fun, every time you are on the court, you are missing out on a lot of what it takes to become a player that can perform at a pretty consistent level every time out.

And I think some of these drills, you just have to say if you want to be good or not. You can’t necessarily just give into the fact that a person didn’t enjoy every single 5 minute increment of their practice routine and making them realize that there is– getting back to boxing, when those boxers go out and do that road-rock and they are running miles at a time with that car right behind them, you think they are having fun doing that? – But it’s a hell of a lot more fun to laugh and be able to go into the later rounds of a fight and not just keel over because you put in the work. I just have to make the analogy that it’s a lot of fun later if you do the work now.

Ian : Really good answer Andy, great stuff. I want to ask you one more question before we talk about some drills, and what I’d like to ask you next is what you feel is the right ratio and you’re talking about having fun versus working hard and maybe we can compare those two– cooperative versus competitive drill situations, maybe not all the time. It depends on your personality etc. But how would you split up the time spent between each– for our listeners out there, who are club level players, you are recreational level players, how would you recommend that these types of players split up their time between the hard work and the repetition and the cooperation, and having fun? More playing out points? Doing more competitive stuff? What do you think?

Andy : Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the particular group that you are dealing with and in my case, it has to do with the fact that I’m a guy that is at high altitude– remember, I’m in Denver, Colorado where your grandmother can hit the ball hard here. It’s not a matter of generating pace at high altitude, it’s a matter of accommodating pace. So for where I am, it’s probably a higher percentage of time spent with the cooperative type drills because it sort of brings people back down to where they worry more about that pace accommodation then generating pace, then those are the people whose performance graphs end up being a little bit more of a steady line from match to match, as opposed to, ‘well I played an indoor match and there were no elements to compete with and I played great, but next week I played outdoors and it was windy, and I couldn’t see in the sun, but I still tried to play real aggressively and I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, and you played awful.

So I think here it’s a matter of 50-50 with that. The other thing is, who are you dealing with? If I’m out there dealing, there is a group of ladies that I deal with on a weekly basis, they are competitive, 3.5, 4.0, senior players– 55 or 60 years old. And nothing bores them, they go out there and they just want to play well and they are happy to do whatever it is but then later on in the afternoon, I have a group of junior kids coming out and you know those are the ones that want to play.

So we’ll make them do the work, and they’ll do the rhythm drills, and maybe in an hour and a half, we’ll spend the first 30-40 minutes making sure that we are sort of using our game like a transmission– we’ll start in 1st gear and shift into 2nd gear and make sure that we are hitting some good clean balls, do some nice cross court ground-stroke work. I like to do a tracking drill with 2 volleyers and 2 baseliners and I’ll feed from behind the volleyers and move the [inaudible] around and make sure we are working on our court positioning. Make sure that we are covering the areas of the court that are the highest percentage areas of the court for our opponents to hit to.

That type of thing and once I think that everybody is warm and has a good sweat, and they’ve really shown that they’ve dialed in their focus and now we want to get into some ground stroke ralley points and do some singles, doubles and maybe some half court. And then maybe play some tiebreaker or set work at the end– that would be a typical day of a junior program whereas with some of the adults maybe I would spend a little bit more time with the cooperative stuff just because they have a tendancy to have more of an appetite for that because they can conceptualize why the hard work of becoming a steadier player is going to pay off in the competitive format whereas the kids are just like ‘bring it on.’

Ian : Alright, let’s finish up with just a couple minutes of suggestions for John and everybody else that is listening to today’s show and let’s give one or two suggestions for cooperative drills for the single’s player and a couple for those of you listening who play mostly doubles. Because there is definitely some differences between the two and what skills should be cultivated. What’s your number one drill or two drills you would suggest for a single’s player that is cooperatively based?

Andy : I like to do a live ball drill with a cross-court rally, with a volleyer and a groundstroker both in the deuce court– the volleyer is slightly inside the service line, the baseliner is slightly behind the baseline, and they are just playing it out like a cross court rally and normally with one up and one back like that, you get a nice frequency of balls being hit. You get a volleyer that is working on a nice, consistent volley– kind of like what I saw Brad Gilbert and Andre Agassi doing for several minutes at a time and just having that baseliner go right back to the volleyer every time and then maybe even have the volleyer move the ground stroke or around a little bit and have the volleyer be in the point position that this ground stroker has to hit this ball back to this volleyer. The volleyer is going to move the ground stroker around a little bit more and give that ground stroker a little bit of a workout.

But the idea is to hit him a ball that he has to move for, but can definitely get for pretty easily and go like a minute or two at a time like that. It’s a great workout, and it’s a great consistency drill both for the volleyer and the groundstroker and it’s not going to take anything away from your ability to distill or tweak that into an aggressive mode you are working on your wind, your foot-speed, you are working on your ability to, under all circumstances, but that ball back into the court which I think is something that players loose sight of, when all that they are trying to do is hit the ball by somebody.

You can hit the ball by somebody and it can hit the fence in the air, and you’ve accomplished your goal! [laughter] But if your goal isn’t a little bit more fine-tuned with respect to a spot in the court that is in play, then it’s not doing you as much good.

So that’s a drill that I like a lot as far as [inaudible] and I think their are certain things that there is just no reason to reinvent the wheel– cross court backhands, cross court forehands. Just up the line shots where one person hits the ball across court and one person hits the ball up the line and moving back and forth like that. But I think whatever puts you into a situation where you are generating a consistent rhythm and that drill, I think Ian, is critical because that rhythm is what’s giving you that sense of ‘I’m hitting the ball in the center of the strings every time. This feels good, I feel confident and I can hit this shot in my sleep.’

And you get that level of confidence with one particular stroke, or if you’re lucky enough to have it happen on both sides, then that will manifest itself by way of confidence that you can take into a competitive situation, then shift it into a more strategic utilization of those skills but if you’re not working on it from the standpoint of generating rhythm first, I think you are putting the cart before the horse.

Ian : Let’s finish up– give please one suggestion for those doubles players out there, people who play all doubles or mostly doubles, what would you suggest for a good cooperative drill for them?

Andy : I love that drill that I was kind of describing earlier, that tracking drill with 2 up and 2 back, and the ground strokers have to stay back. And I know it’s not necessarily the way that you would want to play, but I think if you watch pro doubles, you’ll see that there are situations where these guys just aren’t invited into the net. The situation has not presented itself and too often, at the 4.0 or 4.5 level, people will just come in behind anything.

My wife, when she and I play mixed doubles, she’ll hit a return of serve and she is coming right at a 5. 0 guy who has a shoulder high volley, and I know what’s coming. I see the big smile on his face and I realize what he’s going to do– he doesn’t even have to hit it hard.. Just any shot that will put her off balance and I think people have to realize that you can’t just come into the net. So for 2 up and 2 back, and for those groundstrokers to just have to feel like they’ve got to learn to feel that they are patient and hit a good groundstroke and the volleyers to just say, OK, all we are here to do is defend the net. Not attack the net, we are here to defend the net and there is a lot to that.

If you watch the top doubles players in the world, maybe one out of every 5 opportunities of a shot to put away comes along as opposed to the other 4 out of 5, I’ve got to put this one back deep into the court. Got to put this one over there. It’s not a matter of always getting in there and taking the racket back like it’s a machete, you’re going to hack away at a volley. It’s keeping your hands forward, it’s moving to the proper position, it’s as I said before, going to an area that is a high percentage area for your opponents to hit to, knowing where that is and why. And knowing based on where the ball is, who of the two of us, should be taking that ball and making sure that we are not both standing in the same area.

A lot of that can be cleared up in this tracking drill, where you move side to side, and you cover the court. Just make sure that our goal is to not let anything through. And man, does that make you a nice, solid team that will be steady and hit a lot of balls back, and when the opportunity comes to move forward and close on a volley and put it away, your competitive instincts will, in all likelihood, will takeover and you’ll know to do that. What you won’t always know to do is to just tone it down a little bit and keep it in a steady mode where ‘gosh if these guys are going to hit the ball this hard, this often, if we can make them hit 3 or 4 balls per point, we can beat this team and we don’t have to incur much risk in doing so.

Ian : Andy, thank you very much for being on the show and for talking about this topic with me. And John M. , I’m sure you’ve had your questions answered here today. If you have any follow up questions or anybody else listening, if you guys have any comments or questions, please feel free to email myself or post in the forums, and I can send those along to Andy as well. – But Andy, thanks very much for your time. You’ve been a great guest, I love having you on the show because it’s very easy to tell by listening to you talk, that you have a love for the game and a passion for the sport. So thanks very much for spending the time with me and my listeners.

Andy : It’s always fun to be with you Ian, and you ask great questions so it makes it easy for me. So I look forward to reciprocating and having you come on in the Tennis Zone here in the next few weeks, so be sure and let your listeners know that we’re going to do that and we’ll definitely have some fun and it’s always a good time, so whenever you need me, I’d love to come on with you.

Ian : Awesome. I’ll definitely let my listeners know when I’ll be on your show and I appreciate that very much. And in the meantime, definitely check out Andy’s show that is going to be starting in the next week, Andy’s 3rd season will be starting up and you can check that out on… What’s the website again?

Andy : Well if you go to TennisZone1510.com you can get all the archived pod casts anytime and then milehighsports.com — my show is from 10-noon on Sunday’s and that is mountain time. So out on the east coast, it would be 12-2, milehighsports.com you go to listen to live and you can catch it live on the stream.

Ian : Awesome. Andy, thanks again and I look forward to having you back on the show in the future.

Andy : Thanks a lot Ian. [music] [music] [music] .

Ian : That does it for today’s episode of the Essential Tennis Podcast– episode #104. Thank you very much for listening to today’s show, I appreciate you downloading the file and supporting Essential Tennis in that way. Next up, I want to do a shout out to four very important people this past week that donated to Essential Tennis and some real nice donations this week and I really appreciate these people so much.

First of all, Carl in Texas donated $120 to Essential Tennis — Carl you are the man. I appreciate that so much. Also, Carlotta in New Jersey start a $5 a month subscription donation. Norman in California sent a $50 donation to Essential Tennis. And William in Missouri started a $10 a month subscription donation. So Carl, Carlotta, Norman and William, thank you to you four new donators this past week. I appreciate that so much and I want to let you guys know, I don’t take these funds and go to Pizza Hut. [laughter] Or buy myself a new TV.

This really go towards paying my hosting services and I have several monthly expenses that are associated with the website that control all kinds of different parts of the website and I am always trying to come up with new ideas as well, in fact this past week, I experimented with some new software that I just purchased that will allow me to do live video conferencing and do live video technique and also tactical and strategy analysis for memebers in the future.

I’m working on that right now– I just did a test run this last week with several members of the forums so these funds do really go to help improve the website. So thank you guys so much and if this podcast helped you improve your tennis game, please consider donating to Essential Tennis. Just go to essentialtennis.com and on the front page on the bottom, there is a link that says donate.

Alright, that does it for this week. Thanks again everybody. Take care and good luck with your tennis. [music]

Essential Tennis Podcast #103

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Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast, if you love tennis and want to improve your game, this podcast is for you. Whether it’s technique, strategy, equipment or the mental game, tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player. And now, here’s Ian!

Ian Westermann : Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast, your place for free, expert, tennis instruction that can truly help you to improve your game. Today’s episode of the Essential Tennis podcast is brought to you by ProTranscript.com. ProTranscript.com transcribes every podcast show that we do, if you guys go to essentialtennis.com– click on Podcasts and there is a little drop down menu that says ‘transcripts’.

You can go to the transcripts blog and from there you can read the transcripts of each show on the website, or download them as Kindle files, Word files, PDF files– so you can take the podcast with you and read it if you like besides just listening to it normally.

So thank you for ProTranscript.com for being a sponsor of the show.

I hope you guys enjoyed the Australian Open final. I had a great time watching it with Will from Fuzzy Yellow Balls and we did a live video webcast and did commentary and answered questions during the match, had a really good time doing that with him. And congratulations to Roger Federer of course, for winning yet another grand slam title– congrats to him. And I don’t know about you guys, but I was really moved by Andy Murray’s response and his emotions during the trophy presentation. I really hope he can win a grand slam some time soon, both for himself and for the UK.

I think it’s just a matter of time, he’s a great player but needs to learn how to play a little bit more aggressively. But hopefully you all enjoyed watching the match as well and I can’t wait for the next grand slam– the French Open.

OK, let’s get to the questions, sit back, relax and get ready for some great tennis instruction. [music] [music] [music]

Alright, let’s get started on today’s show. And our first question comes to us from Francisco in New Valda, Texas, which is a little bit west of San Antonio. He wrote to me and said ‘hey Ian, I have a few questions’ and we’re going to take his questions one at a time here– he’s got 3 great questions that I’m going to get to today. His first one has to do with how to maintain a high level of focus or play during practice. He said, ‘I was recently hitting with a friend of mine and was hitting really good for about the first hour, then we took a break and I couldn’t hit as well. I was making more mistakes than before– I don’t know what happened.’

Well Francisco, this is going to be a short answer– I’ve talked about this in the past on the podcast about how to practice effectively– in fact, I’ve done a whole episode on how to put together a practice session, which was I think specifically for singles, but go check that out in the archives– I’m sorry but I don’t know off the top of my head which episode it was. But if you just do a page search for practice, you should be able to find it pretty quickly.

Now, I basically have two tips for you– I have two pieces of advice for you to be able to maintain a higher level of quality and a higher level of concentration in your practice play.

First of all, you need to have a plan. And this is probably the number one mistake that amateur players have when it comes to their practice sessions and this is the number one reason why amateur players, or club level players don’t have very productive, or very high en-focused practice sessions as they don’t have any kind of plan. They walk out onto the court with their tennis bags, their rackets, their water and they go out there and they just hit.

Now, that’s certainly better than nothing and if you’re happy just doing that, and you’re getting what you want out of tennis by going out there and just hitting balls back and forth without any real focus to what you’re doing, then that’s perfectly fine– I’m not going to yell at you for not being super organized about it. It’s perfectly fine if you want to go out and just hit the ball and you’re happy with that. But if you want to improve faster, and if you want to hit better, more consistently and not have these let downs like what Francisco is describing, let me encourage you to walk out onto the practice court with your practice partner and a written plan. Write it and sit down, think about what you need to work on and write it down ahead of time.

And I’ve got 4 things that I think you should do when it comes to having a plan in your practice sessions. First of all, make sure that you have specific drills and this does not have to be complicated– it doesn’t have to be fancy. If I personally was going out to practice for my tennis game, right now, if I was going out with a partner who was my level, what I would probably follow would be something like this– I’d go out and we would start out with short courts, rallying from the service line for a couple minutes. We would then rally down the middle of the baseline for probably 15-20 minutes. We would then rally cross-court from the baseline with a specific target in mind, and that would be to the correct half of the courts and past the service line and we would probably do that on each half of the court for 10-15 minutes each.

I would then want to do volleys, and we would do that by having myself at the net, him at the baseline and we could either just go down the middle of the court or also direct the ball to each half of the court as well. I would do overheads, mixed in with volleys and then we would do serves and returns. And that’s basically just a little bit of everything and that would probably take myself and somebody the same level as me– if we did this specifically to work on our games, it would probably take us an hour or an hour and half or so. And that after that, we would probably compete.

So have specific drills like that. And if there is a part of your game that you really need to work on that is just obviously much weaker– for myself, that would be my backhand ground-stroke– spend more time on that or come up with different drills just to work on that.

Now, that’s number one– have specific drills. Number two, is have specific goals or achievements for each drill. So let’s say for example I would want to work a little more on my cross court backhand from the baseline– when I say specific goals and achievements, I would put a cone out there or if we didn’t have a target, I would pick a specific place on the court and that would be between the service and base line. And I’m left handed, so my cross court backhand is across over on the deuce half of the court.

So I would aim for that box in the back part of the court, and me and my partner would rally until I hit a total of 50 backhands that land in that area of the court. Or maybe me and my partner would keep track of our shots together and we would go until combined, we’ve hit 100 good cross court shots on the baseline, on the deuce half of the court past the service line.

So that would be an example of a specific goal of achievment or if you have targets, if you have some little plastic cones to use, maybe we could go until each of us hits our target three times or as a team, until we knock the targets 5 times– something like that. This is going to help you keep your focus and concentrate on what you’re doing as opposed to just hitting the ball and not really having a target or a purpose.

So make sure you have a specific goal, a specific achievement and make targets a big part of that– doesn’t have to be a physical target, it can be a certain area on the court as well.

Thirdly, make sure that you put in competitive games and put something on the line during your practice session. And this could be ground stroke games from the baseline, it could be games working on specific parts of your game, maybe an approaching game or working on your volleys and on your partner’s passing shots– or it could just be a set play as well.

But come up with specific ways to compete and then again, put something on the line, make it worth something– and this could be sprints afterwards, some kind of workout, pushups, or the loser has to do 20 pushups etc. Make it something that neither of you guys want to do afterwards so that it puts a little bit of pressure on both of you. And this is really important because it’s going to train you to be a better competitor. It’s going to train you to be more focused and to compete at a higher level. So that’s number 3, competitive games with something on the line.

Fourthly, stay on task. Have the concentration and have the focus to stick with your plan– first of all have a plan, and then stick with it. That’s number four. So that all falls under the category have a plan when you go out there to practice and underneath that heading– 4 things, have specific drills, have specific goals or achievements in mind for each drill, do competitive games with something on the line and stay on task. If you do those four things Francisco, I guarantee you, you will have more productive practice sessions and you will not have these let downs– I mean don’t get me wrong, you are still going to have days where your game varies and you are going to have good sections and bad sections of your practice. You’re not always going to play 100% every single time you walk out onto the court. That’s just a given– but you are going to consistently play better when you actually have the focus to have a game plan like this.

Now, lastly, I said there was two things I was going to tell you to improve this– number one was have a plan. Number two, practice with a plan and stay on task. Once you learn how to have a plan and go out there and make the most of your time on the practice court, you need to practice doing it. And you need to continue to do it until it becomes a habit and at that point your game will start to improve faster.

Those of you listening to the podcast right now are listening because you want to improve your games. I would love to see a survey of everybody listening right now and see how many people are doing all four of the outlined items that I talked about, about having a plan in their practice session. If I had to bet, I would bet that out of the club players, people who aren’t on a tennis team who have the benefit of having a coach set this type of practice up for them, I would bet that less than 10% of you listening do anything like this now. And so that leaves most of you with a way that you can really improve your tennis game. So have the concentration to go out and do this with your practice partner.

Francisco, thanks for the great question. [music] [music] [music] [music]

Alright, I’m now going to take a couple seconds here and I want to communicate my appreciation to a couple of very important people this past week– I had three new people donate to essentialtennis, to the podcast, and I just want to thank those people briefly before I get to my next question. First of all, Richard in Mass sent a $15 donation– thank you. John M. In Texas who was with me in Palm Springs for the last essential tennis clinic, he started a $5 a month subscription donation and John thanks very much for your support, I appreciate that very much. And lastly, Ben in Utah, who was also at the clinic in Palm Springs, California, Ben sent a little note with his donation and said that he’s going to send a $5 donation for every win that he has in the tournaments that he’s playing in. So he sent me a $10 donation for the 2 wins that he had this past December in the last tournament that he played.

I think that’s a creative way and a cool way to give back to essential tennis and donate for every win– Ben I think that’s awesome and thank you for your support as well.

All three of you guys, Richard, John and Ben, thank you guys so much for your support and if the essential tennis podcast has improved your tennis game and helped you out, please help me out by donating– it doesn’t have to be a lot, but every little bit helps with the expenses that I have here as I run the website. Just go to essentialtennis.com and click on the big button on the bottom that says donate.

[music] [music] [music] OK, moving on to the 2nd and 3rd questions from Francisco in Texas. He’s got some great questions about tennis strategy. And I enjoy talking about strategy a lot because it’s another big way that you guys can improve your tennis games and it’s not like stroke technique where it really takes a lot of repetition and hard work and it takes a lot of patience. Strategy is something that you can improve very quickly, it just takes awareness and it does take practice as well to be able to implement it correctly over and over again.

But I think it’s a really great way for you guys to be more aware of ways you can change the way you are playing in order be more successful. Now his second question is, how do you know when to change the direction or hit greater angles, or go for a more aggressive shot. My sister had played in a USTA tournament and even though she was consistent and kept getting everything in, she still lost. I feel like if she had been a bit more aggressive or changed the direction of the ball, on short balls, she might have won more points in the match that she lost 6-1, 6-7, 8-10.

Francisco, this question really makes me think about the match between Andy Murray and Roger Federer just last night here in the US. And in that match, we saw Andy Murray who is very steady, he’s patient, he likes to try a wide variety of shots and he kind of likes to play cat and mouse type games a lot of the times. But his game style is very steady and consistent. It’s not that he never hits the ball hard, he certainly has weapons but his default game style is to just be slow and steady from a professional perspective. He obviously hits the ball much harder than most of us do– pretty much all of us, but from a professional player’s standpoint, he is slow and steady.

Now he should’ve been more aggressive last night against Roger and it is kind of a very similar situation from what you’re describing with your sister. Federer came out very aggressive, pressuring Murray and Murrary didn’t really try to go right back at him until the 3rd set. And even then when he did a good job of that and he got up a break, he went right back to just being steady again and Federer put the pressure right back on him and got the break back.

So this is very similar type of scenario to what you are describing. Consistency will only get you so far in tennis and there is obviously different degrees of consistency and there is consistency within different levels of strokes– in other words, you can be a very consistent player at a 3.0 level, hitting 3.0 level shots but just because you are consistent there doesn’t mean you are going to beat a 4.5 player who is just an average 4.5 player. It doesn’t work that way– consistency is different from level to level. However within her own level, she is going to have develop some weapons or angles or some different strategies at some point, if she wants to move up to a completely new level and challenge players that are above her right now.

So at some point, she must develop weapons. And when should you change what you’re doing really is your question. When should you start going for more angles, when should you start to be more aggressive and the answer to that is when it becomes clear that your opponent can out hit you consistently. And what you don’t do is, let’s say your sister A game is to be steady and consistent, and I think that’s great by the way. I think that should be the first thing that you learn as a tennis player, is just how to be steady and keep the ball in play.

But, you don’t want to go away from that strategy too early. If it’s, let’s say, 2-2 in the opening set of your match and your opponent hits a huge forehand winner that you are never even close to touching, and maybe he’s hit that twice now– you guys have played 4 games, you are in your 5th game right now and he’s hit this winner twice in the match. That’s not the time to go ahead and change your game plan. Your staying even with him, this is a competitive match. Maybe at some point later in the set, you might have to pick it up a little bit to finally get that edge and win the set but this is not the time to jump ship and change your strategy or change your sister’s strategy.

When you would want to change is when it is clear they are beating you on a consistent basis. So if they win the first 3 games in a row, and you really haven’t made an unforced error yet, you are being very steady and consistent but you are losing 0-3. At that point, you’ve got to say to yourself, this is clearly not working– I’m not missing, but my opponent is just that much better than me right now. They are hitting shots that are that much stronger and you’ve got to do something better. You have to start pressuring them more– just putting the ball in play isn’t good enough.

So, it depends on the situation, who you are playing against and exactly how well they are playing to determine exactly when you want to change up that game play. But starting off steady and consistent is not bad, it’s a great way start off a match. Now let’s go to his third question. And it’s also a strategic question– ‘do you change how hard you hit or strategy according to the player? For example, if it is a pusher or counter puncher, do you move them around more and go for more directional change and against a hard hitting player, do you play it consistent and get it in as many times as you can?

This one is also from my sister– she played consistent against a pusher and lost and also lost against an aggressive base-liner. How would she have played these matches differently? Would she go for more on her shots?

That’s a really good question Francisco, and what you’re asking would be a great product to kind of layout every different type of game, or ever different style of tennis play and you name a couple here– pusher, counter puncher, aggressive baseline player, other types of players who might play are maybe somebody is just really aggressive on each shot or maybe a net rusher– somebody who comes to the net a lot.

There is all kinds of different descriptors that we can put on different types of players and in general, there is usually a strategy that is best to play against them. It’s not always the case and within each of these different types of players, there is also many different subsets. Everybody is a little different and this is a part of what makes tennis fun and interesting and also very frustrating at times. Everybody that you play is going to have different strengths and weaknesses so you have to learn how to adjust and so in short, my answer to your first question– Francisco asked, ‘ do you change how hard you hit or your strategy according to the player?’ And my answer to that is yes, yes, yes!

You need to know how to change your game up, and change your strategy based on your opponents. That is what strategy and tactics is, is being able to change up your game based on your opponents. You have to be able to do that. You should have an ‘A’ game, where this is what suits your strengths best, and this is your style of play. And for me, personally, I never really did a good job in my competitive years of doing that. I kind of would just go out and just try to hit good shots. And I never really had a focused style of play or strategy out of the gate where I knew this is what I’m going to do. I knew what my strengths and weaknesses were but I never really had a style mapped out that I was going to try to stick with.

So you should have an A game, and that is what you should start your match off with and see how things progress. If you are winning, then don’t change anything, stick with it and stick with what you are comfortable with and that is going to work out fine. But if you’re losing, and if you’re losing consistently it becomes apparent that this is not working out, you have to be able to adjust based on the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents.

Real quickly, I’m going to go over 4 different types of players and real briefly give you an example of what you would have to try to do against those players. Number one, the pusher & counter puncher– you have to be able to pressure and attack but be steady and consistent at the same time. Just being steady and consistent against a pusher is usually not going to be good enough because that is their game play. That is their style of play and nothing can be more boring than watching two pushers play each other because neither of them are good at attacking and it just becomes a push fest back and forth.

So if you want to beat a pusher, you have to be able to pressure them somehow and Francisco pointed out hitting the ball harder, hitting more angles etc You have to be able to do that against a pusher and do it steadily because if you miss every time you try to hit the ball a little harder or you miss every time you try to open up the court by hitting angles, then obviously the pusher is going to win anyway. And on the other hand, if you just push back, they are probably going to win as well because now you are playing their style of game. And this is why the pushers are so frustrating and so tough to play for most people. By the way, in the archives you’ll see a show I’ve done just on playing pushers. So that is style number one, the pusher.

Style number two, super aggressive dummy is what I wrote down and you are going to play people who just love to hit the ball hard and they are very aggressive on every shot– this is kind of a style that I’m guilty of having played in the past. Somebody who goes out and tries to hit everything hard. And this is somebody you want to be steady and patient with. Don’t try to out hit them when they come out in the first game and hit every shot really hard, don’t be intimidated by that if they only make 75% of them. Certainly if they only make half of their shots and the half that they do make are incredible and hard and really tough, but then they miss the other half because they were trying to be so aggressive.

You want to be steady and patient against this type of player. Don’t try to out hit them, allow them to make mistakes– that’s number two.

Style number three is the net rusher. And when you play somebody who makes it apparent that they are going to come up to the net a lot, you have to be prepared in advance to be able to hit aggressive and accurate passing shots. And that is just how it is– if they are coming up to the net every point, you have to have the ability of passing them. You can’t give them a lot of volleys because that is what they are hoping for and they want to be able to work the point from the net. Being able to hit good lobs would also be valuable. Also if you hit deep ground strokes to begin each point, you are going to keep them off the net a little bit more often.

Lastly, the all court steady and aggressive player and this is somebody who is just a level or half a level above you. They are able to hit good shots from anywhere on the court, they are able to hit aggressive shots from anywhere on the court and it just seems like this person just has it all. They are just really good. And when you play this type of player, you have no choice– you have to elevate your game and try to out hit them over and over again. You cannot just be steady and hope for them to make mistakes because they are better than you are at the point in time. And you have to elevate your game and at least try it. And that means that you might make some more errors than you usually do but if you don’t try something, they’re just going to take over every point and beat you anyway. This is kind of what happened with Murray the other night– he played Roger who was attacking as often as he could, he was attacking very steadily, so for Murray to just be consistent wasn’t good enough. And he had to elevate the level of his game and go for more than what he would normally be comfortable with.

So Francisco, that’s a brief overview of several different types of players and how you would change up your strategy and your game play according to the player. And this is real important for you and your sister and everybody else listening, hopefully your sister listens to the podcast as well and she needs to go out and start practicing these different styles of play for herself so that when she plays different opponents, she is able to actually change her game up and do the right thing. She should not be playing the exact same game play for every opponent because different opponents are going to react differently and they are going to have different strengths that are either going to be good or bad depending on the situation.

Francisco, thank you very much for your great questions today and hopefully my answers have been helpful. Please feel free to let me know if you have any further questions on any of this and everybody else listening, I’ve got a list of questions from people to answer on the podcast– if you’d like your question to be featured on the show, send me an email at ian@essentialtennis.com [music] [music] [music]

Alright, that does it for the essential tennis podcast, episode #103. Thank you very much for joining me today on the show, I appreciate it. For my shout-outs for today, I want to give a shout out to a couple of essential tennis listeners and members who joined myself and Will to watch the Australian Open final live which shows some dedication here in the US since the match started at 3:30am here on the east coast.

But the people who said hi in the chat room during the show were Steve, FightFan, and Charles to name three. Those three I remember just off the top of my head. If there was more of you in there, I apologize for not remembering. I will probably remember a couple of people later and kick myself. Thank you to you three for joining us and throughout that show, over 3,000 people tuned in to watch our commentary so we are really happy with that and we definitely intent on doing it for the other Grand Slams this year at least. And I’ll be looking forward to interacting with you guys during the next Grand Slam Final event.

Alright, that does it for us this week. Thank you very much everybody for tuning in and we’ll catch you again next week. Have a great week and good luck with your tennis. [music] [music]

Essential Tennis Podcast #102

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Announcer : Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. If you lave tennis and wants to improve your game, this podcast is for you. Whether it’s technique, strategy, equipment or the mental game, tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player.

And now here’s Ian!

Ian Westermann : Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. Your place for free expert tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game.

Thank you very much for joining me on today’s show. And I’ve got two quick things to talk about before we get to our listener questions and answers.

First of all, I want to let you guys know that there’s a new section of essentialtennis.com that has just gone up in the last day or so. And it is essentialtennis.com/clinics. It’s also up in the main menu, and all of the headers of the website. And in this section of the website you guys can see which clinics are upcoming, t heir locations, the price, descriptions, etc. And go check it out.

The Nebraska clinic which is coming up in March is the only one listed there right now. I’m going to have more added pretty soon. But you can sign up for the Nebraska clinic there. There’s only 12 spots available. So definitely check it out. And sign up if you think that you’d like to make it.

Next up, I want to talk to you guys a little bit about something that’s available on the website, and that is the option for donations. And I don’t like asking for money. I don’t like that at all, but I’ll be honest. It would really help me out a lot as I’ve do more and more on the website. Some regular donations would really be helpful.

And this is a way that a lot of big name podcasters support what they’re doing is through donations from listeners. I would just like to ask you guys to consider donating to Essential Tennis. And it doesn’t have to be much. In fact, $5 a month, a reoccurring donation would really be appreciated a lot. If you guys go to essentialtennis.com and go to the front page, on the bottom right there’s a link that’s says donate. You guys can check it out there. B ut there’s an option for $5 a month to $10 a month, $20 a month or a one time donation as well of an amount of your choosing.

B ut I would just ask you guys if the podcast has helped you. If it’s made a difference in your game. If you can prove your tennis game, because of the website or because of the podcast please consider giving a donation. And especially a monthly one would really help me out a great deal. Tennis lessons usually are $50, $60, sometimes $70 an hour. And I do 2 hours of audio instructions free every month. So we’re talking about a $120 if you’re to go out and take 2 hour private lessons a month. Now obviously the podcast is not the same thing as private instruction, but I think $5 dollars a month for 2 hours of instruction is a pretty darn good deal. So please consider that. And I would appreciate it very much if you were to be on board and support me with small donation each month.

Alright, let’s go ahead and get to today’s show. Sit back, relax and get ready for some great tennis instruction.

[music] [music] [music]

Alright, our first question that I’m going to answer for today comes to us Mayia and Mayia I hope I’m pronouncing your name correctly. It’s Mayia and for location she gives USA. So hopefully I’m saying that right. If I’m not I really apologize, B ut I’m going to go with Mayia for the show. And she wrotes to me with the following question.

‘This maybe a question that would not apply to many. However, I am interested of your opinion on keeping and practice 2 types of forehands: single and double handed. In the last year and a half I have been working exclusively on my new single handed forehand, but I can hit double handed as well. However, it needs to be practiced as everything else. I think that a double handed option keeps opponents surprised, and and it is an asset I should not lose. It is also kind of fun to have more options what is your opinion?’ She also says, ‘P. S. I don’t know if this will play a role, but the backhand is my stronger side. ‘

Alright Mayia, good question. And this is my opinion. I don’t think that what I’m going to tell you here is necessarily written in stone. I mean nothing I really say on the podcast is written in stone. Some things maybe more than others. B ut my opinion of this is–and there’s kind of a over used cliche that I think describes it well, at least my opinion and my view points.

I don’t believe most of the time in having too many irons in the fire. So to speak. And having a lot of different things going at once if it’s not really necessary. In my opinion, you want to have a good feeling of cohesiveness. You want to have confidence when you walk out and you’re running to go hit a forehand. In my opinion, you want to be as reliable and confident as possible every time you hit a forehand. And I think the best way to do that is to practice with the same swing again and again.

Now it’s good to have options. F or example I like for players to have a slice and the top spin, or drive swing on each side. And this is for offense or for defense. And to play a variety of different shots like a drop shot or an attacking shot, etc. I mean, don’t get me wrong here. I don’t want you guys to be one dimensional. A nd I don’t want you to be overly predictable where your opponent always knows exactly what you’re going to do.

But on the other hand I feel like with using either one or two hands on your forehand side you should be able to come up with a wide variety of different shots just within that one stroke. Without having to use a completely different technique and stroke. And by the way, there is a vast difference between a 1 handed and a 2 handed forehand. It might seem like they’re basically the same thing if you’re hitting both with top spin, and they’re both on the right side of your body. It might seem like they’re very really similar shots, but really, when it comes to using your body they are very, very different.

And so for the purpose of being able to develop your game, I would much rather that you just pick one and go with it.

A lot of times students asked me when they’re first coming out for a lesson with me and maybe they’re beginners. A lot of times students ask me what should I should use on their backhand side: 1 handed or 2 handed backhand? And I always have students that have questions like that. I have them tried both in front of me and I watch them hit both. And we decide together which one is most comfortable and feels most natural to them .

And then I very strongly encourage them to stick with it and allow it to develop and improve and become– again I like the word cohesiveness. To become a cohesive part of their game. Something that just become second nature and something that they don’t have to think about which one to use. I like players to have a go-to shot. And so for that reason I would encourage you to pick one or the other, Mayia.

Now you say that your backhand is stronger side. And I can’t help but wondering if maybe this has something to do within and my assess that you said a 3. 5 player. I don’t know how long you’ve been playing for Mayia and I don’t know also if you also switch between a 1 handed and 2 handed backhand.

B ut I can’t help but wonder if switching on your forehand side back and forth has something to do with the fact that you’re backhand is your more confident side. The vast majority of tennis players prefer their forehand side, because it’s their dominant side, and it’s just the side that usually their most coordinated on just most comfortable with. And so for that reason, the vast majority of players with rather hit a forehand than a backhand. So you’re a little bit different in this regard. I

t’s not that no players prefer their backhand. That’s not true it all, but a large enough percentage prefer their forehand that I can’t help but wonder if this switching back and forth has something to do with you preferring your backhand side.

Now if you’ve always hand the same backhand, I kind of have to assume that this does have something to do with it. If you’ve always been switching back and forth on both sides, then maybe you’re just most natural on your backhand side. But I’ve never seen you playing. I’m not sure how long you’ve been playing or what the details are, so I can’t be positive. I’m kind of guessing on this.

But the bottom line is if you were my student I would have you pick one and stick with it, because in my opinion it’s going to be much easier for you to advance one stroke on your forehand side then it is going to be just have 2 different strokes on your forehand side, and try to advance and improve both of them at the same. It just adds more things for you to work on it. It adds a layer of complexity that I don’t think it’s necessary.

And you talked about keeping your opponent surprise and catching them off guard. This is something that really probably has a much lesser effect on your opponents and you probably think. At a 3. 5 level you’re opponents probably aren’t nothing much when you switch and go from one hand to two. It’s probably not even big enough difference that most of your opponents are even noticing.

And even if they do, I don’t think where there going to be like, ‘Oh, wow, she just hit of 2 hand instead of one,’ and like lose concentration and missing the next shot or something like that. And even if they do, this is probably somebody that you were going to beat anyway. And even if you do beat them, because of that, that’s an effect that’s really going to go away after awhile. Once you get up to 4.0 and 4. 5, the novelty factor really is going to ware off. And players are probably going to start picking on that shot, because they’ll see that you’re not quite sure what’s you going to using that day.

So anyway, those are my thoughts. And again my opinion if both are dancing quickly go ahead and stick with it if you’d like to, but if you’re taking lessons from me I would definitely try to get you to stick with one or the other so that we can really improve that one shot.

Good luck with your game and definitely let me know how you’re doing. And I’d be curious to see what you decided to do and how it’s working out as well. Best of luck with that.

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Alright, next step we had a question from Matt in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Matt wrote to me and said:

‘My question has to do with staying sharp in the off season. I’ve made a lot of strikes in my game this year and I’d like to start of strong when spring rolls around. I cannot afford to join the local club, but I was going to take a lesson or two. Beyond that, are there any drills that I can do even down in my basements against the wall? I have a good amount of room that I might be able to work on certain to aspects of my game. ‘

Matt has a second question as well. I’m going to answer this one first. Well, Matt it kind of depends on exactly how much space you have. And I remember when I was a kid and my family didn’t have a lot of money either. So I actually I did this myself in my basement. We had a cinder black wall down in our basement. And I remember moving a laundry lines that mom used hang the laundry down in the basement. So I would move those out of the way and I probably had I would say probably 12 or 15 feet square. So not a lot of room.

And what I would do down on the basement of the wall was basically practice with a continental grip and hit slice type shots or volley type strokes. And I was able to hit off to the wall and have it rebound back to me in the air and practice my volleys. And I would also practice half volleys of the wall, again with the continental grip and I would just kind of, I really just had enough room that I could kind of punch the ball forward. The ceilings were pretty low as well.

So I just didn’t have a whole lot of room. So I would practice compact type shots.

And this was still good practice. I mean it wasn’t great. It wasn’t like hitting against an actual backboard on a tennis court, but I could still work on my eye-hand coordination and my concentration. And I feel like it was good practice and it was worthwhile. Now if you have enough room to make a full swing at the ball that’s awesome. That totally changes things if you have a high enough ceiling that you can make a full ground stroke swing and not hit the ceiling, and if you have enough room to make a full ground strokes swing and have it rebound and have enough space to really like come up to the wall back to you. And you’re going to need like a good probably 20 or 30 feet. Maybe even a little further than that. Maybe 3-0 or 40 feet of length to really make a full ground stroke swing. A top spin or drive swing at the ball and have it come all the way have enough room to have a bounce come up and then come back to you.

Now if you have that much room– or actually either way. Whether you only have enough room to use compact swings or if you have enough room to make a full swing either way make sure of 2 things. First of all, make sure you have a target. And you can use tape to do this or you can paint or marker or whatever. But make some kind of marking on the wall and masking tape would probably be good way to do this without damaging the wall or without making it permanent.

But I would definitely put up–if you have enough room to do this– I would definitely put up a line that represents the net and remember that the net is 3 feet high in the middle and then tilts upwards slightly from there. So make it accurate. And make sure that the net lower in the middle and kind of tilts upwards as it goes away from the center of the net.

And besides the net I would also making actual target and I would make a box that’s maybe a foots square. Maybe 2 feet square. Again with tape or some paint. And whenever you go down there to practice whatever type of stroke it is, make sure that you have some kind of physical target like that. Something you can actually aim for an actually try to hit.

Secondly, once you’ve got your target up there and you’re practicing against the wall, give yourself some kind of objective or goal. And this is going to really help you stay focus and keep on task. And when I say objective or goal what I’m talking about is–let’s were doing volleys off the wall. A nd by the way you going to want to put a volley target quite a bit higher than a ground stroke target so that the ball doesn’t drop and bounce on the ground before it gets back to you.

But anyway wherever your target is I would recommend doing something like trying to hit it 7 times in a row. O r go down there and maybe to warm up, hit the target with your forehand 30 times. And then hit the target with your backhand 30 times. And then maybe try to hit it a certain number of times in a row and hit it with slice and with top spin and then do the volleys. But make sure that you have a physical target to aim for, and give yourself some kind of goal. It’s going to make it more fun that way and it will keep you–again. It will keep your concentration sharp and it will keep you from wasting our time and just aimlessly just hitting the ball without really thinking about what you’re doing.

Now there’s 3 other main things that you can do during the off season besides actually hitting balls down in your basement. First of all, you you can read and there’s a lot of good tennis books out there. And you can get them on audio book. Maybe you’ve a long commute like I do, and you got times to listen to audio books. That would be great. There’s instructional books out there. Also historical tennis books. Books on mental tennis. I would definitely do that and you can further educate yourself during the off season and make yourself a better player that way.

You can also work on your fitness. This is very easy to do at home. I would yet in agility latter and maybe some resistance bands or some free weights and you can do a lot of–maybe a medicine ball would be great. And you can use a medicine ball against that wall in your basement to work on your core strength. And you can really strengthen yourself physically during the off season by training and doing some fitness work and some footwork work. T hose are all things that you can do in your basement. That would be definitely worth of your time.

Also you can listen to the podcast. You can listen to the Essential Tennis Podcast. We have 100 episodes now. I haven’t actually set down and done them Matt, but I think it’s like up to 60 or 70 hours of tennis instruction. And that’s a lot. That’s another way that you can spend your time , and another use of your time that can actually improve you. Believe it or not. A nd it kind of surprised me my self and you can, but you can actually make your game better by listening to this show.

So go to the archives and every episode is listed in the archives at essentialtennis.com. All you have to do is sign up for the free newsletter, and you can download every show and listen to them there. So in case you didn’t know that go ahead and check that out as well.

So hopefully that gives you some ideas Matt. And I’ll go ahead and go to your next question. Matt wrote and said:

‘When I practice with my playing partner. I seem to strike the ball well and we can get into some pretty good rallies. But when it comes time to play. All my works seems to go out to the window. How do I transfer my practice into my game?’

Well man, this is a very, very common mental toughness problem. Something that I would actually say every player deals with a t least at one point or another. Definitely something that I have dealt with when I was playing in college. I didn’t really deal with this problem in high school, but I did in college quite a lot. Where I would go out–and I know totally what you mean. It would be like I was a completely different person and different player. All of a sudden, all my confidence would go away and I would just be kind of tight and tentative. Or I would go out and over hit and be too aggressive. And beat myself. It was difficult for me to transfer the skills that I had in practice over to the competition court. So I totally know what you’re talking about. So don’t feel like you’re alone with this at all.

Now what I want you to do–and I’m going to go back to the podcast archives again. David Groemping is a mental tennis expert. He’s a mental coach. Mental toughness coach. He actually trains several listeners of the Essential Tennis Podcast. And he has done several shows with me. I’m not sure if you’ve listen to this already or not Matt, but we have discussed and answered basically this exact same question several times on the podcast. And so I want you to go download all of the shows that I have done with him. And I think he and I have done 5 episodes now together just answering listener question having to do with mental toughness and mental tennis. And they’re very, very good episodes, and again we discussed this exact problem.

All you need to do is sign up for the archives. Go to the podcast archives page, open up the archives and then do a search for that page. Do a text search. And just search for David. And you’ll be able to go directly to those shows. And again I believe there’s 5. So download all 5 of those shows that I’ve done with David and listen to them. I’m not going to go into detail on the answer to that question here, because we’ve already discussed it before. Not only that, but he does a much better job of explaining this than I do.

However, I will tell you Matt, that one of the biggest things to do is to continue practice competing as as often as possible. You not only need just spend time practicing your strokes in a purely practice situation where there’s nothing on the line. There’s nothing it’s stake. There’s no pressure. And you can swing freely and not worry about losing a point or losing a game or losing a match or losing to your friend that you’ve never lost you before. All these different mental anxieties. It’s easy to do it when there’s nothing on the line.

But you need to not only do that where there’s no pressure, but you need to practice competing as well, and you need to do this as often as possible. Practice whatever your A game is in competition. And set this up on purpose with your practice partner. And even put something on the line to even make it better practice. That’s game whoever win, whoever losers has to buy a Gatorade after the practice session. Or has to buy dinner that night. O r whatever. Or put 5 bucks on the line or something or. I’m n ot condoning gambling really.

But put something on the line where there’s actually some pressure to make it something that you really want to win and you don’t want to lose. And then go out and practice playing your game confidently and do it again and again and again. And you might lost these matches sometimes, but that’s part of the game, but you’re going to lost sometimes.

But do something to put pressure on yourself and then be purpose for about practicing playing confidently. The more times you can do that, the more used to competition you’ll get and the better and better of the competitor you’ll be.

So that’s my quick answer, but again go download the podcast with David Groemping. Listen to those and that’s really going to be the most help for you.

Matt, thanks very much for your questions. I appreciate it. Hopefully my answers give you some stuff to work on and good luck training in the off season. And good question by the way. It’s great to see people out there who are passionate enough about the sport that, even though they don’t have a club membership, still want to do something to improve their game. So it’s great to see that Matt and keep up the good work. Let me know how you’re doing.

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Alright, that does it for today’s show, the Essential Tennis Podcast episode #102. Thank you very much for joining me today. I appreciate it very much. And just one more thing I want to talk to you guys about before we wrap up.

First of all, I wanted to do another answer here, but looking through my next couple questions that are in line, they’re definitely going to take sometime to go through. Just have a couple of minutes left during the regular show time. So I’m going to save those for later.

But I want to tell you guys about something that myself and Will from fuzzyyellowballs.com were going to be doing together. And that’s going to be upcoming during the Australian Open Final, which is going to be the 31st. And it’s obviously a really early match time here in the US. I think you’re on East Coast it is something like 3:00 in the morning. But he and I are going to be doing a live broadcast during the Australian Open Final. And we’re going to be doing commentary throughout the entire Australian Open Finals Match. The men’s finals match early on Sunday morning the 31st here in the US.

So keep your eyes open for that. Something that I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and we’re going to be interacting with viewers live and answering questions and reading you guys’ comments during the broadcast. I think it’s going to be something that’s going to be a lot of fun for everybody. So keep your eyes open for information on that. I can’t tell you guys where to go exactly yet, but if you are either subscribed to the newsletter at Essential Tennis, or if you’re following Essential Tennis on Facebook at facebook.com/essentialtennis. Or if you are getting my Twitter feed at twitter.com/essentialtennis. All 3 of those ways you’ll be able to get information. I’ll definitely be sending out links and letting you guys know where to go.

But just be aware of that and keep your eyes open and I’m looking forward very much to doing that. I think it’s going to be a fun experience.

Alright, well that does it for this weeks show. Thanks again everybody for downloading and listening. Take care and good luck with your tennis.

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Essential Tennis Podcast #101

Download: Word Doc | PDF | Kindle | Text

Announcer : Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. If you love tennis and want to improve your game, this podcast is for you. Whether it’s technique, strategy, equipment or the mental game, tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player.

And now, here’s Ian.

Ian Westermann : Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. Your place for free expert tennis instructions that can truly help you improve your game.

Thanks very much for joining me on today’s episode of the Essential Tennis Podcast. I’m really happy to have you listening. Thank you for downloading the show.

Before we get started with today’s listener questions, I’d like to make an announcement, and that is for the next upcoming Essential Tennis Clinic. And this clinic is going to be held on March 20th and 21st in Fremont, Nebraska, which is close to Omaha, Nebraska. This is going to be a 2-day clinic. It’s going to feature instruction by myself on technique and doubles and singles strategy, and I’m going to have special guest instructor with me to aid with me on the court. His name is David Groemping.

And David Groemping you guys may recognize that name from the podcast. He’s the mental expert and mental tennis coach that I often have on to answer mental tennis questions. He’s going to be with me there and he’s also going to be giving a workshop during the clinic about mental toughness during your tennis play. So you’re going to get not only technique and strategy instruction on the court, around 10 hours of instructions on court, but you also going to get a mental tennis workshop. So you’re really going to be working on all aspects of your game at this clinic.

And again it’s in Fremont, Nebraska March 20th and 21st. If you’re interested in attending this clinic, you need to let me know quickly. The first two Essential Tennis clinics have run of both sold outs. So if you’d like to work with me on your tennis game and with David Groemping, definitely let me know. There’s going to be a sign-up on the websites soon, but in the meantime feel free to send me an e-mail at ian@essentailtennis.com.

Alright, let’s get to today’s questions. Sit back, relax and get ready for some great tennis instruction.

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Alright, let’s get started with today’s show and our first question comes to us from Dropshot on the forums at essentialtennis.com. Dropshot wrote and said, ‘I have a question about being at the net. I’m quite comfortable positioning myself at the net, but I have problems. Not so much with players that selectable really hard of me, but it’s those guys that take just a bit of pace of their passing shots and aim it really well dipping low just over the net with good top spin, and landing usually with an inches of the side line.

Either I’m really slow in my old age or they’ve hit a really excellent passing shot for which there is no defense. Is there a way to train for this type of shot? Are there side lunges or some other high performance exercises that you can recommend to improve my odds here? Or it is just the inevitable being slowing or reflexes that comes with age?’ And he says that he is 51 years old. ‘I returned to playing tennis 2 years ago after a 30 year hiatus.’

Well, Dropshot that’s a good question. And I don’t think that most of these has to do with your age or conditioning. That’s the good news. [laughter] No, I don’t think that you’re out of luck here due to your age. There’s several things that are within your control that I think if you improve and focus on and do to the best of your ability you’ll have a much better chance against these players.

So let me go through my outline here answering your question. First of all, anybody who’s able to hit the shot that you describe and hit it consistently is a very high level player. And yes, that’s an amazing shot. And you don’t say what’s your play ability here is Dropshot. You don’t say what level you play at or what level your opponents are. But the shot that you describe to be able to hit that shot a couple of times in a match would be awesome for most players. And you described several different variables. You talked about the ball barely making it over the net dipping low. So I’m assuming with some good top spin here. And you talked about being in angle. Has to and landing with an inches of the side lines. We’re talking about a really high level shot here.

Now if you’re playing somebody who can do this consistently, then you’re playing against somebody who’s really high level of player. And it may be that they’re just extremely good at this shot and yes, you’re going to have a hard time winning, and coming up to the net is going to be difficult. But again, there’s a couple of things in your control that you need to really pay attention to, and practice so that you can have the highest degree of success possible.

Now when it comes to coming up to the net and approaching, there’s a couple of things that you need to do and really keep track of. And the first one is the quality of your approach shot. And a big mistake that amateur players often make when they do come to the net is they decide to come forwards and approach off of a shot is not great. And it’s not a shot that’s really challenging their opponents much.

Now I’m a big proponent of my students coming forwards and coming to the net, because it’s a big pressure to their opponents. And gives you all kind of benefits. You’re closer to your opponent side of the court so you have use your access to angles and it’s easier to put the ball away the closer you are. A lso you take time away from your opponent, because you’re closer to them.

But the flip side is, because you’re closer to your opponent you also have less time to react to their passing shot or to their lob, and so that means that you can’t just wander up to the net on any old shot. You just can’t do that. You can’t hit an average shot to your opponent and just run up to the net and expect to be successful all the time, because if they’re in balance and they’re comfortable and they have plenty of time to react to your approach shot, the likelihood of them hitting a good passing shot against you increases exponentially.

So we need to make sure that you’re coming forwards on a good approach, especially against the player that you’re describing that obviously has the skills to hit a great passing shot. You cannot risk coming forwards on an average shot. Now it may be that you plan to come into the net and you want to hit a good approach shot, but after making your swing, you identify that this is kind of going into them. It’s not very challenging. At which point I would recommend that you just back up again and you just change plays. And just kind of throw that plan out of the window, because you can’t afford to set yourself up over and over again for a passing shot from your opponent.

Now what is the quality approach shot? There’s two variables here that I feel are most important. First of all, I feel that depths is very important. And you need to place your approach shot deep in the court. And when you do this your opponent is going to have very little time–one or two things is going to happen. Either they’re going to have to back up to account for the depth of your shot so that they have time to react and hit the ball comfortably in which case great. Your giving them more distance to have to carry the ball and to have to try to power the ball or angle the ball past you. And so the deeper the better most of the time.

Sometimes you’ll see pros approach the net off a drop shot. That can be successful as well. But you’re bread and butter should really be a deep strong approach shot.

The second option that they’ll have if you do hit a deep is to take it on the rise nd this can be very tricky, meaning to take it right off to the bounce assuming that they don’t back way behind the base line to account for the depth of your shot. Either way here you’re really pressuring them a lot. And so I think you should really practice pretty near approach shots to deep. If you come in on a ball that land around the service line. You’re giving them plenty of time to react to the ball after it bounces and that time is going to equal a comfort level for them and probably a balance that they are able to be in and try to hit a quality shot. And we don’t want that. So try to keep your approach shot deep.

Secondly, I recommend that most of the time you come into the net after hitting a down the line approach shot. And this is so that you can most easily cover the court and cover the angels on the court. When you hit the ball down the line, you are in a better position automatically to cover the possible angels. If you hit cross court, you leave open a lot of court down the line for your opponent to hit a passing shot.

Now this is not an ironclad law and you don’t always have to approach down the line. Sometimes down the middle can be successful. Sometimes even cross court can be successful. But in general, I would go down the list in that order of success. Possible success. Down the line down the middle cross court. Cross court–unless you hit a really good shot–is going to really open up a lot of court for your opponent to pass you.

This is kind of difficult to describe with words via audio. I’m actually getting ready to put up a video at essentialtennis.com/video that really demonstrates this. When you really see the court it’s easy to kind of understand this. But I’m just kind of leave it that for now and just make you aware and make sure that you’re aware Dropshot and the rest of my listeners that down the line is usually the way to go in singles when you’re approaching the net.

So when it comes to quality of shot those are the two important criteria: deep and down the line. Now, once you’ve hit your deep down the line approach shot and you’re pressuring your opponent with this shot, make sure that you position yourself on the side of the court that you hit the ball. And so if you hit a forehand approach shot on the do side, it was a short forehand you were over on the right side of the court if you’re right handed. And you direct that deep down the line right in front of you to the right. From your prospective. You want to position yourself a little bit to the right of the central line, and this because it’s going to be much easier for your opponent as around the run to get to your approach. It’s going to be much easier for them to hit the ball straight than it is to catch the ball early and hit a big angle.

Now you describe your opponent here being able to hit these big sharp angles. And we’re going to talk just a little bit later about what to do about that. But you should be usually covering down the line first and positioning yourself in front of wherever you hit your approach shot.

So if your approach to the left, you should be a little bit on the left side of the court. If you approach to the right, you should be a little bit to the right side of the court. This is called ‘ shading. ‘ And basically the rule of thumb is that you should be following the ball. What ever direction you hit your approach shot to, that’s should direction you should be moving as you position yourself.

Alright, so that’s my #1 piece of advise for you Dropshot, is to come forward on a quality shot and position yourself correctly. If you do those two things then the amount of times that you get past should drop quite a bit. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of these passing shots that are being hit on you are the result of not challenging your opponent very much, and not putting yourself on the right spot.

Now I have three other pieces of advise here for you. First of all, make sure that when they do hit a good passing shot, you’re stepping across your body for the most amount of reach. Like a launch that you suggested earlier in your question.

So if you’re right handed and you are stretching out to your right to try to get a ball that has been hit well and you’re going to have a hard time reaching it, you should be stepping with your left foot. This is very important. If it’s a backhand and you’re moving to your left, you should be stepping across with your right foot. This is going to give you the most amount of reach as you step across your body and into a lunge type position like you were talking about.

So make sure that you were doing that and you’re not stepping with your out side foot. Your right foot for a forehand and your left foot for a backhand. That’s going to limit your amount of reach quite a bit.

Secondly, pay close attention to the tendencies of your opponents and anticipate. Just about everybody you play is going to have a preference. When you hit to their forehand side they are going to usually like a certain type of passing, whether be down the line or cross courts or hard and flat or top spin or maybe they like to lob. When you hit to their forehand or backhand, they will have tendencies as far as what they like to try it first. They are going to have probably a favorite shot or maybe two favorite shots that they like to try to hit when you do come forward to the net. It’s your job to pay attention to these.

And Dropshot you should not get beaten by the same shot again and again and again. If you approach on a quality approach shot and you position yourself correctly and you get beat cross court with a sharp high quality angle, you need to put that in your mental log book. If you do it again: approach to the same spot again with the quality of approach and you position yourself correctly and they pass you again with the same shot, OK. At this point after they’ve done it a hand full of times successfully. At that point you need to start altering your strategy and either approaching to a different place or approach to the same place and anticipating where they are going to go. And you need to change your position on the court accordingly. Do not continue to do the same thing and get beat by the same shot again and again.

And this obviously sounds really fundamental and it sounds very obvious. I guess you’ll have to point this out. But this is where matches are win and lost and the patterns of good shots being hit, and one player or the other not making any adjustments. So make sure that you’re paying close attention to your opponent. You’re watching their tendencies. And then start to anticipate them and make adjustments accordingly.

Now last piece of advise here for you Dropshot. Being in better shape and being stronger can always help. So I’m not going to tell you, ‘No don’t work out. Don’t get in better shape. Don’t get your legs stronger.’ No, I’m not going to tell you that obviously. I mean all those things cab definitely help you. But I just want to point out the several tactical advantages you can have and also the placements of your shots in your technique. I gave you some shots to work on: hitting deep and down the line of a short ball. Doing exercises and getting your body strong can definitely help, but compared to everything else that I talked to you about it’s probably going to be the least important part of covering the passing shot correctly. And covering it effectively.

So Dropshot, hopefully that answers your question. If you’d like me to go into any more depth to any of these topics individually, definitely let me know. And yes, I mean you’re obviously not as fast as you were when you were 20 years old. That’s just how the body works, but if you’re smart out there and you know what to look for and you know where to place your approach and where to place yourself. You should definitely be more successful. So good luck with this. Please let me know if you have any more questions, and I’d be happy to help out.

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Alright, next step we’ve got a question from Bruce. Bruce wrote to me and said, ‘I watched the YouTube video today that demonstrated these footstep. My question concerns the timing of this footstep. Should I make the jump when my opponent contacts the ball? When he– usually he–begins a backs swing or some other time? Cheers. Bruce.’

Bruce good question. And this footstep is a very, very important topic and something that most amateur players don’t do at all. And very often the ones that do, do it, don’t do a great a job of it and do it at the wrong time and it’s really all about the timing. If you’re not split stepping already. I’m speaking to everybody here. If you’re not already split stepping, you need to begin that as soon as possible. You need to start putting that into your game, because it’s going to help you being balance. It’s going to help be more agile. It’s going to help anticipate more shots, because it just gets your body moving and gets it in a good balance athletic position and gets your body prepared to actually move.
And its so important.

And if you’re already doing it. Hopefully my explanation today of how the time is exactly helps you do a decent more efficiently. And so that’s an excellent question Bruce. And the timing is incredibly crucial to actually having this be a benefit to your game.

Now the pros split step and land just after they make contact by their opponent. Now they begin the process of split stepping just before contact. You’ll see them kind of get going on their tip toes, maybe get a couple of steps, and then they actually make the actual split step which is a splitting apart of the feet, and the feet usually leave the ground for a short period of time, and then they land in a wide athletic stance with their knees bent and facing forwards. That’s this footstep.

And usually they begin this process of doing that right before their opponent makes contact, meaning when the ball actually touches the racket. A nd then the professionals typically land on the balls of their feet just after contact has been made.

I used to think that this was timed exactly with contacts and the balls of their feet were landing just this contact was made, but I learned otherwise based on good video that Will a Fuzzy Yellow Balls created. And he showed several examples of professionals and slow motion timing their split step. And the pros will land just a little bit. When I say a little bit I’m talking a split second after contact.

Now when an amateur playing tries this footstep and screws it up, it’s usually, because they’re too late. And it’s not that they’re after contact. They’ll actually make this split step after the swing is done and the ball is already off the racket, and that’s when they’ll actually make the entire split step. And that’s much too late. And so typically I teach and I instruct my students to time their split step with contact. And so I ask them to land on the balls of their feet as contact is being made.

And in reality it’s usually a later than this for most players. Most players struggle definitely at first if not just in general and timing this correctly. And I encourage you guys just to start working on this as soon as possible, because it takes most players–especially if you’re picking tennis a little bit later in life. It takes most players quite a bit of time to be comfortable with this, and to actually time it correctly and make it a habit.

Ultimately that’s our goal is to do this automatically without even thinking about it. You don’t want to have to think about how the time or split step during a match, because that’s just going to completely get in the way if you actually playing tennis. So that’s very important.

So I really encourage you guys to start practicing this on the practice court as soon as possible. And the timing of this is so important. So again usually amateur players are late when they do mess this up. It’s very rare that in my experience that an amateur player does the split step and it’s way too early. And they’re just kind of sitting there on the balls of their feet waiting for contact to occur. Usually players try to do too much with their feet, and this often happens in the serving volley where a player will hit the serve and start rushing forwards and trying to get too close before they make their split step. The ball gets hit then they split step after the ball is hit and by the time their feet are touching the ground on the balls of their feet. The ball is already there. And that defeats the whole purpose of making this split step.

So this is why I instruct players to make their split step a little earlier than the pros actually do it, because I want to make sure that they do it on time. And my reasoning for this is that if you do it early–and let’s say for example that my student does exactly as I instruct them and they do it a little bit earlier than the pros do. And maybe they hit their split step even a little bit before contact. Well, you may not be positioned optimally. You wasted a little bit of time that you could have used to move your feet and maybe get your body to a little bit better spot on the court. But at least your body is in balance and you’re ready to move. In a split step after you finish with it. You’re in a perfect ready position. And you’re ready to move in any direction on the court.

This is as opposed to being late and your position maybe better on the court, because you use more of your time to move your feet towards some place on the court. either it would be recovering back to the center of the base line, or moving forward towards the net after a return or a serve in doubles. Maybe your body’s in a little bit better place on the court. B ut once the ball gets to you, you going to be much more rushed and you’re going to be off balance and not ready to move for the ball–or maybe away from the ball if it’s coming right at you–because you used up so much of your time to move your feet and you didn’t get your self balanced.

The perfect example of this is the serving volley. After you serve and volley you want to get close to the net. The closer the better. Because it’s going to make your volleys or have foul is easier in general.

However, if you don’t split step until after–well after–your opponent hits their shot. Again, by that time your feet touch on the ground the balls already there and you have very little time to react to the ball once you actually balance your body and you’re ready to hit the ball. I would rather that you be a couple steps farther away from the net by the time you make your first split step and be balance and ready for the ball and calm and relax and waiting for the oncoming ball so that you can start moving again, whether it be to the right or the left or forwards or backward or whatever. I’d much rather that you’re little farther away and be in balance and ready for the ball then closer to the net and rushed. And not ready for the shot. And so that’s my reasoning there. I’ve much rather you be a little bit earlier than a little bit late.

So Bruce hopefully that answers your questions fully and again I recommend that you make your split step so that your feet actually land on the court as your opponent is making contact. By the way, you might notice first I haven’t said anything about your opponent’s b ack swing or when the ball bounces on your opponent side or even what type of shot their hitting. It doesn’t make any difference. You want to time this with when they make contact. And so it’s going be a little different every time.

You want to watch the ball travel to their side of the court and then identify what type of shot they’re hitting, hat position they’re in, so that you can see when they’re going to make contact and you want to begin your split step right before they start to actually swing forward towards the ball.

And I really shouldn’t even say that, because it really depends what type of shot they’re hitting. If they’re hitting a volley and there’s not much of a swing there, and so you have to time this on the fly with how your opponent and the ball are intersecting, and where they are in the court, and when the balls actually getting to the racket. So this is tricky. It’s not an easy thing. Its not simple. Just like a lot of things in tennis, but it’s going to take you sometime.

So Bruce thanks for your great question and hopefully that answers it. Let me know if you have anything farther. Good luck in implementing the split step into your game. Is such an important part of playing good tennis.

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Alright, that does it for the Essential Tennis Podcast episode #101. Thank you very much for joining me today. And in today’s shout out I would like to thank Brian and Dana and Renata in Fremont, Nebraska. And they’ve been instrumental and helping me get set up the upcoming Essential Tennis clinic in Nebraska. So I want to thank them for their efforts in helping find courts to play on and local hotels, and all kinds of stuff like that. And the three of them have been big supporters of the website. So I want to give a shout out to you guys and say thank you for everything that you’ve done for the podcast and for the website. And I look forward to working with all three of you guys on the tennis court in March coming up pretty quickly.

And again send me an e-mail if you’re interested in attending that clinic. I would love to have you and I’d love to help you improve your game. Just like I have many other people at the first two Essential Tennis Clinics.

Alright, that does it for this week. Have fun watching the Australian open everybody. I’ve got it playing just to the right of me right now as in recording, and lots of great tennis already. Make sure that you catch a lot of that action. Its so much fun to watch the pros play.

Alright, take care everybody and good luck with your tennis.

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Essential Tennis Podcast #100

Download: Word Doc | PDF | Kindle | Text

Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast.

If you love tennis and wants to improve your game, this podcast is for you. Whether it’s technique, strategy, equipment or the mental game. Tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player. And now here’s Ian!

Ian Westermann : Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. Your place for free, expert tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game. Thank you very much for joining me on today’s episode of the Essential Tennis Podcast and today’s a little bit of a milestone in the show, we are celebrating our 100th episode.

I want to thank everybody who has been with me. Some of you guys who have been listening from the very beginning, I really appreciate the support of all of you who listen to the show and download the show on a regular basis. You guys are the reason why I continue to do this show and thank you very much for your support.

Also I want to thank my forum members. They’re probably the most enthusiastic and the most passionate of the people who follow the podcast and you guys are always a great encouragement to me. Thank you everybody who posts on the forums. And I want to thank my guests as well who have been on the show. Some people many times and it really helps make the show much more interesting and more interactive. So thank you to guests as well who have been on the show.

Well, let’s go ahead and get on to today’s topic and by the way, I got good suggestions from several of you for what to do for the 100th episode and I’ve probably asked that question a little bit too late– just didn’t have enough time to really plan anything special or fancy and I’m not really one to do that anyway. So today is just going to be a regular show besides this intro, but one more time, thank you everybody whose been supportive and helping me as I keep on going. Hopefully, not too far in the distant future we’ll be doing show #200.

Let’s go ahead and get to today’s topic. I’m going to be talking with Jason Kohl and answering a listener question. Sit back, relax and get ready for some great tennis instruction. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]

My guest on the show today is my good friend Jason Kohl. Jason and I played college tennis together at Ferris State University and he’s been my good friend over the years. We shared suites in college and shared a lot of time on the court and spent a lot of time even since college and it’s really good to have you on the show. I enjoy talking with you about tennis.

[Jason Kohl] Thanks, buddy. We’ve had a good run so far.

[Ian Westermann] So today’s topics is going to be interesting and it’s something that I’ve talked about briefly on the podcast before, but not very in depth and I think it’s an important subject for our listeners to understand exactly what differentiates different NTRP rating levels and quite possibly more importantly, I really wants my listeners to understand the differences between amateur level players, even let’s say top amateur level players and low professional level of players or just professional level players in general and it’s something that I feel so many amateur players don’t give enough respect to professional players and exactly what they’re watching on TV. And so we’re going to be talking a bit about that today in answering a question by a listener and somebody who posts on the forums.

But before we do that, Jason can you please take a couple of minutes and I want people to kind of know where we’re coming from as far as our own playing level. So can you please give people a quick kind of background on exactly what level of tennis that you’ve played in the past?

[Jason Kohl] Well, I’ve played doubles in college and then [inaudible] run to Europe and Canada and several other places and played some teachers and what not and then I was an assistant coach for the University of Virginia which currently is the #1 team in the country.

[Ian Westermann] Nice. So in college as an example, I mean Ferris State when you and I played there, it was usually ranked in like in the 30s nationally in division II is that correct? If I remember correctly.

[Jason Kohl] I think we were around 20.

[Ian Westermann] Was it?

[Jason Kohl] Whatever somewhere around there.

[Ian Westermann] Alright, Jason and I are both played for one of the upper divisions II schools, not the best college tennis in the country by any means, but certainly up there and Jason played well ahead of me on the team, he’s definitely a much stronger player than I am. I played the bottom of the lineup there and in the past have played in 5.0 leagues as well. I don’t have any experience really in playing after college while Jason he mentioned traveled around and actually played some lower level professional events.

So both of us and Jason also as you said was a college coach at UVA, which some of those players are actually tour players– they are actually playing ATP events these days?

[Jason Kohl] Yes well [inaudible] was the #1 guy in the team. He won 2 national championships while I was there and he is currently ranked like 130th in the world.

[Ian Westermann] Nice.

[Jason Kohl] Pretty much everybody on the team is ranked somewhere around 900 or below.

[Ian Westermann] OK.

[Jason Kohl] So they’ve all got points as juniors. They’ve been winning [inaudible] titles and stuff like. So it’s really that they are quite talented people.

[Ian Westermann] Alright, I just wanted to go over that briefly so that listeners get an idea of the experiences that we’ve had around top level players and people that are very, very talented. I just want people to know we’re not just making stuff up and we’ve got some decent experience between the two of us. Neither of us made it as a professional tennis player, but we’ve definitely been around our fair share of high level players. So I just want people to understand that we’ve got some good experience working with– and Jason and I now both teach full time at private clubs where we interact a lot with 3.0 players and 3.5 players.

And so I just want people to get a good picture of the range of players that Jason and I have experience with. Now let’s go ahead and get to today’s question. So it take me a couple of minutes to fill you guys in exactly on everything that this question asker wants us to talk about and then Jason and I are going into a discussion of different levels of players and give this person some pointers on somethings maybe he can do to get better and trying to beat a player that’s a lot better than he is.

So this comes to us from Flame Yu in Southern California. He writes and says, ‘Hi, I’m 22 years old and have been playing and had limited coaching from a 29 year old former pro for a few years. I’ve lost 6 matches 6-0, 6-0 and earned no games. I only win a few points here and there with some luck.’ Now he goes in to some details about both of them and I’m going to skip over some of these, but I wan to give you guys an idea of his perception– the differences between himself and this playing partner that he has.

He says, His background easily beats D2, D3 college tennis players, is in good shape, but not his best. He’s a very good coach and played for China in the past. He’s playing style is 5.5 or 6.0 attacking, ruthless all quarter, pros he knows my pros and cons better than me. He’s mentally strong and focused. He disguises his shots well. Instant footwork also unlike me. ‘ He says that this player’s cons are he hits a one handed backhand and dislikes a high backhand and he dislikes low slices to his semi western forehand.

Now Flame Yu for his own playing style says that he is a 3.0 to 4.5, very wide range there and he says that his pros are that he is a strong fast thinker, focused and simple, he has low unforced errors with medium power. He says he has a big forehand hitting zone and he’s a very good slicer/pusher. He says he’s cons are difficulty reading a disguised shot of this opponent. Has sub part footwork and reaction time, relatively weak physically. He says his flat forehand shots are 50/50 in terms or errors to making the shot. He says he has an OK 2 handed backhand, serving, returning– 5 years of total tennis experience and 2 years competitive experience with coaching.

Now he lays out a couple of tactics. He says, ‘I always play calm. Never panic, plan A is avoid pointless forehand exchanges with this player. ‘ He tries to hit high and deep to this players backhand and he says, ‘Don’t dare to go into the net against this guy for a fear of a passing shot to the face. Sounds like he’s probably smart. Now he says. ‘Results, these types of players are in a whole different level, you sense they are ultra competitive and hold nothing back. I truthfully won’t win a match, but the goal is to earn a few extra games off him. Please share your wisdom on top level players. I’m looking to be more mobile against players that are way better than me and have sound strokes.

Alright, so sorry for the long introduction there, but I wanted the listeners and Jason as well, to have a good sense of where these guys coming from and we’ve got 2 players here who clearly have a wide difference and ability level between them and this is something that I can relate too walking on to the college team at Farris. There were players on the team currently that were ranked in the top 10 in division II tennis and were incredible athletes. I had to figure out how to compete with these guys and they were experiences that I’d never had before.

And so I know where you’re coming from Flame Yu. This can be really tough and having not won a game yet against this player, I’m sure it’s starting to get a little bit frustrating. Now Jason the first thing I want to talk about is the differences between NTRP levels and you and I were talking on the phone about this a couple of days ago. And Flame Yu makes it kind of tough, he puts himself between a 3.0 and 4.5. Jason and I have seen video of Flame Yu hitting and he and I put him around a 3.5 or so based on our opinions.

So let’s say that this opponent that he’s playing against is in fact not currently, but previously like a 6.0 level player and Flame Yu currently is a 3.5 or 4.0. Exactly, how much of a difference in terms of technique and competitiveness and talent in general– Exactly how much of a difference are we talking about here. Let’s make people aware of exactly how big the difference is.

[Jason Kohl] Well, I hate to be the Grim Reaper here, but that’s just a massive difference. If you go on to the USTA website, you can find that they described somebody at the beginning of a player level as in a 3.00 can be easily beaten 6-0, 6-0, by somebody whose at the end of that same level which would be a 3.49. If you’re jumping up an entire level legitimately then you should be beat 6-0, 6-0 by that person. So I think at the club level, a lot of the times what you’ll get is somebody whose potentially the best player there and everybody thinks they are a 6.0, because they are clearly better than anybody else.

[Ian Westermann] Right.

[Jason Kohl] And then they don’t really get an accurate reading, not necessarily in the example of what we’re talking about, but even that Michael I do know is that there’s one guy who is clearly the best and everybody thinks that’s he’s a 5-0, 5-5 and in reality, he is kind of a weak 4.5.

[Ian Westermann] Two things, first of all and yes I was unaware of that kind of general benchmark that you just laid out. That half a point, I don’t know if that’s exactly a point or half a point, but from a beginning 3.0 to, OK half a point. So that half a point difference that the USTA actually has published saying that it should be a 6-0, 6-0 match between those 2 players?

[Jason Kohl] Yes.

[Ian Westermann] Wow.

[Jason Kohl] Yes it’s on there.

[Ian Westermann] I think that should put it in the prospective for people right there. If you’re dealing with a player whose 3 half a points in front of you, that’s clearly a huge difference. I was talking about somebody that who not only is capable of beating you 0-0, but can probably do it quite easily without even trying very hard. That sounds about right?

[Jason Kohl] Yes, it should be a toy job– at that point it should be a yoyo. Not to be harsh, but if you’re playing a full point ahead, 3.0 to 4.0 or something of that nature, it really shouldn’t be much of the match for the 4.0 and would be kind of boring. It’s the way that it’s supposed to be described. Now a lot times you get someone who is a true 3.5 or something of that nature, playing in a league and everybody gets beat by a certain guy 6-2, 6-2 and everybody thinks that guy is a 4.0 or 4.5.

[Ian Westermann] Right.

[Jason Kohl] In reality he might just be a 3.9 based on their rating. So it’s kind of a tricky game to keep someone in an accurate rating and just because you get beat by that person doesn’t mean that they’re 10 points ahead of you.

[Ian Westermann] Yes. I think that’s really important for listeners to understand and realize and I think that you really accurately pointed out a few minutes ago that I think players misjudge and give too much credence to players who are better than them, but not by so much, because they just don’t have much frame of reference– have a lot of experience on the court against players who are in a wide range of levels. Most club players or amateur players play with players that are like them and they might watch upper level players play from the side lines, but never actually experience with an actual 5.0 player is like on the court and I think you’re right that leads to a lot of inflated of opinions on NTRP ratings.

Now I also want people to understand the differences between let’s say top amateur and a low level professional player. Somebody who is let’s say a top of division I tennis plays futures and challengers that’s sort of thing isn’t winning full level ATP tournaments yet, but he’s doing the challengers and futures and first of all let me point out that a 5.0 level player. I tried to find the link to the USTA page that talks about the current ratings, but 5.0 players make up something like 3 or 4% of all tennis players in the United States and 4.5 and above is like I think 8 or 9%.

So just going with the 4.5 or 5.0 players, we’ve already got pretty high level of players. Now let’s take a difference Jason between somebody who is winning matches just at a challenger or future level. Tell everybody the difference between somebody whose a low level professional player compared to a 5.0 league player.

[Jason Kohl] 6.0, 6.0? Quickly. There’s the difference between the 5.0 and 6.0 like I said it’s a full point that’s not really a competitive match in the list the footwork pretty– much every aspect even if it’s not the professional strength would be significantly better than what a 5.0 brings to the table. The difference there is about the same as the difference between the 2.0 and the 4.0 or 4.5. You seeing drastic differences.

[Ian Westermann] And these are the players that are not– not to talk down the players who have gone out and tried the tour or maybe not been that successful, but these are the players who are not even really ‘Making it’ on the tour are they?

[Jason Kohl] No, but that’s a little bit tricky and a lot of those players could just see a few points of two games away. It does get very competitive on the tour and the time travel and there are a lot of reasons why you might be struggling. If you’ve earned 700 or so ranking, you’re up there.

[Ian Westerman] Sure. So these guys who are playing challengers and futures and maybe having moderate success winning a match here and there– not winning actual events yet. What’s the difference between them and somebody whose ranked in let’s say the top 100 on the ATP tour?

[Jason Kohl] You know, honestly a few points or few games, a small weakness here and there, it’s not nearly as big as the difference between the 3.0 and the 4.0.

[Ian Westermann] Really?

[Jason Kohl] You see all the time that it happens– in futures you have the #1 seed ranked 300, 400 something like that. And you’ll see somebody who is unranked in the future. That’s says something.

[Ian Westermann] So you’re saying essentially the top 750 or 1,000 players are all pretty close in level, what differentiates them? How come some guys are consistently in the top 20?

[Jason Kohl] Well, there’s obviously differences. Their better, more consistent at strokes, more consistent with their level from day to day.
Mentally tougher and then the big difference, well not big difference, but there’s a consistency difference between say a top 50 guy and a top 20 guy.

[Ian Westermann] OK.

[Jason Kohl] [inaudible] In daily consistency. That would be said, their strokes and everything should be at a really high level.

[Ian Westermann] Alright, so these 5.0 players– usually most club players in my experience– I mean the best tennis that they ever see personally meaning on the court right in front of them is probably a strong 4.5 or maybe a 5.0 level. So these top club players are just not anywhere near even a low professional level. Is that correct?

[Jason Kohl] Yes, nowhere near.

[Ian Westermann] Alright, I hope that [inaudible].

[Jason Kohl] It would essentially be a different sport they are watching there.

[Ian Westermann] Yes I hear you. Well, hopefully that puts some prospective for our listeners then. What you guys are watching when you’re watching tennis on TV, the top players at your club or if you don’t play at a club, if you just play at a public facility, the top players that you will ever see out there are just not anywhere near. I supposed that goes without saying, but I just feel like players a lot of times just inflate the ratings and I think give too much credence to upper-level amateur players and there’s a huge difference between the two.

Now let’s get back to Flamiel, Jason, and where do we start with this? When we’re talking about a 3.5 or even if we say a 4.0 level player with Flamiel. What can we do or if you I were coaching him or teaching him, where do we start with actually trying to improve his game so that he can start to take some games off of this player that he’s playing against?

[Jason Kohl] Well, even the difference in levels that he has mentioned, I would say the only legitimate chance of him winning games would be to pick up a monster serve, that can give them free points. Making up like 3 and a half level or 2 and a half levels of difference– your talking 10, 20 years at least. So I would say if you’re looking to go out and win some games sometime in the next 5 years and be more competitive, than you really need to work on that serve and make some things happen there.

[Ian Westermann] When you say a difference of 10 or 20 years, you’re talking about time used to train I assume?

[Jason Kohl] Yes. You can move from the 2.5 to the 3.0 quite quickly with practice. Move from the 3.0 to the 3.5 even quickly. Once you’re talking about moving from a 4.0 to a 4.5 or 4.5 to the 5.0, that’s taking a lot of years unless you’re a junior whose [inaudible] or something. That’s a good opportunity to train assuming he’s not in that category. You’re looking at a lot of time put in to beat the person at an overall game. If you are looking to get cheap points, just pick up a monster serve.

[Ian Westermann] Yes and where Jason is coming from with that everybody is basically, once these 2 get put on level ground and it’s just in an exchange back and forth and the point has essentially started and they’re both on neutral ground, this upper level players strokes are just not really going to be fazed by the ground strokes of Flamiel. He has seen in the past so much more pace and so much more spin that Flamiel’s ground strokes are going to have to pick up in levels significantly to really ever be able to pressure this guy consistently and that’s what it is going to have to take to win games, is consistently pressuring him from the base line. It’s not going to be– I’m going to get a big forehand and when I hit that big forehand one shot I’m going to win a point. Against players like this who have good anticipation and incredible quickness and really good athleticism, it’s going to take more than one good shot per point to be able to win points consistently and that big serve that Jason’s talking about could tip points in your favor by giving you an offensive opportunity right away to set off the point.

[Ian Westermann] It might not be an ace or an actual service winner, but you could at least set yourself up with an easy ball, that you could
hopefully then attack and again and put away, but starting off on neutral ground, his entire games really going to have to pick up a ton to be able to win games off this player, isn’t it Jason?

[Jason Kohl] Yes, that’s improving your forehand, your high forehand, your slice forehand, your backhand, your slice backhand, your high backhand, your first shots. There’s so much more work to be to complete at a ground stroke to ground stroke level with this guy, but that’s really a lofty goal. And I’ve seen even against [inaudible] who was obviously 2 time national champion– amazing player. I’ve seen people with huge serves get a lot more games then they should’ve. If they were to have started with a drop feed, they would’ve won 6-0, 6-0, instead these guys are [inaudible] 3-3, 4-4 just because they are starting so many points off on the advantage.

[Ian Westermann] Yes. That’s tough. Alright, so #1 Flamiel is probably the serve and in going through your YouTube videos Flamiel, I wasn’t able to find any video footage of your serves. I’m not sure what kind of shape it’s in right now, but if you post a video of it on the forums at essentialtennis.com, I’d be happy to give you some pointers. I’m sure Jason would as well.

What would you rank after that Jason? And we just talked a little bit about how essentially you’ve probably have to just pick up the whole level of every other stroke in your game, once the serve has been put back in play, in order to really consistently compete with this guy and win a couple of games, but if you had to pick one thing to maybe rank 2nd after the serve, what would you tell him to work on? Whether be stroke or tactics or fitness or what do you think would be 2nd most important?

[Jason Kohl] If I can bundle footwork and fitness together, then I’d go there.

[Ian Wetermann] OK.

[Jason Kohl] Usually one of the huge things that separates players is simply their footwork., their court coverage. When I use to play against the player like [inaudible] who was clearly a better player than me. I could rally with him with for 6, 7 balls. Problem is he’s pressuring me through those 6 or 7 and putting me in a bad spot and then come the eight ball, he’s got a relatively easy shot to take the point. If he’s playing with this guy and actually in rallies and he’s going to need to be able to last that 6 or 7th ball and not be at a negative point after it and not be so tired that he can’t play the next point. Usually that’s where people fall off.

[Ian Westermann] Well, not only that and yes certainly just having the stamina in general is going to help him a lot, but if he wants to attack and actually be able to ever pressure this player, he’s going to have to be in impeccable position in my opinion, to be able to actually attack and do it consistently and hit an aggressive shot that’s ever going to pressure this player and something that Jason and I both noticed for sure while watching a couple of videos of Flamiel rally, was that the footwork was just not there. It just looked lazy. It just wasn’t doing much for his feet. In between shots, he would literally walk back to the center of the base line and that’s not just ever going to cut it against this players is it Jason?

[Jason Kohl] No. This is a kind of a blanket statement, but as a 3.5 or 4.0 player, in a base line to base line rally, will pretty much never ever hit a winner on a 5.0, 5.5, 6.0 player. The better player should be in position and ready to move unless you’re just [inaudible] like crazy and taking one in a million chance, you’re not going to hit a base line to base line winner. So if you can’t keep up with the fitness and you can’t hit winners, where hitting winners against somebody that high is a foolish goal, there is no way you can pull that off.

[Ian Westermann] Alright. Well, Jason anything else to add to this before we start wrapping things up. Any other thoughts on differences between NTRP levels or differences between amateur and professional level players or any other last tips for Flamiel before we start wrapping things up?

[Jason Kohl] Well, good luck. I didn’t mean to sound negative but I would say if you get a chance, watch the fitness of people who are higher level than you. Obviously, there can be some people who are heavy and just hit the ball real clean and have a great history, but usually as you see a better player, you’ll see a more fit player. And it’s just hard to get around that. So good luck sir, I hope that you can take this guy a little bit closer than you have in the future.

[Ian Westermann] In the past I think you mean?

[Jason Kohl] Well, in the future taking closer, but you have [inaudible] on my part.

[Ian Westermann] Just want to clear that up. Well, and yes let me reiterate what Jason just said. Yes, Jason and myself talking about this topic, it certainly was not our intention to discourage anybody or talk down at anybody, definitely not in the least. On the other hand, we want to make sure that everybody’s realistic and knows exactly what they are getting into when they talk about raising the level of their game by 3 halves of a point. And it’s not that it is impossible, it’s not impossible, but if we’re talking about the difference between a 3-0 and the 4-5 or definitely 3-5 and 5-0. You guys need to be prepared especially if you are past your 20s. You need to be prepared to really focus on this and be in it for the long hall, because it’s not a simple thing. Its not an easy thing.

The tactics and the technique of it, is probably something that you understand and you can see the differences, but actually being able to do it and do it consistently. Jason was talking about the differences between the lower level professionals and the upper level professional players is being able to hit that better shot consistently again and again and again. And that’s kind of the same thing between a 3-5 and 5-0 is well, actually that’s not correct, because techniques are very different there. Let’s say between 4-5 and 5-0. 4-5 players are able to definitely hit solid shots, but not quite at the same consistency level and just not as often as the 5-0 player.

So anyway, you guys just need to be prepared to work hard and Flamiel I hope that you have success as well in the future and let us know if you have any further questions and hopefully we gave you some things that you can actually work on and try to improve to get closer to this player.

Well, Jason thanks very much for you time. I appreciate you talking to myself and our listeners, it’s always great to have you on the show and I appreciate your input.

[Jason Kohl] Thank you too. [music] [music] [music] [music]

[Ian Westermann] Alright, that does it for episode #100 of the Essential Tennis Podcast. Thank you for joining me today and I hope today’s show was interesting and informative for you. And today’s shout out I’d like to give a shout out to 2 people who took the time to send me an e-mail. There was a lot of suggestions for show 100 in the forums. The 2 people who sent me e-mails were Colorado Lane and also Peter in Sweden who sent me some suggestion for show 100. Sorry I didn’t use your guys ideas, but I really appreciate the input.

Lastly before I wrap up today’s show, I want to remind you guys about Essential Tennis live. Myself and Ron Miller are going to be doing an Australian Open preview show this Thursday live at 8:30PM Eastern Standard Time.

If you want to listen to that show live or call in and give your predictions. You can go to blogtalkradio.com/essentialtennis or go to essentialtennis.com/live and follow the link there to go to the show page. [music] [music]

Alright, that does it for today’s show. Thanks again everybody. Take care and good luck with your tennis. [music] [music]

Essential Tennis Podcast #99

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Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. If you love tennis and want to improve your game, this podcast is for you. Whether it’s technique, strategy, equipment or the mental game. Tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player. And now here’s Ian.

[Ian Westermann] Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. Your place for free, expert tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game. Today’s episode of the Essential Tennis podcast is brought to you by somersetsportsperformance.com.

Thank you very much for joining me today on episode #99 of the Essential Tennis Podcast. Episode 100 is just around the corner and if you have any ideas on maybe something fun or special to do for the 100th episode, send me an e-mail and let me know. I’m curious what you guys think about maybe something a little bit different to do for the 100th show and to be honest I don’t have any great ideas. And so if nobody sends me any ideas that I like, or if I don’t hear from anybody. I’ll just do a normal show as usual and I’m not want to really make a big deal out of it or anything, but I’m curious to see if you guys have any cool ideas on how to kind of celebrate the 100th episode.

So let me know if you have any ideas at ian@essentialtennis.com. Well let’s get started with today’s topic, it’s going to be about doubles communication. Sit back, relax and get ready for some great tennis instruction. [music] [music] [music] [music]

My guest today on the podcast is a good friend of mine, a teaching professional and also a past guest on the podcast– Mr. Mark Hammelman. Mark Welcome back to the show.

[Mark Hammelman] Hello, Essential Tennis. What’s going on Ian?

[Ian Westermann] Yes, it’s good to have you back. It’s been a while since I had you on the show last and I think the last time I have you on the show we were talking about doubles and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today as well. I like talking to you about doubles, because you and I are kind of on the same page after having played together in college and you are a real solid player and a good teacher. So I like having you on the show to get your opinion and converse about topics having to do with doubles. So thanks a lot for coming back on the show.

[Mark Hammelman] Anytime. I mean you just never invited me back on I think.

[Ian Westermann] Sorry, I’ve been slacking.

[Mark Hammelman] [inaudible] No that’s good. Especially I like doubles, because that’s a lot of times I think people have trouble understanding it and it’s not too tough as long as you play [inaudible] the idea behind what you need to do and what not. Opposed to singles which is so wide open as doubles strategy, especially it’s really beneficial [inaudible]

[Ian Westermann] Yes, there’s a lot of nuances to doubles because you have double the players on the court, there’s just a lot more going on. There’s a lot more action and I think that for players who are not really experienced at it, it can be difficult to figure out and it’s kind of easy to feel lost out there. I definitely remember when I started playing doubles in college, like a lot of college players, I played singles in high school exclusively and so you kind of just get thrown in there in college. I remember kind of hating that at first, but after you gets some experience and you kind of watch good players around you play and kind of learn the game first hand it can feel a little more comfortable, but yes there’s definitely a lot more to it than singles, because there’s so much going on.

[Mark Hammelman] Right, definately.

[Ian Westermann] So let’s get to today’s question and it comes to us from Dana Mark who’s in Nebraska. And Dana is definitely an important part of our forums. He posts quite a bit along with his son Bryan and here’s his question. He said, ‘When playing doubles what types of communication are most helpful? I know it is good to let your partner know when you want to switch or when you are switching. I don’t communicate much at all with my partner. What things are good to communicate for playing effective doubles both between point, during points and during change-overs and how can I get myself and my partner to communicate more during points?’

So let’s split this up into the 3 categories that Dana laid out for us and the 3 topics that he wanted us to talk about are, what to communicate about drawing points or when to communicate, also between points and during change-over’ as well. So let’s break it down into those 3 categories and we’ll start off with drawing points and Dana mentions definitely the most common and probably the most well known reason for communicating and that is during the switch usually when you or your partner get lobbed and the net player is not able to cover the lob. They’re not able to get to it and the other player ends up having to go cover for them and a lot of times a switch is called, because the off player’s going back behind the net player to cover that lob.

And so this is probably the most well known type of communication. Once you go ahead and throw out one other example Mark, one example that comes to mind right away when you think about communicating during the doubles points.

[Mark Hammelman] OK. Yes. Another obvious one is balls down the middle of the court. Who’s going to take it, forehand, backhand, kind of balls that could go either way especially lobs and overheads, short lobs. Any ball that either partner could get, I would definitely recommend communicating. You know this is fairly obvious, one thing I saw a lot is that you know you can’t over communicate in doubles.

Any ball down the middle of the court especially, definitely I tell my lessons if anything your partner can get out of the way. So that’s one definitely and I think that’s fairly straight forward. I got it, you got it. Keep it short and to the point. I’ve heard a lot of different expressions, but just let them know. It’s yours or mine. I’ve heard too much, even at a decent level, ‘Oh, I thought you had that ball.’ They kind of laugh with each other and then I kind a laugh with them too, that’s funny of it. In my head, I’m thinking, I tell you 10,000 times start laughing and hit the ball.

[Ian Westermann] Yes, it seems like it probably an obvious one to a lot of listeners, but I totally agree that I see it way to often as I’m teaching and as I watch club matches. It happens way too much that both players say nothing on a ball down the middle– and you’re right whether that be a drive, a passing shots, attempts down the middle or a lob. It doesn’t matter. I see it way too often that both players kind of make the assumption that the other person is going to get it and both just kind of stand there and kind of stare at each other as the ball goes down the middle and that’s a crappy way to lose doubles points.

You guys, I’m going to say my theory on this Mark and I’m going to talk about the ball that’s driven first down the middle and I’m curious to see what your thoughts are on my opinion to that, but I think amateur players way too often are concern with stuff like who’s forehand is down them the middle. I think that most of the time that the players who is closest to the net should be taking that regardless of forehand or backhand and I find that a lot of club players are kind of surprise when I tell them that, but I think that takes away a lot of the guess work of whose it is.

I feel like amateur players a lot of times get really caught up with minors details. Again like the forehand or the backhand volley or whose side it’s on. In my opinion if you’re closer than your partner and you’re able to reach it, you’re able to get to it, most of the time you should be going for it. Kind of no questions aske3d and if you end up of not being able to make a play out of it then your partner who’s a little farther behind you or maybe even back on the baseline hopefully made a move as well and hopefully be able to cover it, but I think when the ball is driven down the middle specifically, I don’t think there should be a whole lot of talking.

There’s not a lot of time. I think both players should probably go for it and whoever closest usually should take it,] if it’s that’s all possible. Well, what do you think about that Mark?

[Mark Hammelman] Yes, absolutely. Yes, one thin the forehand takes middle. And yes that’s true, if you are both even. You’re both equally [inaudible]

[Ian Westermann] Yes, how often does that actually happen though?

[Mark Hammelma] Right exactly. I mean you really both should be both at the base line where you probably lose a lot of points. I mean it happens, but yes let’s say I’ve got a back hand volley and my partner has a forehand ground stroke, I don’t care, I’m taking the back hand lobbey.

Even if my weakness and let’s say my partner’s strength is his forehand. I’m still hitting my backhand volley, it’s just a better play. So yes the net person, or even the closer person [inaudible] then worst case scenario, [inaudible] I mean who knows. Let’s say you’re going for the volley, you missed it since you’re the closest person, I mean your partner should have you backed up. But really, there are no arguments that I can hear, where the closest person should take the ball.

[Ian Westermann] I agree and now let’s talk about the other kind of type of shot the could be down the middle and that’s the lob which definitely throws a couple of more variables in there, because they’re so much time that both players have to be able to react to the ball. And I think this is a little more tricky than the drive where as both of us just said, you guys should be using the person that is closest to the net to try to cut that shot off as often as possible. On the lob when you guys have some more time to actually set up and hopefully take an overhead. I think there’s a couple more things that come into play.

If you’re both right handed or if you’re weird enough to both be left handed then I think that whoever is most easily able to get a forehand overhead on the ball should probably take it. I think this is where communication really is very, very crucial. Because on a lot of these shots– the lobs down the middle it’s probably really possible that both people could have a play on it and I think this is a little bit subjective for both players and I think somebody just needs to take charge as quickly as possible most of the time. Kind of like outfielders in baseball calling each other off– whichever person feels most comfortable I think really needs to take charge both vocally and physically and really take the shot.

I think a lot of times club level players almost kind of try to get into a discussion and it would be like ‘you got it?’ Then the ball goes out. You got it and there’s some confusion. I think that if you guys were going to do anything, just be assertive and either say yours or mine or I got it or I mean I got it would be probably the best or if you just don’t feel comfortable, say yours and let your partner take it, but I think probably the key is to do it as quickly as possible. What do you think Mark?

[Mark Hammelman] Yes, definitely. I mean whatever you’re doing has be done right away and your first movement will probably come before anything comes out of your mouth anyways, you never know your initial reactions. So both players I think initially and this relates to almost any shot, should be going after the ball and then I think the verbal should come very quickly later and after that and then get the heck out of the way.

One example, is my partner in College who was after you Ian, his name was Kyle and he had a great overhead. And the overhead is not my best shot, so he had no problem… [inaudible]

[Ian Westermann] What about your sharp angle slice overhead. Didn’t you like that shot?

[Mark Hammelman] [inaudible] I quickly learned that’s not my best shot. There’s nothing wrong with that and [inaudible]. But there’s nothing wrong with that. A lot of that too is that we play together for a full year or two [inaudible] any overhead down the the middle with his and even some balls that were on my half, [inaudible] he would take them. And I was completely fine by that and even a couple of times where it would clearly be on my half and he would say mine and I would literally come up and be like no I got it.

[Ian Westermann] Sure.

[Mark Hammelman] Because one thing too, if it falls on your half, It’s supposed to be yours. So I think it happened a couple of times where my partner will say I got and then I call him off and say I got it. And there’s still a little time for him to get back into position, but yes we’re constantly communicating. Even if it’s obvious, I mean just make the effort, say something and too often, I hear nothing.

[Ian Westermann] Yes and those of you listening hopefully you watch doubles on TV at least once in a while. I know that it not on terribly often, but when you guys do watch professional level doubles or maybe if you get a chance to watch a college match– some kind of high level of tennis. These are players who have tons of playing experience with each other. Whether just in practice or actual competitive matches and they are talking constantly and it’s interesting to me that typically the lower the level of doubles player in tennis, the less they talk. When in fact it should be the opposite that these are probably players who have not played together very much. In fact they are probably switching partners often.

And these are players who are obviously not as confident with their strokes as obviously a professional player or a top level college player and yet there’s such a lack of communication and Dana is being very honest by saying, ‘I really don’t talk much at all. I don’t communicate with my partner very much at all.’ Well, this is the way that Dana, you and all the rest of our listeners can absolutely set yourselves apart by– as Mark said a couple minutes ago, kind of over-communicate and when you guys watch top players on TV, they’re constantly talking during points, between points, during change-overs– all the different examples Danny gave and this easy over head is a great example of that.

And like Mark said, either player can take it if there’s a lot of different variables that are coming to play, but the big thing here is communicate as often as possible, whenever there’s any doubt at all. Even if you think it’s obvious, go ahead and communicate something and say if you’ve got it. I definitely will say I’ve got it when the ball is directly to me and even if it’s the easiest overhead in the world, I will still call it, because it just takes care of any possible confusion.

[Mark Hammelman] Right.

[Ian Westermann] Alright, so I’ve got 2 other examples here of communicating during a point that I think could be helpful for Dana. One would be after putting up a weak lob, let’s say you and I are playing Mark and maybe I’m returning serve and our opponent has hit a really good serve to me and I’m doing all I can just to kind of touch it and I throw up a lob. There’s nothing wrong guys with letting your partner know that you’re about to put them in a tough spot. As long as you don’t wait until just before your opponent hits the overhead and slams it at your partner which obviously is too late anyway. What do you think about letting your partner know Mark when you put up a kind of a sitter and your partner’s about to be a sitting target?

[Mark Hammelman] Yes absolutely. Whoever hits the shot, they are the first ones to know the quality of their shot.

[Ian Westermann] Yes, sure.

[Mark Hammleman] After a weak lob, I definitely let my partner know.

[Ian Westermann] Yes.

[Mark Hammelmann] If anything just they can get out of the way. But more often or not, they’ll hopefully gets 3 or 4 steps back, they won’t get back to the base line most likely, but they’ll probably getting into no-man’s land. And that’s one of the few times where I’d say it’s better to be in no man’s land and service line, because you’re returning [inaudible]. At least it gives you a couple of seconds to react and if anything you partner will like you, because that’s the correct place. We talked about it in previous podcast– That’s the correct place that your opponent should be hitting the ball right after you. So yes definately, if my partner let’s me know, I’ll back up a little bit and lot of times I’ll get some racket on it, and who knows, sometimes I’ll win the point.

[Ian Westermann] Sure. And a good way to let your partner know is myself personally I’ll just say short. I’ll call out short as soon as I realize that the ball has come weakly off my racket and it’s going to be a weak shot especially if it’s a high shot. I’ll just say short to my partner so that they know it is about to be a weak shot. Any special way that you communicate that Mark?

[Mark Hammelman] Yes. My backup partner, yes, that definitely works too. And one other thing, if your partner is doing the correct thing, he’s not going to know if it’s a weak lob at all, because he shouldn’t be looking back.

[Ian Westermann] Sure, right.

[Mark Hammleman] [inaudible] So if your partner’s doing the right thing, you absolutely have to let him know what’s going on, because they’re going to have no idea and [inaudible]

[Ian Westermann] Yes. I agree. One more situation here where I personally like to talk during points, and that is kind of to give encouragement to my partner. I tend to be during competition pretty animated and fiery which is interesting, because it’s kind of the opposite of my personality, but Mark knows that I get pretty into matches.

Let’s say for example a weak volley has been hit or maybe a drop volley or an angle volley and it’s obviously a well hit shot to my partner’s side and they’re starting to go for it, but it’s going to be really difficult, a lot of times I like to kind of shout a word of encouragement– you go it or go or something like that to kind of spur him on. And this might be for everbody’s partner, but I kind of like to be vocal like that and kind of give my partner a kick in their pants sometimes when their really hustling for a shot and working hard. Any other circumstances like that or maybe comments on that circumstance?

[Mark Hammelman] No, that one is good too. I think that’s much more a bi product of your enthusiasm– helping them get to the ball, but it definitely can’t hurt. I do the same thing too– ‘Just get there! Go, go!’

[Ian Westermann] Yes.

[Mark Hammelman] Who knows maybe you see that as the drop shot or what not before you partner does, but yes I do the same thing, but you know that’s good too. There’s maybe a few times and maybe [inaudible]. At times it’s not good to communicate with your partner for example to tell him where he should be standing. Sometimes you have to worry about what you’re doing. You shouldn’t be telling your partner what he should be doing, and certain circumstances like that [inaudible]

[Ian Westermann] You mean during the points or between the points?

[Mark Hammelman] No during the points.

[Ian Westermann] Alright, yes.

[Mark Hammelamn] That should definitely happened after a points or after a match [inaudible]. And maybe you should move up a couple of steps. A lot of times I see unnecessary communication, sometimes too, but over all I would say the lack of communication is definitely there. I don’t see that quite as often.

[Ian Westermann] Yes, let’s save topic for a different day. I know what you’re talking about. You are basically saying kind of the over bearing partner who is trying to coach their doubles partner and kind of take the person [inaudible] or somebody’s trying to fix your stroke. Like you’re trying to play.

[Mark Hammelman] That’s a great analogy.

[Ian Westermann] I think there’s fine line there. I think you want to be on the same page with your partner and definitely talk about tactics and maybe their doing something that’s being detrimental. I think there’s a certain way that you can definitely approach that and end up being a good call and help out your chances of winning a match, but if it’s a constant thing and you’re constantly telling your partner ‘you going to do this, you going to do that, you got to change your aim for that shot or you got to swing’ Certainly you should not be saying you should swing this way. That can definitely be detrimental for sure.

[Mark Hammelman] Yes, I just wanted to put it out there, because I know maybe a lot of our listeners [inaudible]. And one just popped into my head too, that you can let your partner know let’s say a hard shot is coming at them, they are at the net. And I’m sure we talked about this before on the podcast, but just let them know, just let it go, because a lot of times I understand that you have a better angle.

[Ian Westermann] Yes.

[Mark Hammelman] Sometimes all it get out on my mouth is just let it and that’s one of the few times when you can tell your partner that, ‘Hey, I think it’s going out.’

[Ian Westermann] Yes.

[Mark Hammelman] Just make sure it’s going out I guess.

[Ian Westermann] No that’s a great one. I’m glad that you thought about that. The way I usually communicate that is by yelling no. Kind of call him off and no don’t. Meaning don’t hit it and yes I agree with what you said that you should probably really be pretty sure about it to call them off as they’re getting ready to hit the shot, because it can be disruptive, but if you know it’s going out, it’s not always like you said its not always obvious to them. So over communicate.

[Mark Hammelman] Yes, yes. There’s been a couple of times where my partner has his racket up and it just comes up [inaudible].

[Ian Westermann] Sure.

[Mark Hammelman] But yes that’s definitely another way to improve your communication.

[Ian Westermann] Alright, let’s move on to our next topic which is what to talk about between points and what you guys should be doing between points is definitely encouraging each other. Trying to keep a positive attitude and definitely positive communication. You should never be showing your partner any negative reactions. We’ve talked about that on different mental tennis podcast’s, but besides that there’s a lot of tactical things that definitely that are beneficial– things such as where you’re going to aim your serve, whether be at the body, down the middle or out wide. Can talk about poaching– maybe you’re going to fake and stay or maybe you’re going to actually plan on crossing over and cutting off the serve. So that’s something you’re definitely going to let your partner know so that they cover behind you. And there’s other things as well. What are somethings that comes to mind right away Mark as far as communication in between points?

[Mark Hammelman] Just being positive I think and it’s not talking to body language. Sometimes I’d like to run back to my partner.

[Ian Westermann] Yes.

[Mark Hammelman] After good or bad points, you see the [inaudible] sprinting in between points.

[Ian Westermann] Yes.

[Mark Hammelman] I love it when my partner comes over and says great shot. So I think non-verbal cues too. Put that a lot, but yes definitely in between every points I would at least make eye contact. Let your partner know what’s going on. Even if you’re using signals. A lot of people say that they use signals, well, you still need to give them something. I don’t know why maybe it’s just a routine or habit, but it’s a habit that a lot of good tennis player have.

[Ian Westermann] Yes. I think it’s good emotional support and definitely from personal experience I know that after a double fault or after a missed return of serve, often an easy serve. Definitely, after an easy mistake, I really appreciate it when my partner makes the effort. I like how you’re talking about actually like jogging back or running back to the base line to be like, ‘Alright, come on let’s go.’ That just show so much support and kind of positive energy and speaking from experience, that helps a great deal. You were always good at that Mark. You’re a good supporter.

[Mark Hammleman] Yes, sometimes I had to be Ian.

[Ian Westermann] Nice. Good one, Mark. You did.

[Mark Hammelman] I don’t know sometimes I’d run back Ian, and give you a high 5 and sometimes after points that we’d lose. And you would slap my hand so hard, but I have to stop doing that for a little bit because I wasn’t ready for the next point.

[Ian Westermann] Yes I think that’s a good point and even if your partner is seemingly in a bad mood. If you just kind of let them be on their own and kind of let them sulk back there on the base line, chances are they probably are not going to pull out of it on their own. And so be a good partner and do your best. It might not help immediately, but if you continue to support them and you continue to stay positive, that’s probably going to be your best chance to turn things around at least for your partner and hopefully give them some positive energy and get them back into the match.

But yes definitely something that I definitely need myself personally. Again my tendencies to be pretty intense and really into it. I kind of have big ups and downs. It’s kind of my personality on the court which I’ve been working on a lot recently. Since college, since then I really realized that’s been a big thing that has definitely held me back, but if your partner is like that. They really would appreciates some support even if it doesn’t look like they do overtly. If you just leave them alone they’re probably going to feel worse about themselves.

[Mark Hammelman] Yes that’s true.

[Ian Westermann] Alright, one more thing before we talk about during change overs and that’s tactically I think you guys should be talking about your opponents strengths, their weaknesses. What’s strategies that they are trying to implement. You should be talking to your partners and say, ‘Hey, I noticed that they’re trying to do this when you serve on the ad side, etc’ And notice their tendencies. What shots they like to try so that you guys can talk about that and as a team start to anticipate and play together and kind of form a strategy around that.

If you guys don’t talk about those things, a lot of times it won’t be until after the match that you realize that whenever they were up in a game they always hit hard down the middle on return of serve or when they were down they like to lob on the ad outside or something like that. If you guys don’t talk about that stuff, a lot of times it will kind of pass you by if you just don’t pay much attention to it. So I think tactically players should be talking a lot as well. Anything to add before I go the last?

[Mark Hammelman] No, that was good.

[Ian Westermann] Alright, so change over’s– this will be the last little bit. Personally what I wrote down here on my little outline is I think that change over’s should kind of be a time to relax and kind of unplug a little bit and just kind of take a little break. During games I tend to be pretty intense once again and I think it’s good to just kind of sit, relax for 30 seconds, get some water, kind of get up, kind of refreshed again and get back into it. I think it might be dangerous to stay up and fully alert all the time and not giving yourself a little break to calm down and relax a bit, but maybe you have a different point of view on that Mark. What do you think?

[Mark Hammelman] Yes, definitely you shouldn’t be talking too much tactic on change overs. Maybe simple things, but hopefully going into the match you have some stuff that you want to do. Yes, definitely, it’s definitely time for yourself. A lot of times I see people over analyzing things on change overs.

[Ian Westermann] Yes.

[Mark Hammelman] I do like to get my partner simple reminders.

[Ian Westermann] Sure.

[Mark Hammelman] Just keep it simple. So a change over is kind of time to grab your drink. Keep your mind fresh. Maybe go over 1 or 2 things at most. And yes and then when it’s time, get up and get out there.

[Ian Westermann] Good stuff. Well, I’m going to wrap up the topic with that and Dana hopefully that answers your questions and gives you a good kind of broad overview of communication in general. Mark and I went over some of those things kind of quickly and went into more detail on others. If any of you listening would like more details on any of those specific topics, definitely let me know, but I think that was a good general outline of what you guys should be doing during a doubles match and obviously I don’t know how many individual ways to communicate you and I just talked about Mark, but there’s obviously a lot of different circumstances and ways and reasons that we should be talking during a doubles match and so hopefully our listeners got a lot out of these, but Mark thanks very much for your insights as always. It was good to talk to you about this and I look forward to having you back on the show again soon.

[Mark Hammelman] Your welcome. [music] [music] [music] [music]

[Ian Westermann] Thanks very much for joining myself and Mark on today’s show and for today’s shoutouts I’d like to give up a shout out to a very special group of people. Myself and Mark just finished the second Essential Tennis clinic in Palm Springs, California yesterday. It was on the 2nd and 3rd of January and we had 12 people come out for a clinic that myself and Mark ran and first of all, Mark I’d like to thank you for the time that you put in. I would not have been able to make the event a success without you. So thanks very much for the time and the effort that you put into it and myself and everybody who attended really appreciated it. So thanks very much.

[Mark Hammelman] No, actually I’m still waiting for the car you promised me though.

[Ian Westermann] Did you say a car?

[Mark Hammelman] A car.

[Ian Westermann] Oh, I said card, sorry.

[Mark Hammelman] Well, that changes things. I had a good time. Now it’s a good time. I definitely like giving instruction to people who are really looking for it. Half the time I say stuff to people and it’s like I’m just going through the motions.

[Ian Westermann] Yes and with that I want to recognize everybody who attended the clinic and I completely agree with Mark. These are people who went out of their way to come to California, most everybody was not from California. They traveled from somewhere other in the country and these are people who have a big passion for the game. They love the sport. You guys all worked very hard and Mark and I just had a really good time working with all of you. So Angie, Nikki, Sherry, John, Mark, Lynn, Crissy, Bryan, Ben, Gary, Tobby and Nuam. You guys are all awesome. Thanks very much and people traveled again from all over.

We had attendees from Pennsylvania, Utah, Louisiana, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Oklahoma, and 2 people from California as well. So people really came from all over the country to attend. It just really makes it exciting for myself and Mark to do what we do and teach and so, again we’re great to work with. Anything else Mark before we wrap it up?

[Mark Hammelman] No, I mean for those of you that didn’t make it, you should definitely look into it. I mean for the money especially, it’s a great deal. How many times, I think one of our best session was the video session and I don’t think too many teaching pros are going to the hassle of doing that, stopping and analyzing your strokes. So that alone, I think was worth it for those that made it to the clinic. I really had a great time too, but they got a lot out of it.

[Ian Westermann] Yes, we really, I did my best to try to cover a little bit of everything and on Saturday we worked on technique. We did work on ground strokes and volleys as well. So we did kind of an over all technique day on Saturday. On Sunday, we worked on strategy both singles and doubles and as Mark was talking about, we did a video analysis session in the conference room at the hotel where we were staying. So we all sat down together and we reviewed stroke technique and also singles and doubles strategy of all tape that I had filmed the day before of the attendees.

So yes, that something I’m going to continue doing in future clinics and if you’re interested in participating in one of these, just make sure that you keep on listening to the newest podcast and in the near future I’m going to have a section on the website where you guys would be able to view upcoming clinics and you’ve be able to sign up on essentialtennis.com for upcoming clinics and I’m looking to do another Palm Springs clinic in probably the fall of 2010. So I’m looking forward to that and Mark hopefully you can help us out for that one as well.

[Mark Hammelman] Absolutely. [music] [music] [music]