Ever feel like a spectator on the court?
Today’s message is going to give you the solution to that…executing it will improve your tennis exponentially!
Yesterday we kicked off this new series focusing on movement by explaining how its possible to literally tell the future on a tennis court and know exactly what shot your opponent is going to hit BEFORE they swing.
If you missed it scroll back a bit in your inbox or you can read it right here.
Now let’s switch gears and focus on what to do after you’ve hit the ball in both singles and doubles…
How players move during that phase of a point is a massive difference between lower levels of play and higher ones, you can tell which is which from a mile away.
Lower level players go into “bystander mode” after making contact with the ball…
They’re watching their shot travel through the air, curiously watching to see if it will be in or out, and also eyeing their opponents to see what moves they make.
The bottom line: they immediately go into a passive, REACTIVE state both physically and mentally.
Sure, they may make a few shuffles “back to the middle” because they’ve been told to do that a million times, but they’re half hearted at best and without any understanding of exactly where they’re going.
The contrast with high level players is massive…
These players finish a shot and immediately take decisive, intense ACTION, proactively moving to where they’ll be the most challenge for their opponent on the NEXT shot.
They aren’t waiting or watching to see if their shot will be in, or what their opponents do, and that makes a gigantic difference in a sport where fractions of a second often determine the winner and loser.
So of course the question is…
Where should you go??
The strategies for singles and doubles are different, but they’re both based on an understanding of geometry:
- In singles the most critical thing to understand is that “the middle” isn’t actually the MIDDLE! What I mean by that, in a nutshell, is that you should be striving to immediately position yourself in the middle of the possible returns your opponent can hit on the next shot, NOT the literal middle of the court.I explain the details in this strategy video: Singles Positioning – Click Here
- In doubles the most critical thing to understand is that “your half” of the court is absolutely irrelevant! Lower level doubles players are glued to their side, covering “their” territory when the reality is constant changes should be made in positioning based on where the ball is traveling.I explain the details in this strategy video: Doubles Positioning – Click Here
Explaining all the nuances in text would take pages and pages whereas showing on a tennis court makes things pretty intuitive and obvious.
The bottom line: there’s ALWAYS someplace to move after your shot has been hit!
The sooner you can learn the principles behind where that should be, and start training an immediate, automatic response on the court the faster your level of play will increase.
The best part: you don’t even need to fix your strokes to see huge game improvements!
Hope those explanations and videos are a huge help…
But we still have another segment to get to in tomorrow’s message!
We’ll be focusing on the #1 way to be proactive in your movement, a footwork pattern that EVERY high level player uses and EVERY low level player skips.
You’ll learn what that is tomorrow morning…
Until then, if this was helpful shoot me a quick reply and let me know.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Truly,
-Ian