Podcast #114: Andy Zodin gives his thoughts on building a game plan

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My guest today on the Essential Tennis Podcast is Andy Zodin who is the host of In the Tennis Zone and season three which is a radio show in Colorado and also a Podcast. Andy, I had you on the show back a couple months ago and had a lot of good feedback from that show. A lot of listeners really enjoyed it, so I am really happy to have you back on.

Andy: It’s always good to be with you Ian. I appreciate the opportunity and you do a great job with it.

Ian: Thanks. Before we get started, tell us a little bit about the radio show that you do and tell people where they can find it online.

Andy: Well, they can catch it live streaming on MileHighSports.com where on Sunday’s we’ve been going from 10-12 mountain time which is 12-2 eastern. But we are getting ready to switch back over to an evening show. The station that I happen to be on is the flagship station of the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche. So going in the morning up until the time those seasons ended make sense so I didn’t have to move my start times around too much.

I also archived all of the podcasts at tenniszone1510.com. That’s www.tenniszone1510.com and they can go back and catch all the different interviews that we’ve had. It’s been a really good season– we’ve had John Isner and his coach Craig [inaudible] and we’ve had everyone from Rod [inaudible] to Billy Jean King. It’s been a great season– I had Cliff and Nancy Richey on a couple of weeks ago. Vincent Van Patton was on with me recently. Lee [inaudible] was on in the last few weeks.

I could go on and on but it has been a thrilling season and it seems like the show just continues to gain momentum and we’ve just such great contributors that it’s been really a joy for me to do.

Ian: Yeah, the guests that you get are awesome. I mean it is tough to get a whole lot better than the lineup that you’ve had for the past couple seasons. So I’m sure you are really excited about it and I really encourage my listeners to go check it out because I’m not aware of anywhere else that players of that caliber both present and past, get their brains picked by tennis enthusiasts like yourself– so it’s a great show.

Andy: Thank you very much. Now I think that is part of the reason we’ve been successful, because there are so few people out there doing sort of what you and I are doing that I don’t think that they are being inundated with the request very often which is definitely in our favor. So they’ve been gracious enough, and I think people that are tennis enthusiasts and former tennis greats like to see people doing what we are doing to continue to help grow the game and to grow the knowledge that people are exposed to to be able to hear from them. So they seem ready and willing whenever we ask if their schedule’s allow for it.

Ian: That’s awesome. Well, let’s go ahead and get started with today’s topic. And as you know the Podcast is primarily a Q&A show but once in a while I get a question that I just think is really interesting and when that happens, I like to have a little conversation and discussion with somebody else who really knows that they are talking about, having to do with the game of tennis. And today’s topic is going to have to do with anticipation in singles and I’m going to go ahead and read the question here– a couple of small paragraphs. And this comes from Charles in Santa Cruz, California. He wrote on the forums on essentialtennis.com and he said, ‘I think I have decent situational awareness for my level, at least in doubles.

The way I gauge that is when I play a player with a lower rating, like my girlfriend as an example who is a 3. 5, I feel like I often see where the ball is going to go before the opponent hits it, whereas she will often be surprised. It’s hard to summarize how I know that, but I feel it’s more like what player’s tendencies are, where the ball is, where people are positioned on the court etc, rather than a cue in the way the opponent is setting up to hit the ball and or maybe I know where they should hit the ball given a certain scenario whereas she is still trying to figure it out. In single’s, I’m not sure I am seeing that stuff very well. Yes I start to notice tendencies, and based on that guess where they are going to hit and after a while sometimes I’m successful. I don’t know that I’m reading what their body, racket and swing is doing that well and I’m probably getting a late jump on a lot of shots which doesn’t help my single’s game given my slow foot speed. ‘

So Charles kind of wants a conversation here having to do with anticipation and specifically in singles. And I think it’s very good that he pointed out the difference between the two and I very often get this from students and I’m sure you do as well Andy with your teaching that a lot of times player’s play just one of the other exclusively for a long period of time– either singles or doubles. And then they go to the other one kind of expecting that ‘Oh well, we are still playing tennis, right? We are on a court and we have some tennis rackets and a tennis ball. How different can it be?’

But the rythm of the points and the knowledge and anticipation is very different between the two games isn’t it?

Andy: There is no question about it Ian. And I think part of the developmental curve of a tennis player is that you go from being primarily reactive in nature to sort of ascending towards a level of being a little more anticipatory in nature which comes largely with the experience of being out there and doing it.

I recently watched a nice interview that Pat Cash did with the [inaudible] brothers and one of the comments that they made was that doubles and singles at this point are really two different sports. Not just two different forms of tennis, but they literally use the term different sports.

I think a lot of the kids we work with nowadays do play primarily singles. So I think when they get out on the doubles court, they have just the opposite problem in that they don’t understand some of the innuendos of the sport of doubles in respect to movement and anticipation and what is coming next as opposed to the rhythm and sort of the point structure in a single’s match.

I think it’s interesting to hear someone saying ‘I get it in doubles, but not so much in singles because nowadays, that is kind of the opposite of the problem that I think people have. With that said, I think you in trying to go out there and play your own game first, then have to sort of subliminally supplant what you would be thinking into the mind of your opponent in saying, ‘Based on what I would’ve done here, I’ve got to assume that this guy maybe seeing something similar.’ And that is sort of how you ascend to that level of anticipation.

It becomes very largely like a picture and a batter in terms of the pitcher saying ‘Well, I’ve got a feeling this guy is going to be looking for the curve ball here, so therefore I’m going to go high and tight with the fastball. ‘ And you’ve got to wonder if the batter is going, ‘This guy thinks I’m looking for the curve ball, I bet he comes in high and tight. ‘ And he ends up hitting a home run.

Ian: Right.

Andy: If he guesses right. So it does become a guessing game and I think you become better at that guessing game the more you are out there playing those points and then maybe a lot of times you’ll work with a pro on the court that’s coaching two players that are playing singles and saying ‘Aha. ‘ And this is where you’ve got to recognize that your opponent is off-balance. They are on the run towards the fence, and yet you chose to stay on the base-line when that is absolutely the time to move forward and expect a ball that you should be able to attack. So some of the things like that that they may not recognize a pro can help with, but nothing helps more than just going out there and doing it and learning with trial and error.

Ian: Absolutely. In getting going with this topic, I’d like to kind of give Charles a pat on the back that he’s actually starting to become aware of these things. Because there is a lot of rec and club players out there who are very preoccupied with what’s going on on their own half of the courts and really miss a lot of information that that is extremely vital to being able to build a good game plan. So I think it’s great, first of all that Charles is getting out there and starting to play some singles.

And secondly, he’s starting to think about these types of things and this kind of awareness — and I like that you use the word awareness to describe this is going to really bring Charles up to the next level. And it’s going to take some conscious effort at first Charles to start picking these things out and Andy and I are going to go through and talk about several specific things that you should be looking for. And at first it’s going to be mental work– you are really going to have to pay attention consciously and really for these things on purpose, but eventually, you are going to start reacting to these things– it will be second nature. And you are just going to start to move without even having to think about it.

That’s just going to take time and experience, isn’t it Andy?

Andy: Correct. There is no doubt about it. I think back when I was a kid and I was starting to play match after match after match, and not only was I learning from the matches I was playing, but I was learning a lot– probably even more so in the [inaudible] in the matches I was watching. And I learned how for instance, something as simple as long-footing a person. Where maybe you see a guy hit a kick serve to the back hand in the ad court and then the return of service through the middle of the court and the person comes in and then volleys back into the corner that the ball came from because they expected that their opponent will be running to cover the open court. So as soon as you see then moving in that direction, and then you volley perhaps back behind them and long-foot them as they say.

That’s a very valuable tactic that most serve and volleyers employ pretty regularly and pretty successfully.

If you look back at what John McEnroe used to do to people– everything was done kind of two shots at a time. Very much the way I’m describing now. He would wide serve you and then just knock off a little volley to the other side. And compared to the shots that people are hitting today, none of the shots John McEnroe were hitting if you took them as an individual shot, were that incredible. They were great the way he put one together with the other to where it was a very effective game, but yet McEnroe’s game didn’t always incur a lot of risk, it just incurred some great patterns and some great point structure that made a lot of sense that made his game so high percentage and extremely effective and really tough to do anything about what he was doing to you.

Ian: I think it’s interesting how you are talking about– it’s funny– kind of anticipating your opponent’s anticipations and trying to be one step ahead of them and a lot of times chess is kind of….. A lot of times tennis is kind of off-handedly referred to as a physical chess game and having to have those tactics. Anybody who hasn’t played chess, doesn’t really understand the analogy because they don’t understand how you have to think 2, 3, 4 moves ahead of your opponent and try to guess, ‘What is my opponent going to be thinking? When I do this, what are they going to anticipate and do in return?’

And I think that is a big part of tactics and strategy in tennis that recreation players kind of miss and I like the example you gave about going behind a player who is going to probably run towards the open court where it seems obvious, ‘ My opponent is obviously going to hit the court there because there is a ton of open court. ‘ And just start to run for that open court.

And one of my favorite things to do is to fake in that situation and start just booking it towards that open court and then as soon as my opponent is about to make contact, stop, and go back to where I just came from to try to anticipate the fact that they are going to anticipate where I’m anticipating and it can kind of confusing. I think that is incredibly fun and something that obviously you’re aware of out there on the court. But I think a lot of listeners might not be.

Andy: Well, and you used the chess analogy which is really spot on Ian. And I’ll tell you a story, a buddy of my named Phillip Farmer who was coaching the Bryan Brothers for a few years before David McPherson came along who they are with now. And he was down in Australia with the boys and it was the year that Phil Jackson had taken off from coaching the Lakers and he had gone down to Australia and he became a big fan of the Bryan’s and he was watching a lot of tennis and Phillip Farmer got the opportunity to get to know Phil Jackson pretty well. And this was at a time when Roger Federer was really starting to move head and shoulders above Andy Roddick in the rankings. And you could just see the things that Federer was doing on the court were just brilliant in nature and his all-court game was just really starting to flourish and to ascend to the level that we are now used to.

So after the tournament was over, Phillip got a phonecall and it was Phil Jackson. He said, ‘I think that I can help Andy Rodick .’ And he said, ‘OK. ‘ And Phillip Farmer said, ‘OK. I’m listening. ‘ And he goes, ‘Here is the thing that I worked on with Michael Jordan and Kobe and with Shaq. ‘ And of course at that point, Philip Farmer was really listening. And he said, ‘Let me ask you a question about Andy Rodick. Does Andy play much chess?’ And he said, ‘No. I don’t think he plays any. ‘ ‘What about video games?’ ‘Yeah, probably about 3 or 4 hours a day. ‘ And he says, ‘What about Federer?’ And he goes, ‘Actually, Roger does play a lot of chess.’

And he said, ‘If Andy Roddick took the time that he was using on video games and became a chess player, his tennis game would improve 10 fold in my opinion because you just see the way Roger Federer approaches the sport very methodically. Very calculating. You don’t see his eyes

you kind of think of Andy Roddick, his eyes are pretty shifty. He is always kind of doing little things– grabbing his shirt and little things like that. And Federer is just always in cruise control, whether he is walking from one side of the court to another or getting ready to return serve or even in the midst of play. He just seems like he is kind of floating out there. And most guys don’t look like they are that in ease on the tennis court.

And Phil Jackson attributes an athletes success to an ability to think ahead like you are saying and be a chess player and be calculating in nature and that the mindset that goes from the chess board to the field of play is one that an athlete can really use as another club in the bag, as another strength. And this is the kind of mindset that helps you sort of naturally create your own skill-set to be able to be anticipatory in nature as opposed to just reactive.

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Well, let’s go ahead and with that start talking about some specifics Andy. I’ve got a couple of things listed here that in my opinion are definitely important to be aware of and hopefully start to make automatic and start to notice without even spending a whole lot of mental energy to really watch your opponent. Although don’t get me wrong, you should be paying close attention to your opponent but you just don’t want to make it an active mental process. Hopefully, eventually it becomes second nature.

And let’s talk first about something that you mentioned earlier and that is the balance of the body and I guess body position on the court. But balance specifically– let’s talk a little bit about anticipating a response from our opponents when their body is off-balance and they are obviously not in a comfortable position physically. What should listeners be looking for in that particular situation?

Andy: Depending on the style of play that the player employs, you either are going to see a ball that they sort of flail at when they are on the run because a lot of players don’t have the ability to separate their foot speed from their racket head speed.

An example being, when you see a guy on the run and then the faster they are running, the faster they are swinging. Whereas, some of the higher level players are able to operate two separate transmissions– one for their upper body, one for their lower body. The smarter players who have that ability to control their body a little better maybe on the run if they are really in full gear to a tennis ball are able to maybe slow down their racket head because they know that a control component has to come somewhere in this equation and they are able to do that.

I’m going to say that you’re going to see one of two things– either a ball that comes floating back because they realize that I’m on defense now. I just want to make sure I get this ball back in play and maybe that’s the time to seize the opportunity and move forward and realize that you are going to get a shoulder high ball or higher to either hit a high volley or an over head off of when they are on the [inaudible] like that. Or move forward anyway and let them take that flailing swing at the ball because the percentage chance of they actually hurting you and hitting some laser passing shot if they are not a 5. 0 player or better, is probably pretty minimal and you give them an opportunity to just kind of hang themselves with a wild swing on the run.

So I’d say moving forward on a shot where your opponent is off-balance– whether they are playing defensively or offensively probably behooves you because as I say, you are either going to give yourself an opportunity to put away the next ball or they are probably going to go for something outside of their comfort zone. And that is going to be low percent by nature and you are going to get some free points that way.

Ian: Really good observation and that’s something that I definitely noticed in teaching rec players myself, is that players– especially if they are not kind of gifted naturally as an athlete to begin with have a really hard time separating their lower body and upper body. And they get really really quick and frantic with their lower body and their swing just kind of follows suit. That’s really interesting that you put that [inaudible] anticipating and I’d like to point out the flip side as well– let’s say that you’ve just hit a great shot Charles and you put your opponent off balance whether it be maybe retreating back away from the baseline because you hit a good deep shop or maybe running off the court to the right or to the left because you hit a nice wide shot.

If you consistently do not follow that forwards as Andy is suggesting and you just stand back there at the baseline and watch them and do nothing about it, they are going to pick up on that and know that they basically have got a free shot back into the court and they are going to be able to hit up pretty much anything they want. And if they aren’t very smart and they aren’t very controlled, they might go ahead and try to crush a winner anyway like what Andy was describing. But if they are smart and they see that you aren’t doing anything about the fact that they are off balance, it is really going to put them at ease much more.

They aren’t going to be under any pressure to hit anything good– they’ll just be able to play an easy defensive shot back to the middle of the court.

Andy: Well I think that example holds true even more often on a more regular basis with respect to your ability to grain your own comfort zone in returning serves. If a person serves big and I’m playing a big server but they aren’t coming in behind that serve, I feel a huge sigh of relief in just being able to lock a return back down the middle of the court and get it up high in the air and just let it carry deep in the court.

Not have to flirt with disaster of having to get every return down low at their feet because they are just attacking like a madman and they are effective in doing so. It takes a lot of the pressure off to know, that if I can just block the return and put it back in play and kind of regain the center of the court and neutralize that big serve by just making a higher percentage of returns, I’ve got a better game than this guy. Outside of this big service that this guy is bringing, I can hit more balls back and to know that all I have to do– using Federer as an example, you see him against a lot of these guys that don’t come in behind their big service, and I hate to use the example but Andy Roddick is the guy who comes to mind who doesn’t always take full advantage at least against Roger with that big serve which I think is largely why the record between the two is what it is.

Obviously Andy almost got over on him at Wimbelton last year, but aside from that some of those matches have been pretty one sided. And I think Roger realizes that Andy has got possibly the most dangerous serve in the game but the fact is, that I have a pretty crisp return game, I don’t have to be overly agressive with it because I know once we get into these points, I have the upper hand.

You just don’t see Roger sweating too much out there the way most guys are when they are playing Andy Rodick because he understands that dynamic so clearly and then realizes, I take away this guys serve and I kind of own him.

And I think that is something that a lot of other players need to realize. If you have your serve as a weapon, it is only largely going to be an effective weapon if you back it up with a next shot. Which again, was what John McEnroe did so brilliantly.

Ian: Sure. Let’s switch gears a little bit and move to a different topic and talk a little bit about swing technique and mechanics having to do with watching your opponent and seeing what they are doing with the racket. And I’ll give one quick example of that and then I’ll toss it over to you Andy to see what you think.

Let’s go ahead and keep with that example– let’s say that you have a big serve Charles and you are looking at what your opponents reactions are. If they are going to start playing it safe, like what Andy is describing, and essentially just block it back in play, that’s an opportunity for you. And what you should be looking for as you make your serve and you get prepared for their response, you should be looking where they are taking the racket back to and what the angle of the racket face is.

If they take their racket back shoulder height and their face is open, they are getting ready to just block it back or play a slice. Or something that is not going to be terribly offensive. If on the other hand they take the racket back well behind them and the face is closed, they are going to be preparing to make a drive or some type of top spin shot.

Myself personally, I’m always looking for these opportunities. I love the net and I love closing in. And when I see my opponent taking the racket back with an open racket face, I definitely love sneaking in there real quick and trying to catch them off guard. What do you think Andy?

Andy: I agree. I think that you have to over a period of the first few games of the match, get a feel for what those tendencies are. And sometimes, as you say the preparation of the racket will really give you a very clear indication, sometimes that will belay what is coming. And I [inaudible] back to when I first started teaching tennis, and I was working for Cliff Drysdale and another South African tennis pro named Billy Frier who was a great player. But Cliff used to love to give Billy a hard time because he would say to him something like– Cliff would come to the net and Billy would take a wild swing and hit a passing shot. And Cliff would say in that South African accent of his, ‘Billy how can I possibly know what you are doing when you are no idea yourself. ‘

So I think sometimes, you have to be careful that you over analyze what it looks like somebody is trying to do because then all of a sudden something else can come and it wasn’t even necessarily anything that they meant. So what I tell my players is, ‘somehow or another, get to 2 all. And then at 2-2, then start to formulate a game plan that maybe has some definitive intentions to it. In the meantime, worry about your game. Worry about high percentages of first serves. And at 2-2, then start to say to yourself OK, where is the rubber going to meet the road here with respect to where I’m going to choose to either attack this guy because I think he might be a little steadier than I am, or just wait him out and give him enough rope to hang himself. The shots that he is hitting look way to low for [inaudible] . I can’t believe that at 4-4, this guy is going to be able to do what he’s done at 1-1. And understand that there is much different mind-points to different points in the set.

When I was 14 years old, I had a coach that was getting me ready to play a match against a kid, and he said ‘This kid is all forehand. He can’t do anything close to what he does with his forehand on his back hand side. So play it to his backhand side and play it until you are blue in the face. ‘

Well on the first point of the match, I served and volleys. I hit a volley over to his backhand, he went running over and jumped out of his shoes, came off the ground with both feet and hit this monster backhand passing shot like it was somebody on the tour. And I didn’t go back to the backhand anymore and I came off the court– I think I got beat 3-2 or something. And my coach kind of slapped me upside the head and said ‘What were you thinking? What happened to playing the backhand?’ I said, ‘Didn’t you see that backhand that he hit on the first point?’ And he just kind of hit himself in the forehand saying ‘You’ve got to be kidding. Make him hit it 10 times. I bet you he would’ve made that shot 2 or 3 times. ‘

And I just didn’t get that at 14. The guy hit such a brilliant shot that I was convinced that I shouldn’t do that anymore and I completely abandoned my game plan.

So know that at 2-2, you are going to say ‘OK, this is where I’m going to be able to exploit a weakness. This person doesn’t run very well. I’m going to move him from corner to corner a little bit. This person passes well out of the corner, so I’m going to approach up the middle and take away the angles.

Give yourself at least half a set to make determinations based on what you think this person’s tendencies are. And that still doesn’t guarantee you that that is really the reality of what they are doing. I think it gives you at least a little bit of information to work with, probably something that you can make a half way educated guess. But you still need to leave yourself open to other possibilities because like I said, sometimes a person will hit a shot and they were going across court but somehow or another, nature took its course another way and it went down the line and the guy didn’t even mean to do that.

Ian: It seems like there is a really delicate balance here– almost like there is an art to this. I’m hearing you say that on one hand we don’t want to over analyze and get too caught up with their technique and what they are doing with the racket, but on the other hand, we definitely want to have some kind of game plan eventually and not just hit random shots either.

It can be kind of tough to balance those two things out, can’t it?

Andy: It really can. And I think a lot of that comes from your own level of confidence in yourself. That’s your number one priority– making sure that you have your mindset in a place that allows you to play the kind of tennis that you are capable of playing and that you are confident in playing. Because one of the mistakes that I think players make at the 3.0-4. 0 levels is that they put expoitation of their opponents weaknesses above playing their own game. And what you’ll find if you talk to the pros and you say, ‘Describe your game to me Andy Rodick. ‘ He’d say ‘Big serve, followed with a big forehand. ‘ ‘Describe your game to me Rafa?’ ‘I’m just going to hit big hooking forehands and I’m just going to wear you down and I”m going to run every single ball down until you are just laying on the side of the court ready to be taken off on a stretcher. ‘

‘Describe your game to me Serena Williams. ‘ ‘I’m just going to be a better athlete and I’m just going to come up with the goods on the big points and I’m going to hit the ball harder than you and when the points are the biggest, that’s when I’m going to play my best.’

Then you say ‘Describe your game to me Mr. 3.5 player. ‘ And he takes out a phone book and he starts to turn the pages… ‘Well if this happens, then I’m going to do that. But if that happens, I’m going to do that. [inaudible] big and overweight, I’m going to hit a drop shot– even though I don’t have a drop-shot.’

Then all of a sudden it becomes this sort of convoluted– I’m going to do this if this happens, and I’m going to do that if that happens. But they don’t even take into consideration the fact that they are asking them to do things that they don’t do.

First things first as a tennis player is identify your game. Know what under pressure you are going to do. At 4-4 in the 5th set Pete Sampras is going to serve big and he is going to serve you off the court. Angre Agassi is going to grind you down off of the ground. He is going to stand on the baseline and he is going to hit too many balls in the court to too many corners for you to be able to do anything about it.

Brilliant athletes, and the more brilliant the athlete is, the more a simplification of the game plan is then allowed. Because they know what they do under pressure. They know what their out-pitch is and that is part of that developmental curve in going from being a reactive player to an anticipatory player is that ability to first identify here is who I am, here is what I do. I’m going to do it to the best of my ability and then after that, I’m going to say, ‘OK, within the framework of the game that I really own, this is where I’m going to now apply those things based on where I think this person is stronger or not as strong. ‘

Ian: Good stuff Andy. Tell you what, I always know I have a great guest on the Podcast when I only get to about half of the things in my outline. And that’s the case today.

Andy: We’ve determined that it’s based on how long-winded I am is more of the problem then anything.

Ian: Well, that’s usually directly correlated to how much knowledge and passion one has for the game. So don’t worry, that’s not a negative buddy.

Andy: I appreciate it. You always have a good lineup of questions ready and it’s great to be able to reach out to your listeners and hopefully impart something that makes a little bit of sense to them. And we need to get you back on in the Tennis Zone again as I got some good feed-back when you came on my show as well.

Ian: Oh yeah? That’s good to hear. I’d love to.

It was a lot of fun. It was the first time that I’ve done a live radio segment and I enjoyed it a lot. So I’d love to do that.

Andy: Well we’ll definitely keep going back and forth– I think we’ve got a good thing going here. You’ve got a great deal and I think we are going pretty good too. So it’s great to work with you.

Ian: You to. One more time before we wrap things up– please tell my listeners where to go to download the Podcast segments?

Andy: You want to go to www.tenniszone1510.com and you will definitely, as Ian said, get to hear interviews with some of the top players, coaches, commentators and personalities in the sport.

As a matter of fact, we’ve got a guy coming on this Sunday who is out in your part of the country who is Steve Flink– the famed tennis journalist. He is coming on and I believe that he is actually being inducted into the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame on Friday night and will be coming on with my wife and myself this Sunday. She is coming back on the show me as it is our 2nd anniversary, so we like to get together for those kinds of occasions and do the show together. Steve Flink will be joining us and another New Jersey boy, Tommy Fontana, who played with me at the University of Texas will be coming on and he’ll be addressing the issue of tennis and sports parenting.

He’s got 4 kids now, and he was #1 at the University of Texas and he played a little bit on the tour and has some great sort of east coast insights into the sport of tennis. And now that he’s got four kids, all of which are pretty athletic, a lot of what he has learned about being a sports parent and some of the things that he’s seeing out there and what he thinks are effective parenting techniques and what he thinks are some of the ones that are maybe leading some kids and their parents and those relationships to stray a little bit.

Ian: Well Andy, thank you very much for your time. It’s been great to have you on the show again, and I look forward to being on your show and having you back again on the Essential Tennis Podcast as well.

Andy: Always a pleasure Ian, I appreciate it. [music] [music] [music]

Ian: Alright, that does it for episode 114 of the Essential Tennis Podcast. Thank you very much for joining me and my guest today on the show. I appreciate you being a listener and downloading the podcast– that means a lot to me.

In closing up today’s show, first of all I want to recognize a couple people who donated to the Podcast last week which I always appreciate very much.

First of all, Gavin in London, England donated $10 to the Essential Tennis Podcast. Robert in British Columbia Canada started a [inaudible] $10 per month subscription donation and Alex in Houston, Texas donated $25 to Essential Tennis. So thank you for you three for your support last week, I appreciate it very much. And if the Podcast has been helpful for your game, please consider making a one time donation or a monthly– just go to essentialtennis.com and on the front page on the lower right you will see a box that says donate– go check that out.

And one other way that you guys can help support me. I’ve just started getting some new advertisers on the website which is really exciting for me because it really helps finance my time here and what I’m doing on the website. It really helps me move forwards and hopefully move towards a future of doing this full time. And you guys can help support those advertisers just by clicking on the ads that are on my websites. And the two newest ones are found on the forums. If you guys go to essentialtennis.com then click on forums, you’ll see two ad boxes on the top. One is for Babalot and one is for Tennis Metro. Just please go check those out– you don’t have to buy anything, in fact, neither of them require any kind of purchase to support. Tennis Metro, you can get a free account and Babalot has a contest that you can sign up for by just filling in your information.

So if you appreciate what I’m doing here on the podcast and on the rest of the website, please go support my advertisers so that they continue to advertise with me. And by doing that, I can continue to move forwards and move hopefully towards doing this more and more during the week and producing more content and giving you guys more free instruction.

Alright, that does it for this week. Again, thank you very much for joining me. Hopefully you enjoyed today’s show and I will catch you guys again next week.

Until then, take care and good luck with your tennis. [music] [music] [music] [inaudible]