How Looking Back At Wimbledon Can Help You Play Better Tennis – Part 2

One of the things about playing on a grass court like they have at Wimbledon is that the footing can be uncertain.

If you are not careful, the amount of sprinting and changes of direction you have to make could see you ending up being up ended!

To help my players stay on their feet I have them working on their tennis footwork focusing on getting themselves into a slightly lower and wider stance than they feel is normal (which also helped their balance and helps them cope with the low bounces that occur sometimes).

Again, you should take a moment to reflect how having better footwork and balance would improve your tennis game regardless of where you play your tennis.

Work from today on getting a bit more flex in your knees and a shoulder wide stance and see how that not only improves your balance and agility but also your POWER!

You can check out my Fantastic Footwork For Fantasy Tennis Special Report – HERE!

Here is one of my players performing what I call the “multi-move” footwork drill

Get Ready For Tip No3

How Looking Back At Wimbledon Can Help You Play Better Tennis

I was looking back at some Wimbledon notes I had in a folder the other day – notes I had made for some of the players I was working with who had Wimbledon qualifying coming up and I suddenly thought, “this stuff is not only good for the grass court season and Wimbledon, it’s perfect for advancing your tennis game the rest of the tennis year”.

As I looked over the stuff I had written down, I pin-pointed 4 or 5 areas which were crucial to success on grass but also crucial just about anywhere else especially at club level, so here they are.

1. Serve & Return

You should know by now that the 2 most important shots in tennis are the tennis serve and tennis return.

When you play on grass these shots become ultra important in terms of your control of the point, if you do neither well then you are unlikely to win.

But think about your own game, hitting the spots wth your serve and making good sharp returns can only be good even if the only time you ever get to “play on grass” is when you walk the dog!!

Let these shots become the cornerstone of your game regardless of what surface you play on.

Sampras & Federer Are Not The Best Of All Time

It’s widely reported that Pete Sampras (14) & Roger Federer (13) are the best players of all time because of their wins in Grand Slams.

Now both are/were great players and in fact are two of my favourite players without doubt but if we are using Grand Slam wins as the benchmark then what about…………..Steffi Graf who won 22 Grand Slams in the Open era???

There is no way that Federer is going to beat that total and add in the fact that she won the “Golden Slam” – All 4 Grand Slam titles in a calender year as well as the Olympic Gold Medal!!!

Not bad for a player that people said couldn’t hit a topspin backhand!!

This is exactly what I teach and tell you about in my simple BUT effective “Beat All The Tennis Players You Want” Special Report – Minimize your weaknesses and Utilize your strengths!!

Graf was brilliant at this, she may not have had the best topspin backhand but the slice was SUPER effective.  She never missed and it was hard to attack and all she did was to use that until she got a chance to hit her forehand that was truly World class and was one of the Premier weapons in tennis history never mind in WTA Womens Tennis at the time.

Think about this for a minute and see if you can’t bring some of these qualities into your game.

Minimize weaknesses

Utilize strengths!!

Beat All The Tennis Players You Want

How And Why You Should Use A Practise Wall

It’s always suprising to me the lack of people who realise that using a practise wall (or even just any wall) is a fantastic way to improve your tennis game.

Heck, I grew up hitting balls against a wall for hours when I couldn’t find anyone to play with (actually I’m sure I hit against the wall when I had people to play against as well!!).

Why would I do that and why is it so good?

Well apart from the fact that the ball always comes back and therefore forces you to play a lot of tennis balls, playing the wall is great for your tennis fitness, speeds your reactions up and is brilliant for your footwork (especially in and around the ball).

This sets you up “BIG TIME” for when you get back on the court ready to play the “proper game”.

BIG TIP – If you are struggling to control the ball or even just to make it more of a workout, instead of using a normal tennis ball try using a low compression ball (like the one’s used for kids tennis).

P.S. Check out the video and info for my 10 step teaching progression for kids tennis HERE

How To Teach Kids How To Play Tennis

What you do with your kids tennis early on can really be the difference between them being an OK tennis player to them being a REALLY GOOD player……and who knows, maybe even a tour professional!!

How you get them to experience the game makes all the difference when you talk about tennis for kids.

The choices you make as a parent/guardian/family member/coach etc have a massive impact – from the tennis racket and the rest of their tennis equipment to how they practise and learn to play the game.

BUT

Help is at hand!!

Here is a SIMPLE but EFFECTIVE 10 step progression you can use to teach whichever kid you are helping, to play the game!

Check out the video HERE for details!!

Is This One Of The Best Tennis Technique Tips Ever?

Did you know that you can improve your tennis technique by simply watching TV and observing your favorite players in action?

“Through imitation, we’re able to learn tasks–such as swinging a bat–much better than was previously thought,” explains Yigal Agam, a neuroscience expert at Brandeis University.

Agam discovered that it only takes a single viewing of a movement for people to replicate it effectively. He adds: “The more people viewed it, the more exact their imitation became. Moreover, intermittently pausing an action will make it easier to learn.”

I have to admit I did this a lot when forming my game (watching lots of Pete Sampras) and have had great results when coaching by getting them to “model” stuff on tape or even my demos.

We often just have baskets of me performing an action (e.g. tennis serve) followed by my pupil just attempting to copy me!!

Better get the recording equipment ready to go then!!

A word of caution though, a study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences reveals that “you can subconsciously pick up bad habits by watching mediocre athletes.”

So, don’t spend too much time studying your average club player!

So, if you have to learn, you have to learn from the best.

Makes sense, right?

Federer – Is He Right?

So Roger Federer came out last week and announced that he doesn’t work on the weaknesses in his tennis game.

Is he right?

Is not working on weaknesses a mistake?

Is this the message he wants to send out to new coach Darren Cahill?

Is this what made him great?

Is this why Nadal (and Djokovic & Murray) are up there with him?

Is there something else behind this?

Let me know your take on this below.