Tennis Footwork – Another Great Drill

Check out this great tennis footwork and movement video.

This will have you gliding across the court like Federer and getting to everyball just like Nadal.

Great Tennis Footwork Is The Key To Great Tennis

Let me repeat that!

Great tennis footwork is the key to great tennis.

This for many people is something that is overlooked.

Too many people concentrate too much time and energy on a particular shot or shots, but the fact remains – it doesn’t matter how good the shot is if you are never in a good position to hit it!!

Just stop for a minute and think about what I just said.

Untill that makes sense you  can never move on.

Every tennis shot starts from the ground up and so your feet are engaged long before the racket gets anyway near the ball to play a forehand or backhand etc.

If you improve this aspect of your game you improve your  – SIMPLE!!

Try this simple to set up drill (it’s great for leg strength too)

I will be posting more drills so keep watching!

French Open Day 1

So, Roger Federer begins his assault on the one Grand Slam that has missed his grasp so far – The French Open at Roland Garros.

Suprisingly (as the number 2 seed), he starts on the same day as the number 1 seed Rafa Nadal.

I can’t remember seeing this at a Grand Slam before………..and I’ve watched a few 

I am not sure why it was done this way but it is.

Anyway, a very impressive win for Andy Murray today and I am sure he is glad his campaign is under way.

And great also to see wins for Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt today, Hewitt in particular showing his trademark fighting spirit to come back from 2 sets to 0 down to beat Ivo Karlovic in 5 sets.

On the Womens side, last years champion, Ana Ivanovic came through a tight match to get herself into round 2 but former number 1 and French favourite Amelie Mauresmo lost to someone I personally know to be a very talented player Ana Groenefeld.

Here is my challenge for you!!

See if you can correctly predict the outcome of both the Mens & Womens events.

I want the winner and runner up in both events please – just leave your predictions below.

There will be a prize involved so GOOD LUCK!!

P.S. don’t forget you can get my Beat All The Tennis Players You Want and The Ultimate Tennis Fitness Planner (which you can read real life case studies about HERE & HERE), for a specially reduced price for as long as Roger Federer stays in the tournament!!

You can get them HERE

P.S.2 You only have until next Sunday to log your predictions – so once again GOOD LUCK!!

Winning Tennis Success Case Study No 2

If you have been following, you will remember last time I told you about Danny who won his club Over 35’s Championships basically following the information from my Beat All The Tennis Players You Want Tennis Matchplay Sysytem.

If you have not seen that post you can do so HERE

This time we are going to look at a different player with very different needs/problems – Max.

Max was a completely different animal to Danny.

Max was a really good thinker on the court – he didn’t always make the right decisions, but he was thinking.

His problem was that for the game he wanted to play (attacking all court/serve & volley), his tennis fitness just wasn’t fit enough.

This wasn’t helped by the fact that he had taken a year off from playing due to a shoulder injury.

I did some tennis fitness tests and some preliminary work with him as well as watching him play and he just didn’t have the stamina and leg strength to play how he wanted to play.

He was able to do it in short bursts early in a match but just wasn’t able to sustain it.

What was worse was that his opponents knew this and never panicked if Max went out into a lead early in a match (even if he took the first set).

They figured that he would soon get tired and they could come through.

Anyway, I told Max what I thought and he agreed.

He said he was going to the gym but didn’t seem to be making much progress.

I asked him what he was doing and he showed me the kind of things he did (he didn’t have a set workout/schedule), never mind a workout for tennis.

I asked him how this fitted into his plan and he said he didn’t have one – and the light came on in his head!!

He realised at that moment that by just going to the gym, doing a succession of random exercises was not going to get him to where he needed to go.

So, we started to get to work.

My first question was this – “when is your next big event you want to do well in?”

We pinpointed the Over 45’s Vets Championships at his club which was at that time in about 2 months time.

I got my laptop out & showed him my tennis fitness programme planner.

I located the 8 week plan/schedule and printed it out – instantly he could see day by day, set by set, lap by lap and rep by rep, what he needed to do over the next 2 months.

We sat down and worked out what sessions I would do with him and which ones he would do on his own – and off we went.

Now, obviously I won’t bore you with the progress reports along the way but let’s fast forward to the tournament.

He played well, had a bye/walkover in one round but made it to the final in a match that was scheduled after Danny’s.

In fact he was playing the guy who had beaten Danny 2 years ago in their final (a really clever player).

Max came out strong and and won a very close first set 7-6.

The second set was equally as close which his opponent took with one break of serve 6-4.

The final set saw Max step on the gas a bit and head out to a 5-2 lead.

In fact it was his opponent that looked tired a this point.

So, at 5-2 and 40-15 on serve, I was ready to start clapping his victory when two volleys were sprayed wide, followed by a double fault and a return winner, 5-3!!

Surely, he couldn’t lose from here!!

Well, he didn’t.

He broke to take the set and match 5-3.

The best thing was that his first comment was how strong his legs felt and how he never ever thought he would lose the match because of a lack of fitness.

He now could see the value in a tennis fitness regime and the “plan” and we are now going after the “BIG ONE” – The Open Club Tournament.

If you haven’t checked out the Ultimate Tennis Fitness Planner yet, then you can do so – HERE

(Make sure to click on the link as I have a Special Deal for those of you that have asked about and want access to both Reports featured in these case studies!!)

Federer beats Nadal in Madrid Masters Final

Anyone interested in tennis could not have failed to see the news that Roger Federer beat his great rival Rafa Nadal in yesterdays Madrid open.

It was Rafa’s first defeat on clay in over 30 matches.

Does this mean that Federer is back to his best?

Maybe, but let’s not forget that he has been the second best player on clay over the past 3 years with his performances at the tournament that matters – The French Open.

Only Rafa has beaten him there, so his credentials are proven.

What about Rafa?

Well, I think there are a couple of things to consider.

I don’t think he has been at his best, yet has won all the lead up clay tournaments and finished runner up at the last.

That would be a great year for most other players but such is the height of the bar that Rafa has set, it has set people off on a tangent with comments of “is he finished”?

Whilst he hasn’t been playing his best tennis, the epic match with Djokovic in the semi-final (over 4 hours) was I am sure a factor in the Nadal loss (even though he would neversay so!!).

I think Federer looked good this week along with Verdasco and Djokovic back to his best are looking dangerous with the French just a week away.

Even Andy Murray showed a couple of weeks ago with his match with Nadal that he has the tools necessary to win on the “red stuff”.

The other thing you need to consider is the altitude involved.

The Madrid Masters is played at altitude which makes a big difference.

The “thinner” air means that the balls travel quicker and is therefore a much better environment for the players like Federer who prefer conditions like that.

Unfortunately, in Paris that won’t be the case and Nadal will have more time on the ball and will be able to do more with it to punish his opponents.

That for me still makes him favourite.

The French Open at Roland Garros is always a great tennis tournament and I am sure it will be again this year.

With so many great tennis players around at the moment who believe they are in with a chance of winning the title, we are in for a great 2 weeks.

The Top 3 Ways For Federer To Beat Nadal & How You Can Beat A Lefty – Pt 3

Don’t forget  The Net

The third thing that you also need to do is to adjust what you do when a lefty comes to the net.

Because you often don’t have a lot of time when this happens, it’s easy to play on auto pilot and come unstuck.

The problems arise big time when you try to put up a lob.

You should know that a lob over the backhand side of your opponent is the most effective.

Well, when you (and Federer) put up your normal lob for your right handed opponent this ends up going to the leftys forehand and gets crushed by an overhead smash!!

Not only do they win the point but it pumps them up and gives them extra confidence – NOT GOOD!!

You can just see Nadal pumping his fist after dispatching an easy overhead.

Conclusion

These adjustments may not help Federer to beat Nadal as I’m sure he is aware of them, but they will most certainly help most of the club players out there when they come up against lefty opponents.

Start using them today!

Also try to search out some left handed people to practise with.

This will prove invaluable when you have to play one in a tennis match.

Winning Tennis Success Case Study No 1

2 players I have been working with in the lead up to their club tournament came up trumps and won their singles events.

The first was Danny, who was one of the top 4 seeds but had lost in the final 2 years ago and in the semi final last year of the over 35’s.

Anyway, he asked me to work with him a couple of months ago and it was pretty obvious what his problem was.

He was a good player, tall and very athletic with a big tennis serve (when it was “on”) and a big tennis forehand.

His backhand was a bit of a liability as was his second serve.

He also very rarely came to the net.

Having said all of this, his main problem was this.

He played all of his matches as a continuous succession of tennis shots – WHICH IS WRONG!!!

I can hear many of you saying – “No, No surely that’s what a tennis match is!!”

Well, you would also be WRONG!!

A tennis match SHOULD BE – a collection of tennis shots that are played with a PURPOSE!!

You need to be playing your shots as part of a plan for that particular point.

Which is part of a plan for that game.

Which is part of a plan for that set.

Which is part of a plan for that match.

Do you get the picture??

Until you do that you will be open to the hands of fate as to whether you win or lose that match (unless you are far superior to your opponent).

But when it comes to playing opponents of a similar (and higher) level, you need to be doing more than “just” hitting the tennis ball.

I can tell you now, it’s the player who plays the best with their HEAD on the court that wins tennis matches – FACT!!

And when I say head, I don’t mean psychology, I mean simply working out what to do with their shots.

Anyway, in terms of Danny, we basically worked through the stuff I have in my Beat All The Tennis Players You Want E-book (although pretty simple to implement was mostly new to him in terms of trying to build matches around).

He gradually got the hang of using the stuff in some practise sets etc and the end result was last weekends 6-3, 7-6 win over the top seed in the final.

What was really great for me was the big “YES, COME ON!!!”, he let out on the match point as his forehand went for a winner on match point.

He was obviously pleased and so was I.

It’s funny how he now can’t see how he could ever have played matches without this kind of approach before.

I’ll try and get some pictures to you next time.

If you haven’t checked out “Beat All The Tennis Players You Want”, you can do so HERE

The Top 3 Ways For Federer To Beat Nadal & How You Can Beat A Lefty – pt 2

In our previous post , we looked at adjusting our service return position to help combat the left handed player.

If you didn’t see that then go HERE

This time you need to consider this!!

Work On Your Backhand Up The Line

Because Federer and us rightys tend to want to play our backhands cross-court, this can cause a problem when we play leftys as we tend to hit into their strength – the forehand.

Also, leftys are happy to get the ball on the forehand and hit it crosscourt into our backhands.

By working on the backhand up the line you can switch play so that they hit their backhand cross court into your strength (your forehand).

You may even get the chance if they try to go back up the line on your backhand to run around the tennis ball and hit an inside out forehand.

One word of caution here, you will find many left handers (esp. Nadal) are quite good at creating wide angles from their forehands to your backhand.

If that happens, don’t try and go down the line as you will be way out of position for the next ball – you must try to go deep and cross court!!

The The Top 3 Ways For Federer To Beat Nadal & How You Can Beat A Lefty

It’s not enough for Federer that Rafa Nadal is a great tennis player.

It’s also a challenge because Nadal plays left handed.

The problem is that most people Federer (and you) play are right handed, so he and you become used to certain patterns of play and positions on the tennis court.

When the lefty comes along, everything you know about the game seems to go out the window and if you are not careful your strong shots are dealt with easier and your weaknesses are more exposed.

Here are the top 3 adjustments you need to make to your tennis game when coming up against a left handed opponent.

Adjust Your Position On The Return Of Serve Position

Because the natural path of the ball from a lefty’s tennis serve like Nadal is to your left, you need to adjust your returning position.

By moving over to the left to return serve (on both sides) you will be in a better position to return their best serves as well as forcing them to try to hit what for them is the slightly harder serve.

In the deuce court the harder serve for them will be the kick serve out wide and the sliced serve down the centre from the ad side.

The most overlooked aspect in all of this is the fact that you will be showing them that you are aware of what’s happening on the court and you will force them to do some thinking of their own and not just serve their favourite serves and play on autopilot.

Believe me, with most players that will lead to an increase in double faults and free points for you!

Moving Well For Clay Court Tennis

I have found that the number one thing about playing well on a clay court has nothing directly to do with shots.

It is in fact about your movement, more specifically – SLIDING.

Sliding into the ball on a clay court is vital and is the one thing that the players who don’t grow up on the surface find the hardest to add into their game.

In fact most people think that you have to learn to hit the ball and then slide.

No!!

You have to learn how to slide into your shots and then begin your recovery for the next ball – and that requires timing.

So how do you learn to do this?

Well, one of the best ways I have seen is to just get out there and slide around.

Getting a partner to throw a tennis ball onto the court in different directions while you run to and slide around to get the balls before getting the ball back to them is one of the best ways to work out how to move and recover on a clay court.

Just progress/transfer this game to when you have a racket and are hitting forehands and backhands and you are well on the way to feeling comfortable and moving better on “the dust”.