How To Plan For The Perfect Tennis Tournament Or Match

It’s been a busy few weeks, with many of my full time players coming to the end of their season and The Club Tournament in full flow for many of club players.

It’s for that reason that I haven’t sent something out this week, but let me explain more.

I was approached by a Woman a few months ago for some instruction.

We spoke for a while, did an initial assessment lesson and decided to go full steam ahead on what we ended up calling “The Project”.

“The Project” as I will call it from now on was this – to see if she could get herself ready for the Club Tournament which was (at that time) a couple of months away.

Carol, was in fact a pretty good player who throughout the years (she was in her early forties now) had in fact won several Club Championships at several clubs but had also lost many more finals & semi-finals normally against players that she told me she “should have beaten”.

The main causes she told me were usually, lack of practise, fitness & match nerves.

We worked out that over the years she had had 6 wins and lost 6 finals in her “glittering” career and she really wanted to get ahead in the win column.

It would be difficult, because even though she had lost in the final two years ago (when she last played) there were many more juniors coming through the ranks who would surely pose a big threat.

They ran all day and hit the ball……………..HARD!!

So, first things first we needed a plan.

Ideally, I like to go for a 12 week plan but we that wasn’t an option so here was the deal.

Because of age and lifestyle (work etc), Carol didn’t have all day long to play & practise.

Add to that the fact that since the final two years ago she had only played a couple of singles matches and was (with respect!!) a little bit overweight – we had some work to do.

So this was the overall plan – it’s something we call Periodization.

This is exactly what the “Big boys & girls” like Federer, Nadal, Del Potro, Murray, Sharapova and Williams do when they are planning their tournament year out for things like Wimbledon, US Open, French Open etc.

I divided the alloted time into 3 “Phases”.

The first Phase is the Preparation Phase

This was a 4 week phase.

In terms of her tennis I told her to stick to lots of general (but high intensity) hitting to find timing with some first to 11 points at the end of those sessions.

In terms of tennis fitness, this phase is all about building what we call a good cardio vascular (CV) base especially as she hadn’t really exercised properly for years.

Any (inevitable) weight loss would have to be slow to maintain strength (about a pound a week).

The second Phase is the Pre-Competition Phase

This was a two week phase, where drills and points would become more competitive along with some practise matches and fitness, work switched gears to include more interval work

The third & final Phase is the Competitive Phase

This final Phase of 2 weeks was all about shifting the effort on to the court and just looking at maintenance in terms of her fitness work.

I will let you know a bit more detail about stuff in the coming days, but I hope you’ve got the picture and can add some mental encouragement to our cause from wherever you are

P.S. Also let me know if you have ever approached a big competition in this way i.e. put a plan (of any sorts) together & if so how did it go??