Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

It's not uncommon for players to play extremely well throughout a match but for various reasons fail to win the important points.  The important points in a match are the break points, game points, and set points. If, for whatever reason you are not converting these opportunities it's very tough to win matches. Players often change their mindset for the important points and suddenly do things out of character. While they might have been playing calm, intelligent tennis for most of a set, when they get to the "business end" of the set they suddenly decide to play risky shots that they weren't attempting before.  To see a player suddenly change to risky low percentage shots at the most important times in the match is a coach's worst nightmare Establish Patterns Early: Start analyzing your opponent during the warm-up, and continue observing her throughout the match, just in case adjustments to your strategy are needed. Look for obvious strengths and weaknesses...

If you're like most players , you've probably been tweaking your ground strokes by focusing on the top half of your body. The grip, the back-swing, the follow-through, and even the angle of your shoulders are probably just a few of the things you've tried to adjust in an effort to improve your groundstroke game. However, greater gains can be made on your ground-strokes by focusing on the lower half of your body. There's a technique you can use whenever you hit your ground strokes that, if done correctly, will give you perfect timing, balance, increased power and improve your consistency.  Here's what to implement during your next practice session. THE LINE Next time you're on the court, imagine a Line running from the top of your head and continuing down through your body to the ground. If you're standing straight upright, that imaginary Line will be positioned equally between both feet, but as you sway your torso to the left or the right, forward or backwar...