Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

What would you do next? You've rallied strongly and managed to put your opponent under pressure. They've dropped the ball short in the court; it's time to finish the point with an aggressive winner. Can you finish points like this confidently? Do you finish with a winner, or do you get the jitters and embarrass yourself in front of everyone? If it's the latter, you're in the majority.  The inability to finish points is a problem for tennis players worldwide. How well do you react when finishing the point? I've coached players of all levels, every level of player suffers from nerves; it's just that the best players somehow have ways to overcome them.  THE MIND SCALE: 0 - 100 I need you to use your imagination for me.  Try to remember what goes on inside your head when you want to attack that half-court ball and hit a winner. Imagine that your thoughts are like a straight line.  Picture a mental scale in your mind from 0-100. 0 is when you decide to attack th

I attended a tennis event during the weekend with a team of college players. On the first day of matches, we had some disastrous starts. In several matches, we went down by 5 games before we began playing at our normal level, but often it was too late to save the game. Here are 4 ways you can avoid slow starts in your matches: THE WARM-UP IS 90% MENTAL The most significant difference I see between the top professionals and college players is players at the top only have one mental "gear". They're always focused. Whereas college-level players think it's ok to warm up in a different mental "gear" than the one they use in the match. Your body and your mind like doing things habitually, meaning anything you repeat enough times will become the norm. If you ask more from yourself in practice and matches, your body and mind will adapt to that new normal.  This matters most during the morning warm-up before matches. If you're not focused or you’re clowning aroun

Although the top male and female players in our game are mostly  baseliners, all of them have developed ways to conclude the point, to finish. If you haven't found ways to take opportunities during the rally and finish points on your terms, you're going to be using a lot of extra physical and mental energy to win points. Here are 4 ways to help you shorten the points and finish sooner. CREATE AN INSIDE FOREHAND An "Inside" ball is a term from Paul Wardlaw's "The Directionals" theory. It describes a ball which comes towards your body, and doesn't pass your outside shoulder. Whenever your opponent hits "Outside" your far shoulder (cross-court) you're under pressure because the ball is always moving away from you.  Inside balls however, give you options to dictate the rally by either hitting cross-court or inside-out to add pressure to your opponent. Whenever your opponent gives you an inside ball take advantage of it and start to apply p

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 ba

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

  You can't worry too much about the present... because yesterday took care of that already. 'Stay in the moment', y ou hear it all the time  whenever someone is trying to tell you why you're not succeeding at something . While it might be great advice for someone facing immediate danger, it's lousy advice for tennis coaches to develop future champions.  I can honestly say that I have spent my whole coaching career living in the future, days, weeks, and sometimes months ahead. Here's why... 1. DURING PRACTICES Tennis Coaches should be constantly projecting themselves mentally into the future, that's why aspiring tennis champions are coming to us! What all young players are wanting from us is a road map showing them how to reach their tennis dreams, which can include how to win tournaments, be the best they can be, and how to continually improve their game.  As coaches, we need to help them by  designing a pathway for them to reach those goals by setting o

Are you looking for a way to improve your tennis in a big way? I mean making huge fundamental improvements to your game almost overnight? Sounds too good to be true but it's possible, particularly in light of the global epidemic we are all feeling the effects of now.  It seems that something called Post Trauma Growth may be the solution in your quest to become better at anything, significantly better!   As the term suggests, it's a  period of growth that occurs after you experience a significant trauma in your life. We're all feeling the effects of COVID-19. Some are affected more than others financially, while many are also affected physically. Some have lost friends or family to the virus, and literally, millions of people have lost their jobs and are out of work, uncertain about their future job prospects and in providing for their loved ones.  Make no mistake, these are traumatic times for many millions of people across the globe. The world has faced trauma's on