Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

To improve your game, you must begin to shift from reacting emotionally and use your brain more. The emotional realm is when you play points with doubt, a lack of confidence, fear, and even anger, and you are often overcome with insecurity and frustration. Sound familiar? Even at the top level, tennis players deal with many negative emotions that conspire to wreck their game. It's just that the top players can override the negative emotions better, or their more brilliant intellect takes over art practised in crucial times and saves the day by helping them complete the win. But at the lower level, players are overwhelmed by all their negative emotions, which subotage their game. It's not surprising then that tennis, and many other sporting pursuits, can be very frustrating for most and gut-wrenching for others. The continual emotional conflict between what you want to do and what you actually do in reality can result in us having a mental meltdown during the match. When our int...

The Serve is considered the most aggressive stroke in tennis and the only stroke in which the player has complete control over the placement and speed of the ball. It is the only Closed-skill stroke in an Open-skill sport like tennis. The serve is an opportunity to take control of the point by gaining an advantage over your opponent early in the point. Focusing on the Serve can help players become more dominant in key moments and improve their results quickly. I have been focusing recently on improving players' mindset during the serve. An aggressive attitude coupled with good technique will take you a long way. Along with being more positive and optimistic, you'll make better decisions, execute the stroke more confidently, and maintain an aggressive mindset throughout service games. Negativity hurts your service games a lot because it leads to conservative decisions regarding the targets and the overall execution of the stroke. If you merely  get the ball in to start a rally d...

I've always taught strategy to players early in their development. For me, strategy is an integral part of a competitive player's toolkit along with stroke technique, fitness, and movement.   When teaching strategy to beginners, you'll need to tailor your instructions to suit the age and level of the player(s), but the teaching of strategy should be done early and not left to later.  I have recently been involved with college tennis in the US and have seen firsthand the lack of any prior introduction players receive on the topic of strategy.   Most of the players I have watched competing at college level have had difficulty implementing even elementary strategy in their matches.  The problem starts when, early in a players career, coaches believe that if a player has perfected their stroke technique, that will naturally transfer into savvy match-play. That certainly is not the case.  The fact is that college coaches are left to deal with this neglecte...

  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 ...

We all 'like' many things … weekends, ice cream, the latest phone on the market or the new app everybody else is using. If we buy the latest phone and spend hours on it to connect with friends, play games or to become more visible on social media, that new phone you brought is returning the love. It is 'liking' you back! The fact is if we spend time nurturing those things we like, we will benefit from getting 'liked' back. Imagine your favorite ice cream flavor. Whenever you want ice cream you choose that same flavor because you 'like' it so much. Each time you sit down to enjoy that flavor, the flavor repays you by sending all that great flavor and texture back to you. That’s the ice cream returning your 'like.' However, that boy or girl in your class at school that you would like to get to know better behaves in the same way. If you like them, but don’t show them because you’re too shy, how can they return the 'like.' Your re...