Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

  As I broke the news to the best player in the country that I was not selecting him to play in the Davis Cup tie the following week I expected a huge backlash. One of the toughest tasks you perform as a tennis coach is selecting players for teams. Sometimes you have the luxury of seeing the player compete under pressure in matches before you decide, as I did when selecting national teams, but often you don't.  In the case of College coaches in the US, many times you have very little to go on and must make recruitment decisions that at Division 1 schools have repercussions lasting for the next 4 years.  Once money has been committed to a new player, that money can't be used again on a better player later. Picking players for teams is one of the most difficult tasks you will do as a coach  (Thai Davis Cup Team) Selection mistakes made by college coaches have long-term repercussions. Making informed selection choices comes down to three important factors, the cand...

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...