Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

  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...

If you can’t hold serve, you can’t win the match. That’s how important the serve is in tennis. Players with average ground-strokes but great serves have done well in tennis, particularly on the faster surfaces. The serve is not a complicated stroke, but it can be prone to breaking down under pressure in matches. Therefore, it’s important to understand the key elements of the serve so that, under pressure, you can focus on one or two things that will make it work for you. Here are the 2 key elements I recommend you focus on when under pressure in matches. If done correctly, each of the two elements will cover any problems you may be having with your serve. THE FRONT FOOT The front foot is the 'Bridge' for your serve. It’s the transfer point for your forward movement during the serve. Soon, the player's left foot  will begin to dominate the  service action and supply  timing and power to the wrist  If this 'Bridge' is weak or ineffecti...

A coach can only do so much with a player who is experiencing destructive mental issues related to tennis competition. Players who find competition mentally too much to handle and suffer from choking, low levels of self-confidence or an inability to close out important matches are generally the victims of their environment. They reflect the environment they live in daily when they compete in matches. Prolonged and repeated negative mental issues in matches when competing as a junior player also continue to be a problem for the player much later in life, even though the environment that caused the mental issues in the first place might have changed for the better. Considering a majority of competitive junior players suffer from an almost crippling mental war inside their heads, it would be fair to say that this is why  a majority of players never fully reach their true potential. It, therefore, becomes clear that the environment we grow up in when we start our tennis...

The Korean guy in the front row was losing control.  It was 1991 and Beijing was the venue for the Asian Games.  We were playing for at least a Mixed Doubles bronze medal and Thailand hadn’t won an Asian Games medal in tennis for almost 40 years! Personally, this was the biggest match of my tenure as Thai National Tennis Coach.   The Thai team of Wittaya Samret and Orawan Thampensri were in a match with a typically tough Korean team.  You can always count on Koreans to make it a battle.  They are always in great shape physically, mentally very strong, and always 100% committed.   I had encountered the Korean attitude in many events prior to this. Players from Korea could sometimes overstep the boundary of what was considered good sportsmanship.  This didn’t make them any friends on the tennis circuit and I had even witnessed Korean coaches physically abusing players several times. I’m not sure whether or not the guy in t...

WHEN YOUR PARTNER GOES INTO HIDING... If your friends go into hiding each time you look for a doubles partner, it's probably because your serve sucks. There's nothing more frustrating in doubles than having a partner who constantly double-faults.  Or that feeling of wanting to run for cover to protect yourself every time your partner serves one of their weak serves. Nobody wants to play with a partner who has a weak serve. But it doesn't have to be like that because improving your serve can happen quickly just by improving your wrist. Your wrist plays two very important roles when you Serve. It not only helps make the ball go faster, it also works like a "target finder", helping direct the ball to your target.  If you can keep the wrist loose while serving, it will take all the pressure off your shoulder joint, and prevent injuries in the long-term.  So these are the advantages of using your wrist to serve, but how do we make the wrist supple and relaxed when we...

Often, all a player needs to do to improve their groundstrokes is to better understand the various components of the stroke and understand the particular function of each part. THERE ARE 3 PARTS TO A SWING   There are 3 parts to a swing. The 3 parts are (1) The Back-swing (2) The Contact, and (3) The Follow Through. Here is a breakdown of each of these 3 parts of the swing. THE BACKSWING:  The purpose of your backswing is to supply power to your Contact. The bigger the backswing the more power you can generate. A return of serve, for example, doesn't require much back-swing because the power you need mostly comes from your opponent. Strokes where you commonly want to generate most of the power yourself are general groundstrokes, and it's common to see players taking big backswings on high balls and mid-court "put-away" shots because they want to generate extra power. The amount of backswing you take determines how much available energy (power) you can ta...

In 2005 Martina Hingis decided to make a come-back to professional tennis.  Martina had walked away from tennis in 2002 after a career that saw her rise to number 1 in the rankings and stayed there for a total of 206 weeks. She captured 15 Grand Slam titles which included 5 singles, 9 women’s doubles, and 1 mixed doubles title. Martina Hingis burst on the tennis scene in 1993  she became the youngest  player to win a  Grand Slam  ( The French Junior Singles) at only 13 years old Martina’s first match back was going to be the Pattaya Women’s Open, held annually in the seaside resort town of Pattaya, Thailand.  The tournament is owned and run by an old friend of mine Geoffrey Rowe.  Geoffrey has been running women’s events in Thailand for many years and Thai tennis owes him a huge debt of thanks.  It was his wild card into the Pattaya Women’s Open that gave Tamarine Tanasugarn her big opportunity to break into the WTA Tour.  Ironica...