Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

I once attended a high-performance sports seminar, and one of the speakers asked all the participants how important the mind was in their sport.   He asked what percentage the mind played in their sport compared to technique, fitness, nutrition, and other factors. The representatives from all the various sports estimated the importance of the mind and the answers varied, but not by much.   Everyone estimated the percentage to be between 75% and 90%.  They all thought the mind was the most important aspect. The speakers’ next question was even more revealing.   He asked, “What percentage of practice time do you devote to training the mental aspects in your sport”?  The answers fell between 10% and 15%! Why is it that, as coaches, we devote so little of our time to something that we know to be so important to the outcome in our various competitions?   I think the reason is that we understand very little about the way the mind works, ...

The art of playing at the net has almost disappeared.   This is due to a variety of reasons.   Players are hitting much better ground-strokes today, with more power, spin and greater accuracy. This has put a lot more pressure on any player who comes into net. Courts today have also become more similar, the faster courts are being slowed down, while the traditional slower courts such as clay are playing faster because of the type of tennis balls being used. This is illustrated best when we look at Wimbledon and the French Open. The grass surface at Wimbledon has been changed to make it slower and to encourage longer rallies. The authorities have done the opposite at the French Open.   To eliminate long boring rallies they have introduced tennis balls that reward players who like to attack the point. Modern doubles exponents have also departed from traditional volley technique. When you get a chance to poach the ball at the net in doubles you have the luxury ...

Many years ago I was watching a match in Japan between Andres Gomez and Aaron Krickstein. I was sitting close to the court and realized that I was watching something very different from anything I had ever seen before.   I was watching a table tennis rally!   Both Gomez and Krickstein were trying to produce a rally that was dominated by the flight of the ball rather than where the ball was bouncing . They were controlling the ball inside a tight “funnel” of arc through the use of topspin. Today that might seem normal but back then it was the beginning of a new era in tennis. Long before this, Bjorn Borg had changed our perception of topspin in tennis.   Borg hit the ball with much more arc than any other player at that time and years later while watching   that match in Japan I was witnessing the beginning of a post Borg era. The younger players coming through such as Krickstein and Jimmy Arias were hitting tremendous topspin on the ball and in the pr...

  Knowing when to attack or defend is crucial Playing tennis is a little like a car. The engine will drive you forward but without a means to change gears or steer the car, there’s no real way to use the car in a purposeful manner.   Many players, particularly in the women’s game rely solely on how hard they can hit the ball.   The faster the better.   It’s all about the engine! When I watch a tournament, the players that catch my eye are those who can change from offense to defense and understand which shot is the most appropriate for the situation.   This ability to change gears and understand the shot required is a difficult lesson to teach as it has nothing to do with stroke mechanics but instead requires a player to learn instinctiveness under a variety of situations. The best theory I know to teach this instinctiveness and one I have used for many years is The DNO Theory. The DNO Theory helps a player understand the correct shot to hit under vary...

Deep balls that land on or near the baseline demand special skills DESCRIPTION: For some, perhaps one of the most difficult groundstrokes is the deep ball that lands on or near the baseline. Martina Hingis was very good at taking the ball off the bounce, often choosing to stand her ground on deep balls and return the ball with excellent timing.  I asked her once how she learnt to hit this type of ball so well.  She told me that as a youngster her mother would sprinkle objects just behind the baseline, making it almost impossible to step back for deep balls.  This had developed her ability to coordinate this very difficult ball.  THE DRILL If you are having trouble with balls that land deep and that give you little time to move back, try a similar drill to the one that helped Martina Hingis. I’m sure you spend a lot of time hitting from the baseline during practice.  Next time you practice, spend some of your baseline practice by keeping your feet inside t...

Why is Nadal so successful and how can he be beaten? Until last year Nadal was the king of clay, winning the 2010 Monte Carlo Open with the loss of only 13 games during the entire tournament.  Clearly Nadal is doing something very right when he plays on clay. Let’s look and see what Nadal is doing so well on clay and how he can be beaten.  firstly, we must consider the way players have been trying to beat Nadal over the last few years The most comon tactic is for players to try and pressure Nadal.  During the 2008 French Open final Roger Federer tried to shorten the points and attack Nadal by changing out of the crosscourt exchange and hitting down the line as quickly as possible.  He also came to net to volley whenever the opportunity presented itself.  The theory was that Nadal is too strong from the baseline and trying to out rally him is pointless.  Unfortunately for Federer the result was one of the most one sided finals in years, and he eventual...

Back in the 80s, players like Ivan Lendl and Martina Navratilova embarked on nutritional regimes that were considered extreme but would later become the norm. A little later, players began adopting more scientific fitness programs that would take us to where we are today, with players now able to sustain a high work rate in matches for long periods of time. In my opinion, “the next frontier” for coaches and players to conquer in tennis is strategy. I’m not talking about the current levels of strategy seen at the top of our game. I’m talking about a systematic approach to strategy that includes analyzing an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and designing a systematic strategy to exploit this knowledge in the match. The Analysis: Over the years, I have used a system of spotting strengths and weaknesses that has worked well for me.  I look at an opponent in terms of 8 opposites… 1.      Fast v Slow (Speed of the ball) 2.      High v L...