Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

One of the most neglected aspects of modern tennis is the ability to keep the ball low.  Young players today are so focused on hitting bigger shots and are so fixated on topspin that their ability to maintain a low ball is entirely missing. However, the top players understand the value of keeping a ball low in certain situations and employ underspin a lot more than you might otherwise think. Here's when keeping the ball low is beneficial… 1.   To Stop Your Opponent Attacking You It's the era of big groundstrokes! Dominant forehands are now the norm and any ball waist height today is an invitation for your opponent to go on the attack. If you throw in a low ball when you get in trouble during the rally, you neutralize your opponent's offense. The low ball has taken the ball out of their strike zone and gets you back into the rally on level terms. Underspin helps you to defend a point. By keeping the ball low, you are  neutralizing your opponents at...

AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, EVERY PLAYER LOOKS GOOD  The top players attack every point aggressively with big full swings on every ball. Their mindset is one of all-out aggression to finish points quickly. Likewise, their defence is, at times, miraculous. When you attack them, these top players can change into defense and hit incredible winners from impossible positions on the court. During your match, you begin to see this same scenario repeating often. Your attacking game is being ripped apart by your opponent’s incredible defence skills! YOU COULD BE PLAYING A “COUNTER-PUNCHER” PRETENDING TO BE AN ATTACKING PLAYER! Sometimes when you review the match later, you realise that your opponent seldom hits winners from offence. You start to realise that the full swings he/she was taking were a type of disguise. While looking and sounding scary, they weren’t your opponent’s primary source of points. Most of their points came from defence, particularly their counter-pun...

An important coaching tool I use every day is the repetitive use of phrases. T hese common phrases help the student and I stay on the “same page”. They can also be used to set the tone of the lesson in terms of intensity. Here are some common phrases I use and the meaning behind them ' COACH YOURSELF!' Every lesson has a purpose and often that purpose is introducing new techniques or patterns to the player. Once the new technique or pattern has been explained I’ll most likely go straight to live points and challenge the player to reproduce the lesson topic while under pressure. To do this successfully the player needs to recall the key parts of the new technique or pattern and what I tend to do often is gently nudge the player with “Coach Yourself”! I’m asking for self-awareness, self-discipline, and I higher degree of focus from the player when I say this.  'YOU’RE BETTER THAN THAT!' Rather than being a negative statement, I use this phrase to demo...

AS A COACH THE LANGUAGE I use is important. Something said the wrong way on court can have a negative effect on the player, while compliments tend to have a more positive effect. I use the 'TIMES SIX principle' when talking to players on-court or whenever they have just finished their match.  The 'TIMES SIX principle' means that anything you, say either as a parent or as a coach, is magnified by six times in the head of the player. It is therefore always important to filter your comments through the TIMES SIX 'filter' and imagine how your comment will be perceived if multiplied six times. An example could be if, as a coach or parent you remarked that the player had missed many first serves in the match (which could be completely correct), and told the player this soon after their match. The result of that comment could be disastrous (remember the TIMES SIX Principle) because the player could take the comment as a personal at...

I’m not a fan of using repetition to practice when training players. I use repetition drills very rarely. Repetition drills are when a player has to hit many balls one after the other, either from a basket feed or with someone at the other end giving you the same ball. Repetition drills contain very little that is similar to match-play. I understand it looks good to people watching the lesson from a distance outside the court and on Instagram posts but repetition drills offer very little to players wanting to develop a new technique or pattern for their next match. Often coaches feel that they have done their job by showing the student the new technique and then drilling it many times through repetition. They believe the transfer of information (the new technique being taught) from the practice court to match court should happen automatically and is the players' responsibility. This is false. It’s the coach’s job to introduce the new technique AND to creat...

LET'S BE CLEAR from the start, you need both options! Open and closed stances have advantages and disadvantages, and you need to adopt both stances during a match if you want to play tennis at a high level. Here’s when it’s best to hit an open stance ground stroke and why… OPEN STANCE 1.   Better for higher balls because you can generate more power and maintain balance. With a higher ball , generating power on the shot is sometimes difficult. Adopting an Open Stance allows you to achieve back-swing and follow-through by utilising upper-body rotation.  2.   It c an help you disguise your intentions on certain balls, such as a mid-court put-away. You want to keep your opponent guessing on which corner you will target. Adopting an open stance allows you to "look" the same on every set-up, and all you need to do is adjust your contact point ( late or early ), to change direction. 3.  It's e asier to recover from wide balls and return back to the ce...