Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

MONICA SELES... THE BEST EVER? GUNTER PARCHE Gunter Parche was sitting in the stands watching the world's number one player, Monica Seles,  play her quarter-final match against Hungary's Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Germany. No one in the crowd could have imagined that Parche's aim that day was to get as close to Seles as possible, then stab her with the long boning knife he was hiding in his jacket. During a change of ends, Parche made his way down from his seat to courtside and, with the players seated close to the advertising hoardings, stabbed Seles between her shoulder blades to a depth of 1.59 inches. THE SELES DOMINANCE Imagine you are only 16 years old and have just won the French Open Singles title. In an era that had Steffi Graf (arguably the best female player of all time), Seles put together a record that was nothing short of phenomenal. She had won 8 Grand Slam titles before the age of 20. From January 1991 until February 1993 Seles won 22 titles out of the 33...

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 ...

During my school years in New Zealand, the school board in my city decided to create a scheme to raise money for a charity. I forget now what that charity was, but I'm certain they did very well from the scheme in the end. The idea was to have every school pupil in the city, boy, and girl, go door to door selling sacks of potatoes. Before you start wondering how the children managed to carry such a heavy load around the various neighborhoods in my city, the children didn't actually have to carry the sacks from door to door, each child had a sheet of paper to record the name of the customer, their phone number, and the number of sacks they wanted. It was a brilliant idea because New Zealanders love their potatoes and include potatoes in almost every meal! Being able to order a large amount and have the potatoes delivered to their house was very convenient. Looking back to that time, at ten years old, there were several key elements to the 'Potatoe Project' that hooked m...

ONLINE FITNESS WEBINAR Thailand's Paradon Srichaphan reached a career-high of #9 in the world. During a tv documentary a few years after his retirement, he was asked what was the single most important reason for his rise in the rankings? His reply,  "I realized that the harder I worked, and the stronger I got, the better my results." This weekend, I'll be going through all things related to tennis fitness taken from years of working with competitive players. It's a little under a week from now! You can register by clicking on the picture above and if you can't listen to the workshop live don't worry, register anyway and I can send you the link to watch it later along with your Certificate of Participation. All of the Fitness workshop content is also contained in this extensive 60 page, one month lesson plan which will be available for purchase after the webinar. It's a simple to understand day by day and drill by drill fitness lesson plan for you to fo...

This weekend, the 124th edition of the French Open will come to a close. It's my guess that Djokovic will play against Rafael Nadal (their 56th meeting together) to decide who becomes the 2020 Men's Singles Champion . I won't keep you reading through the article to find who my pick is for the title, it's Novak Djokovic, and here are my reasons for picking him over Nadal. Rafael Nadal has the best record of anyone who has ever competed in the French Open. 100 Matches, 98 wins, and 2 losses. That's nothing short of superhuman. Since his debut in 2004 his only losses have come at the hands of Robin Soderling (2009), and Djokovic (2015). Astonishing! So how then can I be sure that Djokovic will triumph come Sunday afternoon at Roland Garros? Actually, I can't be sure, it's going to be incredibly close, and the stats show why; it really can't be any closer between these two. WHAT THE STATS TELL US: Djokovic                       ...

WHO EARNS AN A+ ON THE FIRST WEEK? The outstanding male players from the first week were undoubtedly Djokovic and Nadal. They continue to march forward in dominant form and look odds on favorites to be contesting for the Singles title next weekend. They have been focused, recorded comfortable wins, and have been generally extremely consistent in each match; just as you would expect from them. But if our two most experienced players have been predictable up until now, much of the first week at Roland Garros has been anything but predictable.  There have been both good and bad surprises during the first week which have given us plenty to talk about. Qualifiers Sebastian Korda, Hugo Gaston, and 17-year-old Dane Clara Tauson all made it through to the main draw and were able to record solid wins.  Coco Gauff was disappointing this year, as was Wawrinka and Daniil Medvedev. Gauff recorded 19 double faults in her 2nd round loss, an extraordinary number of double faults for a ...