Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

1. LESS TALK IS BETTER Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out  and remove all doubt    - Abraham Lincoln You're not learning when you're talking. You can only learn or understand something when you are listening to what others have to say. While in conversation the advantage goes to the person saying less and listening more! "There are none of Man's  problems that can not be  solved by sitting alone in a quiet room"    - Anonymous   2. HAVE A MORNING ROUTINE   How you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days - which inevitably creates a successful life.   -Hal Elrod   Morning routines are in equal measure about what you do, and what you don't do.  The bottom line is for you to find a morning routine that helps you set up your optimal mindset in the morni

  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

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