Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

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.  Ironically “Tami” under-performed in Pattaya for ma

It's a thrill for me to coach veteran players. Veteran players are all so open  and receptive to the lesson. Perfect students! Because tennis singles is such a physical game, doubles is the most popular form of tennis for veteran players.  Here are 7 doubles tips for veteran players that will help boost your game immediately. 1.    Serve Wide When you start the point serving wide you are positioning your opponent off-court from the first ball.  The Returner now has 3 options, a more difficult cross-court return, a risky attempt at a down-the-line passing shot or a lob.  All 3 of these options put you the server at an advantage! 2.    Keep the Ball Low This will help in two important ways… it limits your opponents' ability to attack the ball and will also provide you with many more opportunities to attack the resulting high balls (high volleys & overheads) 3.    Get Fitter One of the biggest factors in Veterans Tennis is the physical limitations

I would have a very good chance of beating Roger Federer...   if I was given multiple chances to take mistakes back again or replay any shots I didn’t like. Here’s an example. If I was given multiple attempts at all first serves and was able to select the one serve that I liked the most amongst my many attempts, my service game against Roger Federer would probably be good enough to hold my own. Expand that idea to include every shot I play during the point and this "second chance"  concept would allow me to (1) Prepare myself much better for the shot because I already know where the ball is going (2) Make accurate decisions on where and how I want the ball to go, and (3) Technically perform the shot perfectly.  With multiple chances, I have a very good  opportunity to beat Federer. Now I know you are saying “but nobody has the luxury of taking shots again”, and you would be correct. But let’s look at why this “2 nd Chance” scenario is important to unde