Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

  You could be mistaken for thinking tennis is all about aggression. At the top level, players are pounding the ball at every opportunity. You'd be surprised then if you learned that my goal when coaching advanced players is to first have them develop a defensive mental foundation.   I'm not suggesting that I teach players to send up continuous lobs during the rally or for them to stand at the back fence to retrieve balls. My goal with advanced players is to change the internal mental dialogue all players experince before every stroke.  A PLAYERS INTERNAL DIALOG BEFORE SHOTS Every player has a continuous mental dialogue inside their head when they play a point.  "How aggressive should I be on this ball?", "Is this the ball to change direction down the line?" etc. The internal dialogue inside our heads drives our decision making There's nothing wrong with this type of internal dialogue, but there are better questions to ask yourself before each shot. So,

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