THE 3AM THEORY

  The General Who Changed How I Think About Tennis — And Why Elevation Is Everything By Paul Dale | The 3AM Method A Lesson I Didn't Expect to Teach It was a Bangkok morning like many others during my twenties — hot, humid, the kind of heat that Southeast Asia is known for. I was stationed at a hotel and had been booked for a lesson with one of the hotel guests. A well-built man, composed, quietly attentive. Nothing about the way he carried himself made me think the lesson would go any differently than the hundred before it. We got into his groundstrokes, and I began explaining how he could create easier, more consistent depth by simply increasing the height of his ball. It's one of those concepts that sounds almost too simple, yet unlocks everything — lift the ball higher over the net and depth becomes natural, effortless, almost automatic. He listened carefully, nodded politely, and then — with the kind of measured confidence that only comes from absolute certainty — he i...

  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 excellent 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 setti...

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...

THE NEW GENERATION The established trio of Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer are under threat. A talented group of Next Generation players are breathing down their necks each week, and the Next Gen players know that the big three can be beaten.  But just who are the best Next Generation players around today?  My picks for the best of these Next Gen players, and possible future world number 1s, include Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Denis Shapavolov.  Other Next Gen players right behind them include Felix Auger-Aliasimme (20), Borna Coric (23), and Alex Rublev (23). They're all knocking at the door as well. For me, Jannik Sinner, from Italy, at 19 years old, is also highly talented and is currently the youngest player in the top 100 (ranked 78). He has the game and temperament to go to #1 and stay there. WHO CAN BE THE NEXT WORLD NUMBER 1? My answer as to who will be the next world number 1 player from our list... none of them! Well, certainly not a ...

BECOME AN OUTLIER... I'm not a big fan of attending ITF coaches workshops anymore and here's why. Much of what is presented at these Workshops is standard stuff, and listening repeatedly to similar topics and similar points of view will, unfortunately, stifle your creativity.    Here's what I would suggest. Once you have attended several Workshops already, you should take yourself out of the workshop scene and begin to integrate your new ideas and methodologies from the workshops onto the court, with the long-term goal of developing some of your own philosophies for later. It's important to understand that workshops in themselves are a tool, and that to get the full value from them, the ideas you pick-up at workshops need to be implemented and tested on-court over time.  At the beginning of my coaching career, I joined a tennis company that staffed resorts, hotels, and tennis clubs all around the world. After training with that company for a short time I was dispatche...