Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

All advanced tournament-level players have reached a high degree of technical proficiency, which has played a significant role in getting them to where they are now.  However, as an advanced tournament-level player, it's important for you to constantly look for other ways to refine and improve your game. There will be areas where slight enhancements or adjustments can lead to further improvements in performance. One such area, and my favorite recommendation for most players, is the mental and strategic side of our game. It's there that you will make the most dramatic improvement in your tournament results. Try to stay open-minded. While the Mental and strategic side of the game can seem daunting, confusing, and even scary to some players, this is where the real opportunities for growth exist.  LOOK AT SIMILAR SPORTS I often compare tennis to boxing. The two sports are very similar. Both involve offense and defense. Both are one on one (except in tennis Doubles) encounters that

If you're looking for added inspiration on your tennis journey you need to look no further than the Indian players that have gone before you and that have been successful. Each of the successful Indian players here have created tennis careers based on a few simple yet effective traits. Here are their keys to success: LEANDER PAES Although news of Leander's retirement near the end of the global COVID-19 epidemic was no surprise to anyone, it was perhaps disappointing to all of us that he was not able to go out on his own terms. His "One Last Roar", as he began to call his farewell year on the ATP Tour, promised to give us a final glimpse as to why he was such a special player. Ever since his early day's training in Madras at the Britannia  Amritraj Tennis Scheme, Leander stood out as different. He was brash, and he was confident. But more importantly he was already showing us what he intended to be in the future. He wanted to be a professional tennis player, and a

Strategy is the most neglected part of a player’s development, and yet with the correct strategy any opponent can be beaten   In my opinion, Strategy is the “next Frontier” of tennis. Most of the competitive players I see today are technically very good and are physically in great shape but few are playing their matches with any real understanding of Strategy.  Here are three super-effective ways for you to add some basic strategy to help boost your game almost immediately. 1. HIT CROSSCOURT There is a saying in boxing that “The Jab is everything, everything comes from the Jab”. Every fighter is trained to establish the Jab during the fight because once a fighter can dominate with their Jab, they dominate the fight.  Why? Because the boxing Jab establishes the distance between the two fighters allowing one fighter to dictate whether the fight is conducted at close quarters or further apart. The Jab is also the “stepping stone” for other punches. Fighters throw the Jab

We all desire Control, Understanding, and Predictability in our lives and feel uncomfortable with anything that is out of our control, not understood, or unpredictable. Unknowingly, this need for predictable outcomes may have led us to train for tennis incorrectly. Many training venues use repetition as their 'go-to' method of teaching players the game. Coaches prefer it, and players enjoy it. It makes them feel good!  The repetition method of training involves someone feeding hundreds of balls from a basket.  The balls being fed from the basket will have the same flight, bounce in the same position on the court, arrive at the same speed, will bounce up to the same height, and will each have the same identical spin.  Hitting hundreds of balls like this gives us the predictability that we enjoy. Also, because we eventually begin to hit the ball fairly well ( after hundreds of balls who wouldn't begin to start feeling better with their stroke?), we becom

One of the most neglected aspects of modern tennis is the ability to keep the ball low.  Young players today are so focused on hitting bigger shots and are so fixated on topspin that their ability to maintain a low ball is entirely missing. However, the top players understand the value of keeping a ball low in certain situations and employ underspin a lot more than you might otherwise think. Here's when keeping the ball low is beneficial… 1.   To Stop Your Opponent Attacking You It's the era of big groundstrokes! Dominant forehands are now the norm and any ball waist height today is an invitation for your opponent to go on the attack. If you throw in a low ball when you get in trouble during the rally, you neutralize your opponent's offense. The low ball has taken the ball out of their strike zone and gets you back into the rally on level terms. Underspin helps you to defend a point. By keeping the ball low, you are  neutralizing your opponents atta

AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, EVERY PLAYER LOOKS GOOD  The top players attack every point aggressively with big full swings on every ball. Their mindset is one of all-out aggression to finish points quickly. Likewise, their defence is, at times, miraculous. When you attack them, these top players can change into defense and hit incredible winners from impossible positions on the court. During your match, you begin to see this same scenario repeating often. Your attacking game is being ripped apart by your opponent’s incredible defence skills! YOU COULD BE PLAYING A “COUNTER-PUNCHER” PRETENDING TO BE AN ATTACKING PLAYER! Sometimes when you review the match later, you realise that your opponent seldom hits winners from offence. You start to realise that the full swings he/she was taking were a type of disguise. While looking and sounding scary, they weren’t your opponent’s primary source of points. Most of their points came from defence, particularly their counter-punchin