Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

Why Your Toughest Opponent Crumbles In The Next Round (But Never Against You) By Paul Dale | The 3AM Method Mental Toughness in Competitive Tennis - The Dark Place Strategy The Maddening Pattern Every Player Knows You've just battled through a three-hour war. Every point was a grind. Your opponent played lights-out tennis - retrieving everything, hitting lines, serving bombs. You lost 7-5 in the third. Next round? That same player loses 6-2, 6-1 in 45 minutes. Looks like they virtually gave up. They were soundly beaten. Sound familiar? But, here's the truth: You didn't take them to " that dark place " - the mental space where their will to compete evaporates. Instead, you gave them everything they needed to play their best tennis. You keep them mentally in the fight and paid the price for doing so. The Dark Place: Where Champions Take Their Opponents The "dark place" is that metal place every player has experienced. You think; I have a mountain to clim...

Why I Ignore Technique and Focus On Mentality and Strategy First (And Your WTA/ATP Student Will Thank You For It) The Backwards Coaching Approach That Creates Breakthrough Results By Paul Dale | The 3AM Method I just started working with a new student ranked inside the WTA 1000. In the first session, she expected me to talk about her shaky forehand, analyse her serve technique, and maybe tweak her backhand grip. Standard coaching stuff. Instead, I watched her play points. Studied her patterns. Observed how she handled pressure. Never touched her technique. She looked confused. Maybe even sceptical. But here's what 50 years of coaching elite players has taught me: The fastest path to improvement runs straight through strategy and mentality – not technique. Intermediate and advanced players thrive on receiving specific strategic and mental help with their game; technique can wait. The Problem With "Technique-First" Coaching Watch any typical coaching session. What...

How Elite Tennis Players Will Redefine Defence in 2026:  By Paul Dale | The 3AM Method Turning Defence into Opportunities to Counter-Punch Modern tennis is witnessing a tactical revolution. Today's elite players like Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, and Novak Djokovic are blurring the lines between defence and offence, transforming what once seemed like defensive positions into explosive counterpunching opportunities. This evolution represents a fundamental shift in how professional tennis is played at the highest level. Modern tennis analytics show that winning points from defensive positions — and transitioning effectively from defence to offence — is a critical part of elite match play today. The ATP’s Steal Score metric, for example, quantifies how often a player wins a point when in a defensive position, reflecting their ability to turn a disadvantage into a winning result. ATP Tour +1 In recent seasons, players with high Steal and Conversion scores (the latter measuring suc...