Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

WHAT SEPARATES GOOD PLAYERS FROM GREAT  PLAYERS AND  CAN WE TRAIN IT SPECIFICALLY? DESCRIPTION For many years I have traveled with some exceptional players.  The very best of these players reached top 10 ATP and top 20 WTA rankings.  It was during these trips that I began to notice a certain quality that distinguished exceptional players from merely very good players. I began to notice that regardless of the circumstances, these few exceptional players would come on-court, either in practise or for competitive matches and strike the ball cleanly and without error immediately. It would also continue from the first ball until the last ball. This may not sound that unusual but this would happen regardless of time, place, weather, occasion or equipment issues.   It occurred to me that if I could find a way to develop this ability by a systematic training process I could be training the very essence of what holds back very good players from becoming exceptional players.

CREATING MOVEMENT INTO THE COURT AFTER THE SERVE DEMONSTRATES THAT ENERGY IS FLOWING IN THE CORRECT DIRECTION DESCRIPTION In both men’s and women’s tennis the serve has become an extremely offensive weapon.  In today’s game if you can’t win free points with your serve you will struggle to win matches against the best players.  The most noticeable change has been within the women’s game where the top women players now have extremely offensive serves compared to only 5 years ago. When you attempt to hit bigger serves you need to propel your whole body forward and into the shot through the use of the legs.   I have noticed that when players practice out of a basket they nearly always position the basket behind them at the baseline.  This makes sense if you don’t want to walk far to get the next ball.  However it can also create a bad habit of serving and stopping the forward momentum after hitting the ball. The player will limit the forward movement after serving bec

Deep balls are unavoidable so better to learn how to handle them when they come DESCRIPTION: For some, perhaps one of the most difficult ground-strokes is the deep ball that lands on or near the baseline. Martina Hingis was very good at taking the ball off the bounce, often choosing to stand her ground on deep balls and return the ball with excellent timing.  I asked her once how she learnt to hit this type of ball so well.  She told me that as a youngster her mother would sprinkle objects just behind the baseline, making it almost impossible to step back for deep balls.  This had developed her ability to coordinate this very difficult ball.  THE DRILL If you are having trouble with balls that land deep and that give you little time to move back, try a similar drill to the one that helped Martina Hingis. I’m sure you spend a lot of time hitting from the baseline during practice.  Next time you practice, spend some of your baseline practice keeping your feet

ON-COURT MOVEMENT HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MAJOR ASSETS A PLAYER MUST DEVELOP If you are trying to improve your on-court reaction time during points, you’re wasting your time. Improved reaction skills may even hinder your ability to reach balls quicker.   Webster’s says that the definition of reaction is, “a response to something that involves taking action.” In other words the horse bolts first and then we try to catch the horse! In tennis terms we wait to return serve and plan to react when we know if the ball will go to the forehand or backhand side. Or, we watch our opponent getting under the ball and plan to react to his overhead once he completes his shot. Chances are that you are not going to get too many of those serves and overheads back into play. You’re going to be too late! You’re asking yourself the wrong question “where will the ball go?” I believe that reaction is merely the 3 rd step in returning that first serve and defending that overhead. In to

THE WORLD CHAMPION ALL BLACK RUGBY TEAM ARE THE ULTIMATE FOX'S In his bestselling book “The Signal and the Noise”, author Nate Silver tells of two types of mindsets, the Hedgehog and the Fox. A Hedgehog mindset is the type of person who has formulated a theory, but when a situation arises that either can’t be explained by the theory or the theory doesn’t work for that particular situation, they call it a “one-off”, an anomaly and disregard the situation as being outside their control. The world champion All Black rugby team were Hedgehogs. Being the best team in the world for over 100 years meant they were favourites every four years when the Rugby World Cup would come around. But after winning the inaugural World Cup in 1987, the All Blacks were beaten in each of the following World Cups for various reasons. Often, losses could be attributed to situations that were almost impossible to prepare for ahead of time, such as injury to key players and errors of human jud

The tennis term 'loading' refers to the action of a player interacting with the ground by bending their knees and thrusting out of that position to create greater racquet-head speed.   While that is exactly what should happen on all good ground-strokes, serves, returns, and overheads, teaching a player to only load the legs will not always guarantee success, and can sometimes be detrimental to the stroke. For the stroke to succeed a player needs to understand the real purpose of Loading. A player who only follows the instruction to Load their legs will usually go through a process of bending their knees.   This is what most coaches want to 'see', and will encourage the player to 'bend their knees' on every stroke.  With a small percentage of 'talented' players, this process of loading will automatically translate into better timing and increased racquet-head speed. They can naturally incorporate a knee bend with their stroke and it will go much b

Looking for ways to recover and regulate stress?  Have you ever watched a racehorse trying to catch its breath at the end of a race? Its nostrils flare as it takes in air but its mouth remains closed. It can be exhausted from a race and desperate for oxygen, but it never opens its mouth. A dog will pant with its mouth open while running but a dog also uses its mouth to sweat. The horse, like humans, sweat through the skin. This is a fundamental similarity between humans and the horse. Unfortunately, over time and through a lack of understanding humans have lost the art of nose breathing. For a long time, athletes and recreational runners have been told to push themselves hard during exercise, to the point where they must open their mouths and gasp for oxygen. But is this gasping for oxygen the natural way we should breathe when exercising?  Does pushing ourselves to this extreme level, and eventually experiencing the need to breathe through the mouth really make us fitter