It's Not About Forehands and Backhands, Stupid!

"If I am the better player, why can't I win?" -Allen Fox

The great player and coach Allen Fox coined this phrase and it sums up tennis in a nutshell. Most players are conditioned to believe that through hard work and perfect technique, the incremental improvements will keep coming. This is true to a point, until you reach the Great Wall of China and your game is stuck in the mud. Changing coaches, fiddling with your grip, analyzing your footwork, tinkering with your serving stance- all logical ideas to improve your game, but it's chasing fools gold. It's not about the forehands and backhands, stupid!

When you reach this point in your tennis career, this is the time to face the music and use what you got. There are no easy answers to solving this never-ending riddle on the otherside of the net. Simply telling your coach that your forehand broke down and having balls fed to you will not solve the issue long-term. Considering you have fairly competent strokes, technical changes will not get you to the next level. It's a great mistake if a coach and/or player is preaching this message. Taking the focus off the bigger picture of the game will only set you up for dissapointment. Sure, you always want to fine tune your technique and practice these fine motor skills. However, at some point in your develop it's simply not about the forehands and backhands, stupid!

A smarter way to approach the issue of bumping your head against the Great Wall of China is to embrace who you are. If you know your backhand has limitations, do your best to not ask so much of it. Why would you hit a backhand down-the-line off of receiving a high ball when you know you can't make 9/10 out of a basket? That is like taking a gun and shooting yourself in the foot. Yet, good players do this match after match, year after year, continuing to think this is a technical defiency in their stroke. Again, this has nothing to do with forehands and backhands, but everything to do with your clouded judgement.

The players who maximize their potential (that's all you can ask for because you can't control the winning and losing) are always the ones who have accepted who they are and played within themselves. They don't waste their time getting depressed and frustrated about their weaknesses. They don't beat themselves up about lacking picture perfect technique. They aren't embarrassed about their inability to hit over 50 mph groundstrokes. They play with what they got and embrace who they are. They don't cringe when they hit a shortball to their opponent thinking, "Jeez! Why can't you hit it deeper!?!" They are okay with their opponent hitting winners and controlling points. It's not a character flaw to be on defense once in awhile. Practicing crosscourts or out of a basket, its all theory. Hitting the ideal forehand or backhand at the "optimum" contact point (for those scheisters who use sillly terms) is all useless theory. It's absolutely mindless, time wasting, and pointless. The ONLY thing that matters is does it go in and is it repeatable. Against great players, one needs to be able to do this OVER and OVER and OVER again. Nothing sexy. That's it and work within those boundaries. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Remember, TENNIS COACHES NEED TO MAKE A LIVING and SOME FEEL IT NECESSARY TO MANUFACTURE SOME BALONEY to justify getting paid. Overcoaching can lead to some dangerous avenues with the boogey man at the end of the street. It's not about the forehands and backhands, stupid!