Tips for Playing Against Heavy Topsins

With the Australian Open fortnight upon us - a tournament generally known for higher ball-bounces (although the Plexicushion has sped things up quite a bit resulting in slightly lower bounces) - let's take a look at some tips for playing against a player with high-bouncing topsin strokes. 

1. It goes without saying ("well, why are you saying it then, genius?!") that if you want to handle high topsins from the opponent, you should be practicing against people who hit with a lot of topsin. This will allow you to read their body language and ball trajectory so that you can anticipate the type of bounce as well as depth thereof. It can be a daunting task to try to take on such a player for the first time in a match. So improve your chances by playing against similar players in advance. 

2. Footwork; footwork; footwork. When you're trying to handle extreme topsins, you must be prepared to not only move forward and backwards but also sideways. Remember that an opponent can generate topsin that rotates "top-wise" or even slightly lop-sided (by brushing upwards AND to the outside/inside of the ball). If the latter happens, you must be prepared to for a ball the explodes sideways slightly and take an extra step or two before striking the ball. Don't get set too soon (as you would against a flat shot that is driven into the contact point); keep moving until you're in optimal position to strike. Adjust the angle of attack so that you're always moving forward and slightly to the side. If you get set too soon, there's a possibility that you may be either too closed or too open - making for an ineffective stroke (which the opponent can demolish) - or that you will allow the ball to bounce over your shoulder (which is exactly what your opponent wants to see happening). 

3. When the ball comes high, think "low". It is tempting, when seeing a high ball, to want to stand straight up "since the ball will end up bouncing high anyway" (DOH!!!). However, this type of thinking can be dangerous. When the ball bounces vertically and you swing horizontally, the two paths (1. path of the ball; AND 2. path of the racket) form a "plus" sign. Unless you have picture-perfect timing, there's a strong chance that you will either (a) mis-hit the ball, (b) generate insufficient pace, or (c) hit a ball without much arc (resulting in either an error or a short ball). To correct this, think about getting low as soon as you see the high ball leaving your opponent's racket and, after you've set up (see step #2 above), come up with the ball. If you you manage to do this well, although the racket will still swing through horizontally, the path of the racket will be at an upward angle (synchronized with the upward movement of your body). In other words, when compared to your body, the racket moves horizontally just as before; however, when compared to the ground, the racket actually moves upwards. This allows for not just better timing but also for a ball with more arc (and margin for error) over the net.  Furthermore, by working with the legs, you don't have to tinker with the path of your stroke. 

Closely related to this concept is trying to shorten the backswing a bit in order to have better timing. Remember that an exploding topsin has, in fact, pace. However, this pace is vertical (produced by spin as well as gravity) as opposed to horizontal (such as on a flat shot). A smart player will redirect this pace (by adjusting the face of the racket) and send the ball back to the opponent in an effective manner. If, however, you try to do this with a huge backswing, either your timing will be affected or you will mis-judge the amount of pace required. Therefore, try to cut down on your backswing just a tad and see how that works (particularly if you actually "stay down" and take the ball close to the bounce). After a couple of shots, you should be able to feel the amount of pace required. 

4. If all else fails, match the angle of the racket with the angle of the bounce. Assuming that you cannot adjust to a ball as outlined above, you may have to recognize that your opponent has managed to put you in a defensive position. In that case, rather than trying to hit a flat shot against a high-bouncing ball (which may end up going into the net), try to match the angle of your swing (i.e., path of the racket) with the angle of the ball-bounce. For example, if the ball explodes off the court at 80 degrees then try to drop the racket under the ball so that you can swing upwards at 80 degrees as well (towards the ball). Too many players try to "cover" a high-bouncing ball resulting either in a mistake in the net or a short ball. Forget it! Match the angle of the bounce and send the ball back high and deep to the opponent. Let HIM try to fight off the high ball - if you're lucky, he may just miss or hit you a short ball that you can thump. 

What suggestions do you have for playing against someone with massive topsins? 

Tennis is a Symbolic Fight

Tennis is a symbolic fight between two people.  Unlike boxing where you can physically feel each blow being delivered to your face, the aggression in tennis is more subtle, yet equally as brutal.  You certainly don't feel physical pain from winners screaming by you, but you feel the emotional tension building inside your skin. The emotional "body blows" delivered point after point is mentally exhausting.  If tennis is so fun, why do we torture ourselves to such emotional stress and agony?

Humans are social creatures.  We are genetically wired to compare ourselves to other people.  Everyone wants to be the big man on campus.  Tennis is one way to establish dominance in the human kingdom.  There are many other ways in life to seek approval from others, tennis is no different.  

Think about the rewards that come from winning in tennis.  More fame.  Likeability increases exponentially. Girls give you more attention (despite your ugly looks).  More sex.  Money and potentially lots of money if you strike it big.  Bigger house.  Nicer car.  Tennis is one way to stake your claim and prove you are superior to other human beings.  It might seem silly to someone who doesn't play sports, but one could make the case it is no different than a woman putting on makeup in the morning, dressing well to go into the office...they want to look better than other women.  Or the financier sitting behind a giant mahogany desk on the 117th floor of a skyscraper scheming how to swallow another company.  People are driven to be the best, especially relative to others around them. Human beings can't help themselves, we are selfish and competitive.  

Tennis is a symbolic fight.  Many coaches and players get caught up in the perfect technique, eating habits, fitness routines, strategies, gimmicks- all parts to the puzzle in helping you become proficient. However, the most important thing is your ability to compete with what you got TODAY.  To see what is needed to get inside your opponents head.  Lift the fog between you and your opponent, try to see what is going on their side of the court.  Work on their head.  Deliver body blows.  Hit the ball in a way that doesn't hurt you and annoys them.  Then keep pressing that button, over and over again.  See how they respond.  Be willing to engage in this symbolic fight and put a rat inside their kitchen.  Stop focusing on yourself and lift the fog off the court.  Deliver the body blows until you soften them up.  See their legs wobble, their mind start to make poor decisions- then just wait til they fall over.  Let gravity take them down for you- forget delivering the knockout punch.  The work is done.  

Be content with what you have, use what you got.  It's most likely good enough to win right now.  Have fun watching their reactions and let me congratulate you in advance for a job well done.  Game on. 

Active Tennis Watching

How many of you like to watch tennis? Do you prefer to watch it live or on TV? How many of you watch tennis "with a purpose"? In other words, rather than people-watching and oohing and aahing about someone's monster serve or impossible gets, do you watch tennis to learn and improve your own game? I have found that most people, even crazy tennis players such as ourselves, don't watch tennis with the right attitude. We watch to be entertained but not to improve our own level of play.

Given the current state of technology, we find this to be incredibly tragic. If you care about learning the game - becoming a student of the sport - make active tennis watching one of your top priorities. Remember, you might not end up playing against Federer (or Serena) but you will, most likely, end up playing against someone who is idolizing him and emulating their game after his. Therefore, by knowing the pros you will end up knowing your opponent. 

Here are some tips for becoming a better player by watching tennis with a purpose:

1. Freeze frame the serve. In the picture above, can you guess where Tomic is serving? Can you guess given the score? What about the coiling of the body? Toss? 

2. Spot the patterns. Also in the picture above, I have used two strips of white athletic tape and placed them on the screen so that they would be coordinated with the fixed camera angle on the screen. Try this and see how many shots are hit around the service line. You will begin to notice how hard the players try to keep the ball away from the middle of the court. They are consciously trying to work the point and get an opening through well-placed, high-percentage shots. 

3. Get in on the action. Rather than sitting on the couch and kicking your feet up, stand up, grab a racket in hand and "live" the point. As soon as you hear the ball being struck by one of the players, change your grip to the recipient's groundstroke. Train yourself so that the response is automatic. This is particularly helpful when one of the players is serving. Learn to read the server's motion and see if you can anticipate where the ball will be going. 

4. Match analysis. The stats put on the screen regarding 1st serve percentage and unforced errors are often useless. The numbers will not tell you where the player was serving, what were the circumstances that caused a miss, how the point was set up for a winner. Without this additional information, the stats can be confusing or open to interpretation. Therefore, keep track of the stats but add a comment section further explaining the information. For example, did a player miss 22 forehands? Well that's bad. Oh, wait, did he miss them all from 3 feet behind the service line (i.e., he was in an aggressive position)? Well, that's certainly something that's worth noting. The same concept would apply for serves. For example, if a player is hitting 25 double faults in a match but hits them all at 40-0 or 40-15, the basic statistic is incomplete and possible irrelevant. 

5. Write impressions. During ever changeover, write a quick one- or two-sentence impression concerning the games so far. If you were a coach, what would you tell the players about what's going on? What strategy would you suggest? How is "your" player winning and losing? If it helps you, tweet it or facebook the status. 

6. Rewind. It's OK to rewind even the most mundane points and see if you've missed things the first time around. Build your "rolodex of plays" by actively trying to figure out what exactly is happening on the court. 

After you've watched tennis with a purpose, you will never watch a match the same way again. Furthermore, your whole outlook of the game will change and you will be in a better position to take an active role in your development. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to add your comments below. 

Steal This Drill: Deep Game Variation

Here's a simple drill for improving one's depth on his or her groundstrokes (credit: the original form of the drill was learned from Peter Smith, current USC coach). At the risk of sounding sexist, this is a particularly useful drill for girls/women because they tend to rely more on depth and penetrating shots to win points whereas men tend to create more openings with spins and angles. Nevertheless, all players can be better off by learning how to master deep shots that land just inside the baseline. 

The rules are as follows: a line is drawn/taped about 6ft inside of the baseline. The player practicing hitting deep has 3 opportunities (i.e., 3 balls) to hit 20 shots inside of the "deep" area. For any ball landing in this area, the player get "+1". For every ball landing between this area and the service line, the player gets a "-1". If the player hits inside of the service line, the player goes back down to 0 (this being the variation on the original drill). If the player is already at 0 or in the negatives and hits inside of the service line, that shot is a "-1". If the principal misses wide or deep, the shot does not count [DNC in the diagram]. If the practices partner misses, than the players re-do the point. 

The players rally until either the principal (i.e., the player practicing hitting deep shots) makes it to +20 or -10. In case of the latter, the principal runs a sprint. The practice partner's job is to be steady and consisent. This is not as much of a movement drill as it is a ball control drill. The principal should be given ample opportunities to make the ball so the practice partner's role is to chase down all the shots and put them back deep and with a decent amount of pace. The practice partner should vary his spins and force the principal to aim deep even on the most diffuclt shots. Try this as a warm-up drill and let us know how it works. 

Stroking Felt With: Boris Bosnjakovic

Our first Q&A of the year is with Boris Bosnjakovic. I first met Boris while playing SoCal Open tournaments and I was quickly impressed by his massive game - which resembled Boris Becker in every sense of the world - as well as agility, finesse, great attitude and lively sense of humor. One could easily see why he dominated the open circuit and also performed quite well at the D-1 level. 

Quick Bio: I was born and raised in Novi Sad, Serbia (former Yugoslavia).  Grew up practicing with Monica Seles at the same tennis club.  Yugoslavian Junior Champion under 18s.  Named to Yugoslavian Davis Cup in 1992.  Moved to the U.S. in 1992 at the age of 18, ranked top 50 junior ITF in the world. Played No.1 at Brigham Young University for all 4 years and graduated in 1997. On the ATP Tour from 1997-2000, with best ranking at 740 in the world in singles. Coached on the ATP and WTA tours from 2000 to present.  Coached 3 women ranked in top 100 in the world.  Also worked with several top 200 ATP pros and now coaching current World Champions, the Serbian Davis Cup Team (including world No.1 Novak Djokovic).

1. When did you start playing tennis?

I started playing at the age of 9, which is according to today's standards considered late. These days the kids start as early as 3 years old.

2. What first attracted you to the sport?

To be honest, when I was young I loved soccer, since my dad was a professional soccer player, but then one of my best friends took up tennis and couldn't stop talking about it. I was very competitive, so I wanted to start learning tennis to be able to beat him, and eventually I fell in love with tennis.

3. What were the conditions like when you started (economic, political, etc.)? Also, who were some of your contemporaries (e.g., Dusan Vemic) and how did you match up against them in the juniors?

The conditions were actually pretty good. My club (T.C.Vojvodina) had enough funds to pay for most of my traveling and coaching expenses. Life in Yugoslavia in late 70's and 80's was good. Since, I was two years older then Dusan Vemic and Nenad Zimonjic, I was a bit of their elder and used to kick their butts back then. But, we all got along great and traveled together to many junior tournaments around the world.

4. If you had to generalize the Serbian approach or mentality when it comes to tennis, how would you describe it?

Well, in general I think Serbians are fighters, especially the kids that started playing tennis in the 90's, when the civil war started in former Yugoslavia and the times were tough. The kids realized that tennis could be their way out of the war-torn country, so they played for a lot more then most kids in the western world. Therefore, they became a bit tougher mentally as well and in general very hard workers.

5. Who was your tennis idol growing up? Why?

I really enjoyed the way Boris Becker and Pete Sampras played. I tried to tailor my game after theirs and play a very offensive and aggressive tennis. Even though I didn't come to the net quite as much as them, I did play have a very aggressive style with a big serve and powerful forehand.

6. What was your favorite thing to work on in practice? For example, drills, points, patterns, mix?

I always enjoyed competing, so doing drills was fun, but only if some kind of a game was involved. In general I found that playing lots of tournaments worked well for me. Then I would go and drill and work on my game a bit, but would get back out to play matches as soon as possible.

7. From recollection, you moved to Los Angeles and dominated the junior and open divisions before playing #1 for BYU and establishing a great college career there. What are your thoughts on college tennis and your overall experience?

Yes, you are correct. Domination, is how I like to remember my first few years in Los Angeles. I'm joking. First of all, my college experience was not a typical American college experience since I went to a very religious school. However, that was probably good for my tennis career, since there were not too many distractions. People at BYU took good care of me. We had a great coach (Jim Osborne), also I played #1 in both singles and doubles and therefore got to play against all the best players in college tennis. I recommend college tennis to most junior player, since the level of play is very high and it is a good stepping stone for those players who eventually want to turn pro.

8. Knowing what you know now and having the benefit of your current experience and lifestyle, what advice would you give yourself as a 15year old (i.e., if you could go back in time)?

Great question. I would certainly take a much better care of my body. Not only be in better shape then I was and work harder, but also tailor a specific diet for myself and work a lot more on the mental toughness through meditation, yoga and specific breathing exercises. I am a strong believer that a proper diet, stretching, and most importantly being able to control your mind and emotions makes a complete athlete. A fact that is really surprising to me is that most players, even in the very top of the game don't work enough on these aspects. I had a chance to witness this theory put in play when Novak Djokovic hired Dr. Igor Cetojevic in 2010 to help him on all these aspect of his game. At that time (in early 2011) I was replacing Novak's coach Marian Vajda at a few tournaments and I learned a lot from Dr. Igor's work with Novak. This guru was able to help Novak put all the puzzle pieces together and become No.1 in the world in a very dominating fashion. Ever since then became good friends with Dr. Igor and I've been working closely with him, learning all of his secrets.

9. You are the coach for the Serbian Davis Cup Team and have been instrumental in your country's success. At the same time, you have worked with players at all levels. How does coaching at the highest level differ from the rest of the game? For example, more fitness, mental, strategy, technique, etc.

The Serbian Davis Cup captain Bogdan Obradovic put me in charge of coaching our Davis Cup Team in 2010, and I was lucky enough to be a part of the championship team that year, since we were able to capture the Davis Cup Trophy for the very first time in Serbian history that year. Coaching tennis at all levels made me aware that there are so many great players all over the world in all the categories and that tennis is a very tough and competitive game. So, it made me appreciate the guys that are in the very top. Needless to say that they are all extremely good, but why are the some players consistently better then others, when they all can slug the ball so well?

I know it's a cliche that they are mentally tougher, but it really is true. Mental toughness, however is not only what happens on court. It starts when you are a kid practicing against the wall and with your friends, and it continues with your support system (your family, coaches) and the amount of practice you put in growing up. This is where the real confidence comes from, knowing that you put in the work and you had the experience required to put away that forehand to win Wimbledon one day. The important thing is to have your whole life in balance when you are out there competing against the whole world. The happiness in your personal life gives you that balance and strength to succeed. What makes you personal life complete is your support system, which for example could be your significant other, your coach, your parents, your trainer, your best friend, and all the people that help you on your journey. All these little things put together create a champion.

10. What is your best tennis experience so far? This could be tournament won, being alongside the DC team while they're crushing their competitors, rankings achieved, helping students?

I have to say that winning the Davis Cup Trophy with the Serbian Team was really an amazing experience. But, that was a team effort, which is very different when compared to winning matches and tournament in my playing career. It really is hard to point out one experience, but a few of them include becoming the best junior in my country, winning my frist ITF World Junior tournament in 1992, qualifying for the NCAA singles Championships in 1997, beating Michael Joyce which was my first win over a top 100 ATP player.

11. Davis Cup seems to be of higher importance overseas (Europe, S. America and Australia) than in the US. To what do you attribute this factor?

I am not entirely sure why that is, but it's possibly because there are so many more popular team sports in the U.S. It's is unfortunate that it is so, because Davis Cup competition creates a team sport experience out of an individual sport, which is very unique.

12. CAtennis.com has a magic wand that has the power to transform you into the commissioner of tennis (worldwide). What are some of the things that you would change in order for tennis to be a better experience for fans, players, coaches, tournament, parents, etc.?

I like that title, can I keep it? As far as the fans are concerned, I believe that it would benefit them to spend more time watching lower level tennis tournaments, such as college tennis, pro challengers and futures. There are some very good and exciting matches there and the atmosphere is much more interactive and lively. Also, that would allow them to appreciate the quality of those guys and of course the brilliance world's top players

The parents, coaches and players would all benefit if we all realized that it's just a game. In the last 20 years or so, since big money was introduced to the top players, the game has become too much of a business and a lot of the times it's taken too seriously. Young players should learn to practice in groups, socialize more and have fun, and that is why college tennis is very helpful.

13. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I ask myself that every morning. I hope to be in a position to educate young tennis players, other athletes and general public about the importance of a balanced life in order to be happy and successful. The majority of us in the western world have forgotten what's important in life and we are involved in a race for irrelevant and a lot of the times unobtainable things and we tend to neglect our health and well being. This is also very important for young tennis players to know in order to have a good foundation for a successful career.

14. What is one thing that you wish that more Americans should know about Serbia?

The first thing that comes to mind is that I wish that more Americans would visit Serbia to get to know the great hospitality and the fun people. Oh yeah and great Serbian food.

15. Given your countrymen's current success, have you seen an explosion in tennis interest over the last couple of years in Serbia?

Yes, it's very apparent. When I was a kid you would see everyone walking around with a soccer ball or a basketball in their hand. Nowadays most kids have a Djokovic t-shirt on and walking around with a tennis racket. We had only two tennis clubs in my hometown when I started playing, now there are numerous clubs all over the place. [Editor's Note: WATCH OUT!!!!]

Boris, we thank you for you time and wonderful insights and wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.