How to Start The Second Set

The scoring system in tennis is unlike any other sport. Although one could argue every point is important, not every point is valued equally. Recall some of your toughest matches, some points were more stressful than others. Especially in a tight match, where each player is losing every other point. Down the final stretch towards the final points of the set, each point seems larger than life. The mountain of tension builds and finally explodes when one player is halfway to victory and the other has to start back at zero. In no other sport does a player or team have to go back to zero halfway through the match. How crushing! Usually the most stressful point of the set is the last point.

For the player who squeaked through the first set by the narrowest of margins, his/her spirits are sitting pretty good. The natural reaction is to relax and enjoy the good feelings for a few minutes. However, a few minutes can't be afforded against a good player. This is the optimum time to bury your opponent and double-up your efforts. This is when your opponent is liable to fold and hand you a 7-6, 6-1 victory. You see it all the time when you look at draws. 6-4, 6-1 or 7-5, 6-2. A proactive player will be weary of this "letdown" after a hard fought first set and start the second set with increased effort. This is not the time to relax, this is the time to put all your returns in the court, keep the pressure on by making balls, and make every point miserable on your opponent. This is when your opponent is most vulnerable because they are down in spirits and might just "let go of the rope" if you give them a reason to. A rookie mistake is to take this situation lightly and play loosely giving away cheap errors.

For the player who is down in the dumps, this is not the time to sulk. With all your hard work erased to zero on the score sheet, this is not the time to sulk and feel angry. This is the time to take advantage of your opponent relaxing after a hard fought set. Try to catch your opponent off guard, pouncing on their complacent attitude. If the first set was determined by a few points, I suggest not changing your strategy at all. Keep the pressure on and keep working on their mind. Keep delivering body blows, trying to mentally tire your opponent. Right away, send a message that you aren't rattled and you want to go the distance.

Often times losers of the first set panic and change their strategy. Often times this results in a quick 6-1 loss in the second. Parents, coaches, and players often overthink strategy as the answer to winning matches. Most of the time, the matches have nothing to do with strategy, but everything to do with working on your opponents head. Sometimes the original strategy was the best, especially if the first was determined by a few shots. The key is to not let your opponent off the hook and try to do something dumb. Plan A with a few minor tweaks is much better than your not-as-consistent Plan B. Try to work on their head, find their breaking point, and keep delivering body blows. Often times there is no clear roadmap to winning the match and if you are patient enough and persistent enough- a good player will want to escape the stress and eventually hand you the second set.

Steal this Drill: Variations on the Old Two-on-One Drill

Here's a little variation to try when you're doing two-on-ones. Generally, in the 2-on-1 drill, one of the players does all of the hitting and running and it seem like the other players are just barely hitting a shot and then standing around. Sure, the coach can push the players to move their feet but, eventually, the whole concept breaks down when the drill sergeant isn't looking and players are back to standing on their heels.

Instead of trying the same-old, same-old and expecting a different result, place two targets (be them wrist-bands, athletic tape, plastic lines, cones, etc) about 6 feet inside the baseline and 4 feet from each side line. The two players hit down the line (or cross-court) and then SPRINT IN AND TOUCH THE TARGET and pedal back (FIG 2 BELOW). In turn, the single player hits the opposite of the two-player team (i.e., cross-court or down-the line) and aims for the same target (so the target serves as both a point for the player to aim to as well as a spot towards which the two players must run to). The key to this drill is that while the single player moves side-to-side, the two players move forward and back so everybody is getting the benefit of running and hitting although in a different direction.

Conversely (FIG 1 BELOW), have the same set-up as above but put one of the two-player team at the net (the other at the baseline). The two-players hit down the line; the single player hits cross court. However, in this variation, the net player hits the volley and backpedals, touches the cone/target and then sprints IN again to make contact with the volley inside the service line. This is an AWESOME way for the players to practice their first volleys. 

Another variation on the 2-on-1 drill is where the two players do most of the moving. The drill is cross-courts (or down-the-line). The two players line up on one half of the court, one behind the other. A cone is placed about 1 foot (or more) in front of the baseline T or slightly into the other half of the court. The single player (or coach) feeds the ball to one of the two guys. This player hits the ball back and then sprints forward and around the cone. The other player then steps in, hits the next shot, sprints in and rounds the cone. If the players are practicing backhands, the two-player team rounds the cone clockwise. If the players are hitting cross-court forehands, the players are rounding the cone counter-clockwise. Many players have done this drill when the ball was fed to them but there's no reason why it can't be done in a live-ball setting. The key is to focus on control and movement. The same concept can be done down the line and the cone can be moved around. It's an awesome way to develop ball control and RECOVERY.

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The purposes of the 2-on-1 drill is, obviously, to make sure that the single player (i.e., the "one") learns to both move and move the ball around. In tennis, changing the direction of a moving ball (movement #1), while you are in motion (movement #2) with a moving object - the racket (movement #3) is one of the most critical components to understand and master. However, nothing irks me more as a coach than seeing the 2 players loaf around waiting for their turn to get a workout. Although I agree that the primary purpose of the 2-on-1 is to provide the single player with a good workout, the drill often breaks down because the "two" players' minds wander or their feet stop moving.

Above, we have covered things such as hitting the ball and running in and touching the cone. Again the cone can be inside the baseline (serving, also, as a target for the shots of the "one"), at the center T (thereby teaching the "two" to hit and recover) or anywhere else for that matter (e.g. 10 feet behind the baseline or even at the intersection of the baseline and the singles/doubles sideline). The concept, here, is of course, to keep ALL players hitting and moving and to also keep the minds of the "two" players focused on specific tasks in between strokes. In addition to hit-and-recover drills, the players can also include other devices to maintain the intensity of the work-out. For example, there's nothing stopping the "two" players from doing kangaroo jumps (e.g. 2-3), high knee running in place, split-lunges, squat jumps, etc. in between strokes.

Buddy System

Maybe because we're a developed nation (with greater per capita disposable income than other countries) so we don't need to, or perhaps because we are becoming increasingly anti-social, it seems that nowadays not too many juniors participate in group- or split lessons. Unless they are corralled at some high-priced academy, it seems like every developing player has his or her own private coach; one player leaves his lesson before the other player comes in for training. 

Although private training is beneficial for focusing on certain aspects of the player's game, I've found that the best way to train is by having 2 (sometimes 3) players on the court at the same time. Both the Navy Seals and the French Foreign Legion incorporates buddy-system training in their regimen. These elite units have found that a two-member unit is best for building morale, support and healthy competition. After all, seeing someone going through tough training alongside you makes it easier to deal with the pain.

Tennis players can benefit from the buddy system by incorporating a few 2-on-1 (i.e., two players + coach) practices in their weekly workouts. A lot of weaker/softer players, particularly, will be helped by this system when couple with a somewhat more advanced player (although not too much older as this could be intimidating and overwhelming for the weaker player). The concept is that the players will think "if HE can do it, then so can I". In addition, the players - if they care about tennis and are somewhat more competitive in nature - will push each other by always trying to outdo one another in the drills and various patterns.

Furthermore, after the drill portion of the practice, the players can play points and the coach can watch and critique the playing (rather than moving on to the next lesson). In addition, other benefits include that the payers can play twice as long for the same amount of money and, lastly, that the players will bond and become more involved in each other's development (for purposes of training on their own, warming on before matches or cheering each other on during tournaments). So find someone your own age and comparable skill and see if you can incorporate some shared practices into your normal workout routine. Done right, you will see your level improve exponentially. 

Give Your Son/Daughter a License to Tank

Some of the best tennis players have been coached by their parents. It's not for everyone. However, if you are going to coach your son/daughter beware of the phrase "Just go for your shots. Just go for it. Don't hold back." Only two things can happen from such vague advice, a very favorable outcome where its lights out tennis or a very quick 6-1, 6-1 loss. For any great player, this is far too much risk to assume to achieve a victory.

The moment you say, "Just go for it," you have given the player an easy way out if things don't go perfectly. No matter how well intentioned the advice may be, the player will not interpret it the same way you do. This is why it is very dangerous for parents who have never competed to give such poor advice. The advice shifts the responsibility from the player to the parent.

After another quick loss, the players snaps to his/her parent, "You told me to go for it!!!" Without the parent understanding what they have done, they have given the player an easy way out. Instead of having to face the music, the player can now shift all the blame to their parents (or coach for that matter).

The goal of every match is not to beat Serena or Roger, but to find a way to win on that specific day. Practice matches are the time to "Just go for it" and push outside your comfort zones. When it comes to tournament play, you play the percentages. You fight, scratch, claw, adjust, adapt, survive, compete and maybe if you are lucky, some of the "Just go for it" shows up at the right times.

The best remedy is to not give such advice unless you want to give them a license to tank.

If You Want To Be A Sprinter Don't Train For The Marathon

It seems that with the advent of televised matches and attendant commentary, American coaches and parents have become obsessed with statistics. Talk about unforced errors and first serve percentages has turned the audience into a generation of record-keepers. Perhaps it's cultural - drawn from the fans obsession with statistics in "sports" such as baseball where if it weren't for a religious fascination with numbers the commentators wouldn't have anything interesting to discuss.

When it comes to tennis, however, I often see the focus on first serve percentages as an obstacle in development. Listen, after 30-40 years of getting hammered with first serve percentage figures or the importance of not making any unforced errors, you'd think that we, as a nation, would be completely dominating the international tennis scene. This is obviously far from being the case.

So how is the focus on first serve percentages detrimental you ask? Well, in my opinion, it is not so much in what is said, it's how the message is perceived by the student that causes a problem. In this case, if the coach keeps dwelling on the first serve percentage, the player usually holds back on the serve and practices only to "just make" the ball in service box. This usually means slowing the ball down and hitting quasi-second serves.

Although I'm a HUGE fan of second serves, unless you're using the serve simply to 'kickstart' the point (pun intended), if you want to put some pressure on the opponent throughout you're going to go after some first serves. In theory, I think you should go after your first serve most of the time though sometimes you put slightly more spin on the ball in order to create some angles and Often times, however, players are simply incapable of hitting big first serves because all they've done in practice is hit their shot with too much emphasis on making the ball. In other words, they have practiced hitting it slow. In a recent lesson, one student would hit 1 big first serve and, if he missed it, went back to hitting 10 slow second serves in order to build confidence. So, in 30 minutes of serving, he's hit 15 big first serves and 150 second serves. Then he's wondering why his opponents - after they get a good read on his "first" serve - start hammering him with their returns.

The point is that if you practice slow, you're going to hit slow. It's like a sprinter who, while training for the 100m sprint, is running long-distance races in practice. The stride, just like the serve, is simply different. No coach in their right mind would tell Usain Bolt to run 1 mile circuits in training while focusing on the short-course sprint. If you want to run fast - practice fast.

Same with the serves, if you want to hit "hard" during during match, practice hitting hard while training. Train your fast-twitch muscles to be explosive. There's entirely WAY TOO MUCH emphasis in instructional videos, reading materials and lessons on particular components of the stroke and not enough focus on actually getting the "fire" (or anger?) in the player's belly to GO AFTER THE SERVE.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying, however. DO focus on the technique!!! But focus on the technique WHILE you're hitting hard first serves! Otherwise, you're like a race-car being fine-tuned while driving circles in the parking lot and don't know if you're capable of hitting laps at 230mph. Often times, a slight variation in degree (string bed contact with the ball) will send the ball 10-20 ft off course ( due to speed of racket; depending on mph). This means that the player needs to develop a better "feel" for the ball at that speed - not to drop back and hit an entirely different stroke. So practice hard and make small adjustments in the process. If today you can only hit 10 good, hard serves - great. Tomorrow go for 12, the next day 16 and so on. However, as a high level player you need to develop the stamina AND the explosiveness to hit hard first serves for 5-6 sets/day (i.e., in a tournament). You're not going to do that practicing only soft serves (regardless of how many you actually manage to make in the box).