4 Reminders: Below The Knees and Above The Shoulders

Unless you possess overwhelming power, then here are 4 simple reminders to help you increase your odds of winning.  

1) Make your opponent run.  This is why every great player is a master of the figure-8 drill.  Can you effectively control the ball accurately into the corners while you are moving, hitting over the high part of the net, and changing the direction of the ball?  Everyone talks about hitting great crosscourts (nothing wrong with that), but I challenge you to get really good at hitting down-the-lines and not missing!  Hit down-the-lines in a way that do not hurt you on the next ball- below their knees or above their shoulders.  The moment a coach says practice down-the-lines, the player swings for the fences.  This is not good tennis and will certainly guarantee you losing 1 and 1.  Don't want to be labeled a pusher, well you will be labeled a bonafide loser.  What the coach really means is to find a ball you can effectively hit 10 out of 10 times.  Yes 10 out of 10 is manageable and is what is expected of a great player.  

2) Make your opponent hit balls over the shoulder.  Work on their head.  See if they can mentally handle balls over the shoulder (you must be willing to do your part), point after point.  Be ready to defend and know that winners will be hit against you.  It's okay, that goes with the territory. Play the odds and frustrate them as the match unfolds.  You must not give your opponent any comfortable shots to hit (if you can help it).  You must send a message that this is your identity and you are willing to make them hit 24 winners to win the set. If they win the set, congratulate them and make them work just as hard in the 2nd.  Make life miserable for them, in fact, make them cry!  You will be surprised how many wimps and Momma's Boys there are in the tennis world (Rafa made a living on this!).  "Mommy, mommy!"  Make them cry.

3) Make your opponent hit balls below the knees.  Get really good at slicing.  Slices that bounce above the knees are not slices, so get back on the practice court and learn how to slice.  I don't care what anyone says, its very hard to hit winners against a good slice (ala Stevie Johnson, Federer, Schiavone, Feliciana Lopez).  The ball is below the level of the net and it defies physics to be able to torque a ball hard enough up and over the net to hit a winner.  Your opponent labors trying to generate enough pace to create an opening.  The slice has been known to drive some supposed "tough cookies" mad.  Federer chucked his racquet across the court against Santoro.  Djokovic should have lost the 1st set to Dolgopolov and was clearly puzzled/annoyed/pissed at the same time.  

4) Aim for the middle.  If all else fails, take all the pace off the ball and hit it up the middle.  Hit it high middle, low middle.  So many players can't volley, so make them beat you with a volley.  I would argue your pass is better than their volley.  Odds are your opponent has hit 1 volley for every 50 groundstrokes (sounds extreme, but I'm right).  Middle gives your opponent no angle and no easy way to run you off the court (if you hit it high or low or deep).  Smoke a cigar in-between points as the fume comes out of their ears.  Throw in a defensive moon lob for good measure to accelerate the crying process.  Be ready to run!  But next time you are on the practice courts, do figure eights to learn how to hit closer to the lines while on the move, so you can expand your game.   

Steal This Drill: Third Set Training

Have you ever made it to a third set against a tough opponent, come close to winning but, due to fatigue, managed to only snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?! If so, you understand the role of proper physical conditioning when it comes to tennis. Unfortunately, too many players don't play enough sets (particularly THREE SETS IN A ROW) or train hard enough to get themselves in the best possiible position to win. Often times, this a result of lack of time or inexperience. However, assuming that you are motivated to learn and improve, here is one way to train for the third set if you only have one hour available:

Grab an equally motivated partner and play serving games up to 10 (or 11, 15, 21). One player serves the whole game and then the partners switch roles. Here's the kicker: each player should do 10 kangaroo jumps before each point. If you're tough, you will do 10 before the second serves as well. This will get your heart racing real quick and teach you how to think when you're physically and mentally fatigued. Another alternative would be to have only the person who lost the point do the jumps.

Here's the deal, "muscle fatigue leads to changes in interaction between structures of abrain's neural network", Fatigue-induced increase in intracortical communication between mid/anterior insular and motor cortex during cycling exercise (Eur. J. Neurosci. 2011 Dec;34(12):2035-42. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2011.07909.x. Epub 2011 Nov 20.; Hilty, L; Langer, N.; Pascual-Marqui, R., Boutellier, U.; Lutz; K.). As you may know, the cortex (see "intracortical" in the title of the article) plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. In the study (involving cyclists), there was a "lag" in the communication time between the various functions of the brain. See also Reduced muscle activation during exercise related to brain oxygenation and metabolism in humans (2010 Jun 1;588(Pt 11):1985-95. Epub 2010 Apr 19; Rasmussen, P., Nielsen, J; Overgaard, M., Krogh-Madsen R., Gjedde, A; Secher, NH; Peterse, NC): "Exhaustive exercise provoked cerebral deoxygenation, metabolic changes and indices of fatigue similar to those observed during exercise in hypoxia indicating that reduced cerebral oxygenation may play a role in the development of central fatigue and may be an exercise capacity limiting factor." Deoxygenation...hypoxia = being deprived of oxygen (suffocating). 

In a sport as complex as tennis, where time is measure is fractions of a second, you cannot afford to have any kind of a lag - lapse in judgment - or central fatigue as that's exactly how the errors pile on. This is particularly true in a long three-setters where you are more prone for "taking the coward's way out" by hitting silly drop-shots, going for aces (including second serves), return winner or any other quick way for finishing the point. If you train yourself, your body will be more efficient at maintaining good energy for the duration of the match. Furthermore, your body will be better prepared to return the appropriate amount of oxygen and energy to the brain in order to stabilize its functions enabling you to make better decisions. Therefore, it is advisable that you incorporate some mentally stressful exercises into your routine so that you can understand the effects on your body and decision-making; know what you need to do (almost automatically) when you are in fact fatigued; and slowly push your tolerance levels beyond your comfort level thereby allowing you to play longer and higher quality matches. 

The Secret to United States' Tennis Success...Not One You'd Expect

"What if we're going about this the wrong way?" Jack Fawcett must have surely asked his father, Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett, while in the process of getting lost (to their eventual demise) in the Mato Grosso as they were searching for the legendary City of Z in the Brazilian rainforest.

Well, as much talk as has taken place about the state of college tennis and junior development within the United States, we should stop for a moment - before getting lost even further in the forest of Quickstarts bushes, Lil' Mo trees, and Bowl landscapes - and ask ourselves "ARE WE GOING ABOUT THIS THE WRONG WAY?" What if the best way to address the issue is not to treat the temporary symptoms but to purge the causes from our system?! More specific, what if something that's supposed to keep us warm, safe and protected is actually bad for us?! Can you think of some instances where something that's supposed to be good for us causes all kinds of undesirable side-effects? Do you watch much TV? Ever hear the list of side-effect on some of the medicines that are peddled around the clock? Some are worse than the main disease...

With the foregoing in mind, we have engaged in some brief research regarding the effects of "safety nets" on performance. For example, it is often written (and spoken) that college serves as a safety net for athletes. See, for reference, here, here and here. Players train with the thought that college athletics is, somehow, a mid-range objective that is going to propel them into superstardom. Consequently, they don't work very hard in the beginning stages believing that they will do the right things - the grueling work - in college...in other words, candy now, peas and carrots later. Thus, does the existence of the perceived safety net pose a developmental problem for our athletes? Although no on-point discussion exists when it comes to tennis, here are some thoughts from similar fields:

Doug Roxburgh, Director of High Performance for Golf Canada states:

“I think one of the challenges that we have right now is the U.S. college system. Our international counterparts — England and Europe and Australia and New Zealand and the Asian countries — their players don’t go through the U.S. system. They train full-time. They play around the world. They get the experience and they’re much better prepared, in my mind, than our players who are coming out of the U.S. college system. That is a challenge. I think it’s just part of North American culture. You want your kids to get an education. Then, they have something to fall back on"

What?! You mean to tell me, Mr. Ruxburgh, that the US college golf system is not set up to launch players on the professional golf tour? Interesting! To summarize: players who come from places that do not have a collegiate golf system are better prepared. Their players don't rinky-dink around with junior rankings and other such trivialities. They are passionate about the sport and gain exposure to trial-by-fire a lot sooner making them mentally, physically and tactically tougher. Without a safety net, the players are separated into two camps a lot earlier in their development: (1) on the one side are the hit-and-giggle players who play for fun; and (2) on the other, you will find the eat, drink, breathe and dream the sport players (rabidly obsessed players). Can you guess the pool of players from which the top performers are likely to come?

Further studies supporting the theory that safety nets are bad for performance are few and far between. A recent NY Times article entitled “What if the Secret to Success is Failure?” discusses, however, an interesting developmental experiment. The premise of the study was whether students who never, or very seldom, experienced setbacks, could achieve academic success. The study found that:

"the students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically at KIPP [charter school organization]; they were the ones with exceptional character strengths, like optimism and persistence and social intelligence. They were the ones who were able to recover from a bad grade and resolve to do better next time; to bounce back from a fight with their parents; to resist the urge to go out to the movies and stay home and study instead; to persuade professors to give them extra help after class. Those skills weren’t enough on their own to earn students a B.A…. But for young people without the benefit of a lot of family resources, without the kind of safety net that their wealthier peers enjoyed, they seemed an indispensable part of making it to graduation day."

OK, so this is only somewhat related to what we are discussing here. However, upon brief consideration, you may find that the distinction is one in terms of timing not scope. For example, in the aforementioned study, the students who performed well had no immediate safety net and, therefore, ended up performing well in the future. In terms of tennis, our players have a future safety net ("oh, if it doesn't work out, I can always go to college and Ill work hard when I get there") and, as a result, they don't prepare well in the present - certainly not to the degree required to perform and dominate on the pro tour (as evidenced by the rankings that really matter). This is particularly obvious if we were to compare college tennis to social security payments and the rate of economic savings per family unit in the United States. Would you save more of your paycheck if you knew that no government check would be forthcomging upon retirment?! Would you work harder if you knew that "not making it" on the tour was a very real boogeyman?

On the other hand, let's see who dominates the sport of tennis: Spaniards, South Americans and Central/Eastern Europeans. Look at their collegiate athletic system:..................[crickets chirping]. Much like golfers in Mr. Roxburgh's example, they train from early age without a safety net. For them, there is no "spring-board" to the pros fallacy and they are not handcuffed by principles of amateurism. The ones who really care about the sport live the sport. Others, play for pleasure - which is fine too. But everyone is honest with their intentions and passion for the game.

Parhaps, rather than trying to fix the college tennis system (which is not designed to produce ATP/WTA top-10, top-50 or even top-100 players), we should think about disbanding/jettisoning it altogether. Sounds radical? It absolutely is! But given the state of US tennis, it is foreseeable that a radical approach is necessary in order to turn this ship around. Of course, it will not happen as there are way too many vested interests in keeping the system as it is (e.g., membership fees, tournament fees, lessons, marketing useless training systems or immoral services). But think about what would happen if, starting tomorrow, there would be no college tennis:

1. A lot of players would quit. Why? They are playing for a "wrong" reason. They don't really love tennis, they only like what tennis could do for them (a small carrot, that looks quite large, at the end of a very long stick). Did we mention that it costs $450,000 to develop a tennis player and scholarship is only worth about $100,000 (if you're good enough to actually get a full one)? Aren't you better off by saving some money and actually paying for school?! Even if a lot of players quit, the ones who stay on will be like musicians or artists who are obsessed about their craft. They will challenge each other at every step of their development and, due to their passion for the game, better players would emerge (every match would be a fight between tigers). 

Hey, there's a thought: do musicians obtain collegiate scholarships based on their results or rankings? No! They play - improve and develop - because they possess a true passion for their art regardless of potential payoffs down the road. Also, the lack of scholarships doesn't prevent them from going to college. The same mentality would certainly help our best junior players.

2. A lot of coaches would be put out of business. Good! The bad ones will certainly be out of a job; the good ones, just like good coaches in Europe and other parts of the world, will continue to be swamped with lessons as people will always try to improve their game. In a similar vein, a lot of organizations may fold or be forced to downsize. Is this so bad? What are they doing for the game of tennis right now?! Aren't they just supported by the artificial demand that they themselves have helped create by peddling misinformation like hot cakes?! At the very least, there would be a system where the grittiest kids would be developed by the best coaches. From a developmental point of view, that's not exactly a bad thing. 

3. There will be fewer tournaments. After all, with fewer players the demand for more competition will decrease. Maybe! France has thousands of tournaments for player at every level. In the summer, it's possible to sign up for and play an event a day. Tournaments are driven by passion; not a profit motive. There will always be supply if the demand is there. Right now, the demand is propped up by artificial means (e.g. requiring players to chase ranking points). Accordingly, the current demand for tennis itself is itself distorted. Perhaps a new system of club tennis or private leagues would emerge. 

4. Rankings will be meaningless. Awesome! You don't need a junior ranking to get on "the tour"; all you need to do is sign up. Imagine a system where players played tournaments because of the competitive benefits and not to chase points! You wouldn't have to struggle to finance a cross-country trip to a national open or a long-distance drive to some silly designated event. You could play the tournament you want, when you want for the developmental benefits. Isn't this what most good coaches are saying now anyway (i.e., focus on learning not on chasing points)?

5. Education level will increase. This is a bad thing? Isn't the purpose of college to get an education? Somewhere along the lines, someone, somewhere put it in players'/parents' minds that college is a step towards the pro tour. If only....someone...could rem--- got it..here. Presently, there are a ton of would-be student-athletes who sacrifice education in pursuit of a lofty dream. Many don't get the most out of school because they have to play this tournament for ranking, travel to that one because that's where the coaches are going to scope out potential recruits, or choose between a book-report and a practice. Same thing happens in college where you have to practice with the team and are generally relegated to classes that fit around the tennis schedule. Without college tennis as an objective, you could focus on your studies (before and during college) and make tennis fit your schedule (not the other way around).

6. Your tennis may actually improve. You could work on your game at your convenience and without the need to keep up with the Joneses. You could actually focus on development and learning as opposed to chasing points. Your parents might actually be saving money in this process. You wouldn't need to worry about amateurism rules. Therefore, you would actually have a tangible incentive to play. In college, you could set up the practices, workouts and tournaments around your needs and schedule. You could take a semester/quarter off and play French tennis tournaments, Bundesliga or Italian team events. You could play futures in South America or money events in Asia. In other words, you could do both tennis and school at your convenience. On this note, did you know that Tipsarevic, Ancic and Zvonareva have college degrees? Tennis didn't seem to interfere with their studies.

7. Players will not be able to pursue higher education. Who says?! First of all, if parents have the funds to spend on developing a player (again, avg. $450,000/player) they should certainly be in a position to have some money set aside for college. If they are "investing" $450,000 to obtain something of substantially lesser value, they need to be put under conservatorship. Of course, these actions certainly explains the state of economic affairs in the United States. Second, with better grades, a player will be more likely to get in a school of his/her choice. Lastly, what's wrong with working and paying for school the old-fashioned way?! A lot of student are doing it and just because you own a couple of rackets and some tennis posters doesn't make you special.

Rather than fixing a broken system, perhaps the best approach is to discard the system altogether. Like Hernan Cortes who burned his ships (all of them, per legend) to prevent his troops from turning back to the protection of the empire and ended up conquering the Aztec empire, maybe it's time for us to also "go all in"...to wean away from the nipple. 

If this approach doesn't work (and given the nature of disappearing programs, it's just a matter of time before it will happen on its own), here's another less-radical thought: approach the game as if the collegiate athletic system doesn't exist. After all, the top professional tennis players regard tennis with the same frame of mind: there is no college; only pros. Then, again, they have true passion for the game. Do you? Are you sure?! Ask yourself: if they disbanded college tennis tomorrow, would I still practice 4 hours a day? Would I still grind it in the gym or on the track? Would I still play this tournament or that? Would I still try to be the best that I could be? If the answer's yes, then at least your attitude is on the right track. For those of you who have stuck with me this far, this is really the point of this article... finding something that you're passionate about (hopefully, tennis) and then pursuing it with all your heart and resources as well as not being distracted by vista points along completely different routes.

Globalization of Collegiate Tennis in the 21st Century

Reference is hereby made to our previous article concerning college tennis. In social media, our revelations have generated considerable exchange with solid points being made on both sides of the coin. Briefly, where one group believes that artificial rules have to be implemented in order to allow more US players a chance to engage in college athletics, the other group believes in a "survival of the fittest" approach. Where does CAtennis.com stand on this issue? In this case, CAtennis.com prefers to remain relatively neutral. Nevertheless, with the full understanding of the detrimental effects of unlimited numbers of foreigners on our universities' rosters, here are some benefits of maintaining the status quo:

1. Fairness. It is undeniable that certain schools have inherent advantages when it comes to tennis recruiting. Take for example the "sunshine belt" states. A lot of players grow up and train in warmer climates. Several juniors board in academies from California to Florida and from the Mediterranean to Australia. These players are accustomed to certian playing conditions (warm, sunny, outdoors) and may have an innate disposition to remain in these locations during their college career. As a result, it is often the case that these schools get the proverbial "pick of the litter" when it comes to a graduating class. Limiting the number of foreigners per team across the board would entrench these schools in their top spots without giving anyone else a fair chance to compete. Keeping competition open, ensures some degree of fairness within the system and makes for a far more interesting and challenging season (particularly for institutions beloning to far-reaching conferences). Furthermore, it is important to note that some of our players will simply refuse to play for certain programs even if they were offered a playing spot and a scholarship (preferring instead to red-shirt at more "sexy" schools with better football teams or social environment). Should these "lesser" programs shut down simply because our players tend to smirk their noses when it comes to enrolling and playing there? Several D-1 coaches have indicated to us that the programs would be put on the chopping block in the event they failed to remain competitive. We've already lost 580 tennis programs since 1977. Losing more programs will continue the downward spiral of our sport. 

2. Competition. America is a country that thrives on competition. Save for a few instances where certain competitive aspects are deemed to be against pulblic policy (e.g. opening up cross-borders insurance providers to unregistered and unregulated organization), the general belief is that the market is efficient and competition results in the highest quality of products and services at the lowest possible prices. A similar concept applies to college tennis. In this regard, competition is wonderful because it provides "our" best players the opportunity to compete against "their" best players with the end result that the level of all players will improve. If you care about tennis, this is a good thing. If college tennis is to serve as a "spring board" to the tour at all, it seems that best possible scenario would be to inject college tennis with as many tour qualities and elements as possible including tough, well-rounded competition. In other words, if producing world-class talent is our primary goal, dumbing down the level seems to be a backwards way of addressing this concern. Unfortunately, this is also a point where a lot of parents are unable to put their personal feelings aside.

3. Education. The principal purpose of higher learning is to provide a solid education to those persons who are willing to assume the responsibility. Expanding one's universe doesn't just happen in the class-room but it can also happen on campus as well as on the tennis court. In college, you are exposed - some Americans for the first time in their lives - to different cultures, languages and thought processes.

In terms of tennis, you learn how certain players play and think based on their nationalities and backgrounds. For example (and excuse the blatant stereotypes), you learn that Scandinavians are generally mellow but fun-loving people, with solid baseline games who are capable of playing equally well on the slowest of slow court and the fastest indoor courts (having grown up on slow, wet clay as well as fast indoor courts). You will learn that, for the most part, central and eastern European players have solid games, big serves and outstanding work ethic. You will notice that southern Europeans play with a lot of flair and have a penchant for the dramatic. Then there are the fired-up dirt-ballers from the Iberian Peninsula and South America, the wild and gritty attacking players from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as well as the steady and methodical players from Asia...and many more in between. The fact is that most countries have certain "schools of tennis" or principles of thought related to tennis that are influenced and developed from their own tennis heritage (juniors copying their home-grown idols), culture, climate (fast indoors v. slow outdoors) and resources. With tennis being a global sport, you will have to learn how to deal with these various personalities and game-styles. A player can do so in college or he can be exposed to this dimension for the first time "on tour" (on his/her own dime). From a developmental standpoint, the better advice is to be exposed to these idiosyncracies early in order to have a better understanding of their games when you're out on your own.

4. Friendship. Without a doubt, at some point in your life you have heard that tennis is "the sport of a lifetime". We're not here to "sell to you" the game of tennis. Hopefully, if you're reading this site it means that tennis plays a huge role in your life. Accordingly, you will have to understand that who you are and what you do today might not be your life 10-20 years down the road. Tennis is a great tool for meeting people and making friends throughout the world ("networking"). This is particularly true for someone who is good at the game. You never know who you might meet through tennis which of these people will change your life forever. As a tennis player, you may find yourself anywhere in the world and by simply name-dropping some of your contacts and whowing off your skills, you could be welcomed into the group. This can happen while you're pursuing a tennis career or a career completely unrelated to tennis. THIS is what college tennis is all about; connecting with people, making friends and sharing a commong experience with people who, at first impression, may seem so different but who turn out to have similar dreams, desires and motivations to us. 

In the end, it is not the foreigners who are ruining the college tennis opportunities and experience for US players; we (coaches, clubs, organizations, tournaments, academies, players and parents) are doing this all on our own. Colleges cannot be faulted when the #2 player from some far off _______-stan is a more solid player than our #23 junior (numbers used as an example). There is a great deal of pressure on colleges to compete and on coaches to win. Contrary to popular belief, collegiate athletics is not a charitable endeavor. A successful athletic program is likely to have a better endowment than one with less-than-stellar results. If a foreigner is better than a US player for a particular program, the former will be snapped up first. Simple as that. This is why most football players are Americans, as are most basketball players, or track athletes. We're simply better at those sports than the rest of the world (obviously, we have a competitive advantage when nobody else is playing the sport - e.g., football).

The key is to find a way to develop our top 150 graduating seniors to be better than the top players from foreign countries. In other words, the internationalization of collegiate tennis is a developmental problem, not a college issue. If our players are better, no coach in his right mind will look overseas for a weaker player. In this regard, the various facets of the industry have to work together in order promote the game, grow the game and develop top-notch players. Coaches, parents and players must understand what it takes and how much it costs and get on the correct track early. Given our resources and our position in the world, there is no excuse for failing to achieve our goals. 

Steal This Drill: Rock-Solid Backhand

Do you struggle with your backhand? Are you the type of person who expends too much energy running around your weaker shot? Do you find yourself doing silly things with the rest of your game in order to avoid hitting a backhand? Are you motivated to improve your backhand so that it becomes rock-solid? If the answer to some or all of these questions is "yes", then here are some creative drills to help you along. 

In the first drill (game up to 11, 15, 21, etc.), one player has to cover the whole court but must hit all his shots (including volleys) into the backhand half of the opponent's court (blue lines). The backhand player (i.e. the one covering only half of the court) can hit anywhere but, from the baseline, must only use his backhand. If the backhand, player is brought (or comes in) to the net, s/he can hit FH volleys. However, if the backhand player comes to the net (inside the service line), it's open court time (whole court may be used by the opponent). This is a great drill for one player to force himself to learn how to set up for the backhand and how to move it around without worrying about covering the other half of the court. The opponent, on the other hand, must learn how to make the backhand player move around so the his/her forehand (middle of the court) is exposed. In this eay, both players are working on something. 

In the second drill, the whole court is used by both players, but one player can only hit his backhand (including BH volley) cross-court (red line) unless the opponent comes to the net (blue line). The player who is limited to a cross-court backhand can, however, hit inside-out or inside-in forehands. For the player who can do anything, this drill simulates playing against a steady player who doesn't take too many chances on his backhand. Whenever the ball comes to that side of the court, the steady player (i.e., the one limited to a cross-court BH) tends to keep things simple and sends the ball back cross-court. The opponent "knows" this (i.e., in the drill, knowledge is artificially injected into the equation) so s/he tries to construct the point accordingly. The player who is limited to a cross-court backhand knows that the opponent is aware of the limitation so s/he works on hitting more effective backhands over the low part of the net and into the long part of the court - cross-court. Like a well-fought boxing match, both players work towards creating an opening. Same as in the first drill, play points and then swap roles.