PLAY BETTER TENNIS

I recently received an email from 4.5 tennis player in the United States who proposed the following question: I could use a little help with a plan to get better. I am rated 4.5 player in the USA and I want to be at 5.5. For some reason, I can not find a tennis coach to help you plan together, they just want to work on strokes. Any ideas?

After coaching tennis at the country club in Texas for more than five years, I have often the same question from our tournament players who feel as if they were flattened, and, just out to the Court and work on their strokes was just not take them to the next level. Like a tennis coach, you need to be flexible and be able to analyze each player and create a plan for their own individual needs. This means taking into account all the factors or variables that make a great player.

The professional tennis players cover all areas and there is no reason why you can not merge some of their training plans with a club level player. As you will see below I discuss and cover specific areas of physical, psychological, tactical and so on that are often overlooked by a coach who only sees their role as working on strokes.

So for our 4.5 player I would like to talk about focusing on some of the following areas that will enable it to get to this level without working only on strokes.

Psychological:

Game Plan:

Work on your game plan. That is, have you scout your next opponent? Do you have your own game plan ready so that you can control the game how you want to play? Do you have a plan in case your first plan does not work?

Concentration:

You say to concentrate harder will not work. However, if you can set up pre-game within the game and post-game routines, you'll be able to remain more focused on the task. In between points allow you to relax the mind and bring your business when you line up to serve or return. The human mind can not focus continuously so it is useless to try to do so.

Scout your opponent:

If you're in a tournament and then go take a look at your next opponent. Analyze and see how they play, what their favorite shot, what are their weaknesses, they fight on the big points, they always do their favorite shot a bullet, have a great shot and so on. Once you have this information then go away and create a game plan to beat this player.

Routine:

Have a routine between the two points that will help you maintain control and if either of Composure win or lose. Once again, it gives you control over how The Game is played.

Setting objectives:

I know you all heard before but I can not stress enough that once you write some realistic goals on paper, you immediately feel that you have something management and train. It is a great feeling when you reach a goal and can move to the next.

Physics:

Footwork:

One of the problems I face level club players was that they had poor feet that led to poor implementation of their plans. Many coaches spend hours and hours trying to teach a player the proper running technique when a large number of times that the real problem is that they do not set up correctly for the coup and then as the result of position causes the player to use bad technique. Integrating some foot tennis specific exercises that we provided in our eBooks.

Strength:

Maybe you do not have the physical strength to win a few thousand on your service. One way to add more power to your service without just hitting serves for hours on end is to achieve the gym! Have an experienced gym trainer develop a weight training to increase your strength and your watch service becomes faster and a weapon!

Speed:

Maybe you're not fast enough on the ground. Too slow will negatively impact your strokes. You May not recover quickly enough after being out of position, maybe you do not receive the ball in time and by not adequately perform the ball. The speed is a weapon! Just ask Lleyton Hewitt or Rafael Nadal and you will soon see how speed is used to their advantage.

Flexibility:

This is often a neglected area. Besides the known benefits of preventing injuries there are many direct benefits to improving on-court performance. One of my friends, Mark Wellington, trained Maria Sharapova for a couple of years and I have always stated how he put emphasis on flexibility and teaching Maria how to move on the ground. Having greater flexibility will help you recover after each shot and return more quickly to the next shot.

Endurance:

Tennis is often described as an "anaerobic" sport because of the nature of reasonably short points. However, you must train your aerobic system so you can maintain a high level of play until the end. Often, a player in May is to lose simply because they fade. All those hours working on strokes will not help you if you run out of gas!

Reflexes:

By improving your reflexes you can become more competent at the net as well as improving other areas of your game such as the return of serve. Many players just do not react quickly enough to prompt service. As a result they make errors on the return of serve or just do not get the ball into play

Tactic:

Have you ever played against someone who was more technically "inferior" to you in that their traits are not very effective, but they just always had a Knack to drink? We have all at some point in the career of tennis! Some players are very difficult match. They know how to break a Thursday adversaries They know how to create a game plan to be successful. They have that ability to win big points.

So you have to do is analyze your own game plan. Do you have when you step on the court? Is it that you can stick with a winning game plan, but also change a losing? This is where you can ask your coach to work with you. Spend a reading lesson and points that your coach tell you about how you construct your points. No time to only technical "Match Play" lesson. This gives you a perspective from an opponent of what they see in your game

General:

Technique:

Make sure you have correct technique on all fronts. If you have a visible weakness, you can count on your opponent exploiting this picture.

Match! Match! Match! I can not emphasize enough how important it is to play matches. You can not simply practice or just do lessons and then expect to be carried out in a competitive situation. You need to play more matches and as a direct result will be increasingly difficult match, more experienced in dealing with different players and will also be able to see which areas you need to improve on the time in a match . You can even have a friend use match evaluation forms to find your game and then you can see exactly what areas you need to work. Remember: be a match-play and not just a player!

When I coaches of the teams competitive ladies, I tried to build many of my years around "ball" or "match like" drills rather than to feed the exercises. The more point based drills you do more comfortable, you're in a real game that these exercises simulate game play that includes the unpredictability rather than predictive fed the ball by a coach.

Practice Partners:

Train with players better than you! If you are a 4.5 - Are you always playing with 4.5 players? If so, and you want to get to 5.5 and then go out and play with the best players that will help raise your game If your practice partner is not pushing hard enough then you find a new one. Join a drill session that has the best players. You'll soon be forced to raise the level of your game to competence with these guys.

Many clubs have a Saturday morning training session group for men. You can ask your club because what other drill sessions could join you.

Variety:

If you practice with the same players all the time then you become a size and get used to their playing styles. Unfortunately, when you're in a tournament and face a completely different style of game, you do not know how to play. So go out and play as many players as you can. Some same level that you and some better level of 5.5.