Improve your tennis game.

1. A 5 minute warm up is a must.

• 20 jumping jacks – Puts you on the balls of your feet and stretches out the body.
• 20 alley shuffles – Start in the alley and side-shuffle across the doubles, then singles side lines, until you have crossed a line 20 times.
• 20 quick feet – Step over a line with your right foot then the left rapidly. Each time the right foot crosses the line counts as 1, repeat until you reach 20 quick feet steps.
• 20 helicopters – Extend your arms out shoulder high. Pivot off your right then left foot as your arms swing side to side like helicopter blades.
• 20 practice swings – Go through all your ground strokes, volleys, overheads and serves 20 times to get your body ready to play.

2. Serve into the fence or wall.

Practice serving against a practice wall or even better, into the fence on the court.

• Focus on your technique as you go through your service motion. By serving into the fence while standing on the singles side line, the ball will most of the time come back to you. Therefore you will need only a few balls to practice your serves.
• Next stand on the baseline and face the back fence. Now practice serving into the back fence having created a little more space between you and your target.
• Next stand on the deuce court service line and serve cross court into the opposite deuce service court (you can add a challenge by putting 3-4 balls in the opposite service court to divide it in half – therefore creating a left and right target).
• Now serve halfway between the service line and the baseline with the same challenges.
• Finally, go to the baseline and serve into the opposite service court with the focus still more on the technique than power.

3. Practice with a ball machine – with a purpose.

• Have a remote control or limit the number of balls in the machine to about 50 or 75 balls (most ball machines hold about 2-300 balls – way to many to hit at one time effectively).
• Have a target (one of the 4 squares on the court on the opposite side of the net).
• Focus on control of the depth and spin on the ball rather than power. Your game will improve when you learn not to lose before your opponent does.
• Any balls that do not make it over the net becomes balls that you serve over the net so you practice ground strokes or volleys and serves.
• When you pick up the balls – do wide based squats for each ball you pick up. Personal trainers will have you do squats and lunges to improve your strength and flexibility, so get your work out in while picking up the balls.

4. Use the time between points to your advantage.

• Following a point, you need to return the balls on your side of the court to your opponent so they can serve to start the next point. Use that time when you return the ball to the opponent to practice your forehand or backhand.
• Do a “drop & hit” with correct technique to give the ball to your opponent.
• This can be an “eraser” shot – to erase the feeling of the shot you just missed or a “builder” shot – to add to your successful feeling of hitting the perfect shot.
• You will typically return 80 or more balls in a match to your opponent so they can serve to you. That is 80 chances to erase or build your own strokes.

5. Beat the wall.

A practice wall is the perfect partner. It never gets tired, never talks back and gives you what you give it.

• Use a low compression ball or punch a hole in a regular ball so the rebound off the wall is not so fast as to destroy your technique.
• Set a number of balls you intend to rally off your forehand, backhand or volley’s.
• You can also serve against the wall then rally or move in closer to volley.
• Attempt to use complete swing paths and avoid punching or shortening follow throughs on your strokes.

Photo Credits: Pauline K.

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What is important is to make our day to day living the path that leads to our dreams. To go some where you must first decide where it is you would like to go. Once that is decided, you can now decide how you want to get there and how fast it needs to happen. Know that there will be challenges along the way, things you forgot to consider, road closures and distractions from your destination.

How you deal with these “disconnections” will be determined by your resolve, your commitment to your destination and plan of action. Most of us are driven by the need to just survive each day. But let’s say you really want to be more in control of your life and where you are headed.

Here are 3 steps to help you:

1. Take a look at where you are now. You can’t decide where to go until you determine where you are now. Let’s say you are a club player rated 3.5.
2. How long have you been there? Are you recently bumped to that level or have you been that level player for the past 4 years.
3. Where do you want to be? Your goal is to become a 4.5 player.

Once you have determined where you are on the map and where you want to go you can begin to determine your course for getting there. How long you have been where you are will be the motivation for moving to the new destination.

Here are 3 questions that will help in deciding what your path might be:

1. Potential, do you have the athletic or supreme resolve to get where you want to be?
2. Resources, do you have the financial, professional, friend or family support to help make this happen? Do you have the necessary network?
3. Time, do you have the time to begin the journey full time or do you need to do it part time for a period of time?

Now that you have taken inventory of these questions, let’s see what will help keep you on your path on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Here are 7 factors to consider:

1. Motivation, what is your true motivation for your decision? Is it fame, money, pride, or sense of achievement?
2. Improved skills, is there a plan on how you will develop the improved skills necessary to continue your journey?
3. Support system, do you have a network of people that you can confide in, ask questions, and want to see you succeed in difficult times?
4. Recognize nay-sayers, do you know how to avoid situations and people who will try to discourage you along the way? There are many who do not want you to pass them on your way and many who cannot see what you see.
5. Create a winning environment, create a visual on the wall of others who have succeeded, read motivational biographies, talk to “can do” people and tell others of your plan so they can help you keep your commitment.
6. Create a reward system, just like you have to plan rest stops on your trip, take time to reward your self for progress made.
7. Re-evaluate and recommit, take time to look how far you have come, rest and go again with renewed energy.

The achievement of your goal will be a journey with many unexpected interruptions, challenges, achievements and surprises along the way. Should you reach your goal, you may find it was the journey that was as satisfying as the achievement of you destination.

The important part of a resolution is the process of evaluation, the commitment to make a change and the courage to make it happen.

My tennis resolutions for 2009 are 3:

1. Play tennis 3 times a week
2. Have a conditioning plan for strength, flexibility and speed
3. Keep a journal of my tennis journey to help my awareness of my journey and to be able to reflect upon my experiences

What are your tennis resolutions for 2009?

Happy New Year to you, may 2009 be the year you do!

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