As you warm up for the match, notice if you are able to see the spin on the ball before you meet the ball or if you can see a “yellow streak” into and out of your racquet.  If you can see either of these consistently in the warm up – you are probably focused enough to start the match with good results.

2.) Move like the pros… 

The pros average 10-12 steps between each ball they contact.  How about you? Want to be a better player?  Add 2 more steps to your footwork between each ball you hit.  Strokes will improve, speed to the ball will be faster and your intensity will stay high.

3.) Get a grip on your game. 

Practice your ground strokes or volleys with the tightest grip you have (call it level 5) now go to level 4, then 3 then 2 then just barely holding the racquet in your hand level 1.  The pros use mostly level 2 and 3 on their grip tension.  You will not be able to follow through with a grip tension of 5 or 4 on your ground strokes and your volleys with vary between going long and dying on the strings with a 5 or 4 grip tension.  The next time your player misses a shot or has an unusual finish to their shot, ask them to identify their grip tension.  Keep it light for success.

4.) Breathe for success… 

Most errors come from not breathing as you contact the ball which can cause a whole host of errors from no finish to a stroke to feeling fatigue even when you are in good condition.  Do it like you would if you were lifting weights, breathe as you exert your effort – blow the ball off your racquet.  It helps to breathe as your opponent contacts the ball as well so you breathe twice during a point.  You will feel relaxed, have a sense of timing and seldom tire in a match.

5.) Out of sync? 

Try counting as you meet the ball and when your opponent contacts their shot.  Counting at the exact moment of contact with improve your focus, sense of timing, breathing and keep your mind focused in the moment.  Hear the rhythm, as you count you begin to recognize the rhythm of a rally, relax at contact and stay focused on the task at hand.

Photo Credits: heraldpost

• 10 Tips to Winning the Middle of the Match [/caption]As the match goes on analyze what has happened.  Ask these questions: What patterns do they use with their ground strokes to set up points? How do they handle pace and off-pace balls? Are they predictable with where they hit under pressure? Based on their grips, where are their power......
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• Racquet Mail: Trusting Your Strokes This is the first of hopefully many Racquet Mail posts. I received an email with a question about trusting your strokes, and wrote this article in response. Trusting your strokes is a skill that is obviously quite mental in nature. In my program, called Defeating the Monsters in your Mind,......
• “I” Receiving Formation – Both Back [/caption]**This UDF works well at club level play, USTA league play, junior and high school matches as well as college matches. This (UDF) Unusual Doubles Receiving Formation puts the receiver and partner on the same side of the court.  The receiver (let’s say – deuce court) is in regular receiving......
• "Underspin" the "Otherspin" Develop a Competitive Game with more Weapons In today's game "topspin" gets all the press.  Everyone focuses how big the shots are, how much the pros use it and so most all the juniors and club players want to be like the pros. When you listen to the talk about......

• Messianic Prophecy: Satan is against Jesus: Messianic Prophecy: Satan is against Jesus: Prophecy: And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel." Genesis 3:15 Fulfillment: While I was with you daily in the......
• Tennis Grips 101 The type of grips that you use in the game of tennis are going to have a really huge bearing on what types of strokes you are going to develop as well as a huge impact on your game overall. For example, if you want to develop an aggressive game,......
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• A Little Bit of Tennis 101 pt 3 Gripping for the Forehand Shot - The most common way to grip the tennis racquet for the forehand is known as the eastern forehand, and this is likely going to be the one that you utilize for forehand drives and for the majority of your shots as well. This is......

Review your match.

1. What were your best strokes and plays during the match?
2. What were their best strokes and plays during the match?
3. What were your weaknesses in the match?
4. What were their weaknesses in the match?
5. What was your confidence level like in the match – beginning, middle and end?
6. What was your conditioning level like in the match?
7. What was their conditioning level like in the match?
8. What key adjustments did you make in the match?
9. How did you adjust to their adjustments in the match?
10. If you had a chance to re-play the match what would you change?

Each match you play will help you get better, give you more information about your game and yourself.  You must pay attention to what each match teaches you to grow as a player.

From your mistakes you will learn the most -  but don’t forget to know why you won as well.

Each match is not the end but one more step on your journey to becoming the best player you can be – and it never ends.

Forever be a learner.

Ken DeHart

www.kendeharttennis.com
kendehart@aol.com

Photo Credits: pixeljones

• The Value of Tennis Rituals in Serving Rituals are automatic responses to a situation. In life we have rituals for getting up, driving our cars, eating and sleeping. In tennis we have rituals as well when we serve that help us to operate on an "automatic" or non-thinking level. The value of rituals in serving are many,......
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• Defeating “The Two Opponents” before you defeat; “The Player on the Other Side of the Net” [/caption]You have seen the draw, met your opponent and walked to the court to begin the battle.  However, when you warm up to begin the match, you must first defeat two opponents before you can even begin to win the match against - the player on the other side of......
• 3 Secrets to Winning Doubles, pt 1 [/caption] This is the first post of three consecutive posts on the secrets to winning doubles in tennis. Secret #1 "Tennis Talk" - What to say and when to say it! Before the match: Decide with your partner ahead of time if you want to serve first, receive first, and......
• Review: A Terrible Splendor by Marshall Jon Fisher [/caption] "A Terrible Splendor" by Marshall Jon Fisher Review by Ken DeHart This is one of my favorite tennis books of all time for 3 reasons!!!   Here's why: A great history of tennis and the world in the 1920's-60's including World War I and II Amazing "inside" story line about......

• Tennis Racquet Racket Review Having the right tennis equipment is a vital part of improving one's game. Sure, experience and skill are the most important part of playing well, but with the wrong equipment, a good player can easily have trouble winning matches. Everyone is going to have different requirements when it comes to choosing......
• Tips For Improving your Tennis Game Serve - This is the first in a series on improving your serve through different tennis playing tips. Top ranking players tend to exhibit far fewer variations in terms of their style and their form in their serves than any other type of stroke in the game of tennis.......
• Improving your Health with Tennis Tennis is by far one of the most popular types of competitive sports that you can play today. This is definitely because tennis is capable of offering you a very large variety of different benefits to your health as well as improving the health of your cardiovascular system, preventing stroke......
• Tennis Ball Machine Advantages If you are looking for ways for you to significantly improve your techniques in tennis, then one of the best things that you can possibly to do is to invest in a tennis machine or tennis ball machine. This is a truly ideal device for anyone that is interested in......
• Review: The Ultimate Guide to Weight Training for Tennis by Robert G. Price The Ultimate Weight Guide to Weight Training for Tennis is a tome which describes well over 80 different exercises and techniques for developing your tennis technique. These techniques span from weight training to flexibility and are used by athletes across the globe. The program that is outlined in the book......

The person who is winning has a wealth of information available to them represented by all the grains of sand in the top half of the glass. However, while all that information is available to them they are only using a few pieces of that knowledge at a time.

This small flow of information is represented by the few gains of sand that pass through the tiny filter or the middle of the hour glass. This is like playing in the zone where you are not thinking too much but allowing the flow of the match to occur naturally.

On the bottom is all the sand that has fallen and continues to fall like rain, coming down on the player who is losing – can’t hit, playing poorly, never lost to this person before, he is playing so lucky and etc. Nothing seems to be going well for them and they can’t seem to manage all that is coming down on them.

At some point the player who is losing can feel desperate or frustrated by not being able to control what is happening. They realize that time is about to run out. Now instead of all the disconnecting thoughts they decide upon a strategy – go to the net, lob every ball, hit every ball down the middle and etc.

The point being that they quit worrying about their circumstance and focus on one tactic to solve their situation. Perhaps it is to rise above all the sand that has fallen and use it as a platform to stand taller and block the middle where all the sand is flowing from. They decide upon one specific tactic instead of being over whelmed by their situation. At least now they have a specific purpose – a plan of action instead of being the victim.

The player on top suddenly realize that time is about to expire and he is on top, they are winning. Gradually or even suddenly, thoughts begin to distract them. They have never beaten you, they can’t wait to tell his friends, they will now be in the next round of play and etc.

Suddenly the hour glass will have turned upside down. The player on the bottom has forgotten all the disconnecting thoughts about how desperate their situation is and begins to have only one thought or purpose. The player who was on top is now aware of all their options and opportunities. No longer is there a natural flow to what is happening. The player who was on top now experiences all the disconnecting thoughts.

This is how a match will normally flow. When I realize I am about out of time and ready to lose the match, my focus will change to one thought or purpose. Having accepted that I could lose I begin to focus on a singular plan to salvage my situation. Winning or losing is no longer my focus, my fear is not my driving force. My fear has pushed me to a point where I must make a decision

As I mentioned, the eyes are the key. If you can see the ball rotating as it comes to you, your mind will become quiet and things will slow down in your mind. A good game to play with yourself at this point is “yes” or “no”. After you have contacted the ball, say “yes” if you were able to pick up the rotation of the ball before contact and you had previously selected a target for you shot before the ball bounced on your side of the court.

We call this, “paying attention to attention”. If you could evaluate your attention level after a shot and it was at 8-9 or 10 on a scale of 10 you would have excellent “attention” and a relaxed focus of mind.

You can also focus on “paying attention to tension” or how tight you are gripping your racquet and the tension level of your body. This should be about level 2 or 3 on a scale of 5.

Some of the unique aspects of tennis are that there are no time limits, it is one of the only sports where the opponent calls your lines, and one of the few sports that makes you start at 0 or even at half time. All the success you had in the first set goes back to zero for the second set and you must start from scratch to win the next set.

This is one of the many “treasures” you will learn and re-learn as you play the game of Tennis.

Photo Credits: 1

• Know Your Court - Terms Every Tennis Play Should Know Tennis Court—Where the game is played. 78 feet long - 36 feet wide for doubles and 78 by 27 for singles Love- Score when a player has no score 15- Score when you win the 1st point 30- Score when you win the second point 40 - Score when you......
• Racquet Mail: How to Create a Better Forehand Question: I am finding that my swing and my backhand grip are much better than my forehand. When I go for a forehand shot, it usually ends up with a tremendous amount of topspin making it difficult to hit. Still, my opponent on the other side of the net seems......
• Winning in Practice, pt 2 This is part two in a two part set. Doubles Situations The receiving team must lob the return of serve and try to take the net at least twice in each game. This is especially effective when the serving team is serving into the sun. The serving team must play......
• 12 Tennis Tips to Improve Your Game 1.) How to know if you are ready to start a tennis match?  As you warm up for the match, notice if you are able to see the spin on the ball before you meet the ball or if you can see a "yellow streak" into and out of your......
• 7 Habits of Highly Successful Tennis Professionals 1. Be "Pro" Active Sure you have been teaching for years and may not need a lesson plan. But just as you would prepare to play a match, you still would need to review.  So, have a game plan for your student or opponent and think about your last......

• More Tennis Tips pt 3 ... Continued from More Tennis Tips pt 2. This is part three in our weekly tennis tips series. Here are some more invaluable tips that will help you improve all aspects of your tennis game. You should swing your racket back until the point where the tip is barely......
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• 100 Quick Tennis Tips pt 1 Here are 100 quick and easy tennis tips to get your game going. We're going to spread this list out over a couple of posts to keep it interesting. Tip #1 - Before you pick up the game of tennis, you should absolutely make sure to consult a physician to......
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• Even More Tips for Serving Here are some more useful tennis tips for improving your serving game. If you want to make improvements in your ability to serve, these tips will prove useful. Tip #1: Serve well enough that you can control the rally. One of the more popular axioms that has to do......