Bailey’s Blog

The secret to good weight transfer is not to front foot set too early. What this means is like a boxer, you keep the weight on the back foot and step forward just at the right time so there is maximum wieight transfer. A really good way to describe this is too play tennis with the philosophy of BACK FOOT, FRONT FOOT. If you step too early into the ball and have your weight set too early then your game becomes FRONT FOOT BACK FOOT which means that on contact with the ball your weight is going backwards which is conteprroductive to balance, power, control and effectiveness of shot.

The main difference between a player who is 5 in the world and 500 in the world is 2 things - Concentration and Visualisation. Concentration means no Focus Errors i.e. errors due to lack of effort,discipline, concentration or commitment. Visualisation means having a game plan on where to hit everyball on your side of the net i.e. being alert so you recognise the speed/flight/height/spin/depth and having the appopriate reponse. Visualisation can also come under the blanket term of shot selection.Understanding what shot is on and what shot is not on.

Knowing what footwork to use and what contact move to make can make a huge difference in concentration and visualisation.

Tennis is an anaerobic or interval sport of short burst of energy between 3 and 20 seconds. And,because it places high energy demands on the body it rarely uses fat stores as a source of energy. Therefore, tennis is not a good sport for weight loss. If you want to burn fat (which is important for tennis because excess bulk will make you slower around the court) then try and do slow continuos easy excercise for 1 hr, up to 5 times a week….keep the heart rate between 120 and 140 beats per minute to get real benefits… but no higher. It is absolutely crucial that you also balance this with a well balanced diet as fat loss and dietary habits go hand in hand. Great fat burning exercises for tennis are light jogging, stair,soft sand and hill power walking, rope - skipping or boxing on a soft surface as all these help your running rhthym and footwork on the tennis court.

When you put these 5 R’s into your on-court movement and think about them, then it becomes easy to analize your footwork (especially with video analysis). This is  because when ever you play you need to get-

1. Ready by being on your toes and splitting your step,
2. Read an approaching ball (spin,depth,height and speed) and see where the ball lands (footwork zone), 
3. React by selecting certain out steps towards the ball and then setting  the feet up into a hitting stance,
4. Respond with a contact move(athletic move you make when contacting the ball) and a corresponding balance move (a move where the legs keep you balanced) and finally
5. Recover by making a brake step(s), followed by recovery step(s) to the midline recovery position! (a place on the court where you place yourself at the midline of the opponents angle of play).

The 5 R’s are 5 areas where you can look for strengths and weaknesses in relation to your on court movement, and when these all merge together nicely, your body will flow smoothly with effortless effort and effective efficiency.

To LAUGH often and much, to win the RESPECT of INTELLIGENT people and the AFFECTION of children, to earn the APPRECIATION of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to APPRECIATE BEAUTY, to find the BEST in others, to leave the WORLD a bit BETTER, whether by a healthy child, a GARDEN patch….to know even one life has BREATHED easier because you have LIVED. This is to have SUCCEEDED! - Emerson

A study by Professor Robert Gray from the University of Arizona in the US showed that when expert athletes like golfers, tennis players and baseball players are forced to think about striking a ball their performance dropped. He concluded that “over-concentrating on the movement of their bodies had interrupted the experts’ muscle memory, which is usually used for the task” He believed that the choking mechanism takes over when a athlete tries too hard to perform during high-pressure situations in competition. Remedies suggested for this problem is video record them so they desensitise to the pressure or get the athlete to focus on factors outside like the wind direction or ,in baseball,the stance of the pitcher.

Coaches, parents and players be aware with 20 years of training tennis fitness and footwork I have researched and found that there are only 6 movement skills you need to develop to master baseline tennis!

Based within these 6 movement skills are the 15 contact moves i.e. athletic move that is made when making contact with the ball. Following are the six movement skills Note : these only relate to the movement of the lower body(hips and legs), not the feet! 

Movement Skill One - Hip Pivots (contact moves - front, 1foot,  2 feet and closed pivots).

Movement Skill Two - Hip Spins (contact moves - low, high and reverse spins).

Movement Skill Three - Multi -directional Hop (contact moves - front, back, lateral and backwards lateral hops)

Movement Skill Four -  Transfer step (contact moves - forward and lateral transfers)

Movement Skill Five - Mogul shift ( contact moves - mogul move)

Movement Skill Six - Power lunge ( contact move - power move) 

Any attack performed halfway through a normal rally is said to occur on the HALF BEAT.When then player lulls his opponents rhythm by “breaking the trance” and striking on the half beat i.e. sneaking into the net,taking the ball out of the air, taking the ball on the rise etc… he/she breaks the rhythm of the rally. This broken rhythm method will often catch the opponent mentally and physically off balance. And this is the secret to tennis…..keep your own rhythm and break you opponents rhythm. Good cue is - Strike on the half beat.

I also love this quote and it relates to teaching using rhythm….look at how we learn maths i.e. 1+1 is 2, 2 + 2 is 4 etc…  “The best way to learn is through the powerful force of rhythm !” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) Austrian Composer

I found this quote by Andre Agassi in the 2006 March tennis Magazine pg 5 -

” A strong body listens. It obeys. A weak body commands. If your body is weak it tells you what to do. If your body is strong it’ll actually listen to you when you tell it to do something. If you build it right you can overcome some of the obstacles of age and recovery.”

If you can get strong and fit when you play tennis, that is , take the fitness element out of the equation, then your body becomes your best stroke because the single most important ingredient to be sucessful in any sport is to remain injury free.

The technique to sprint for a drop shot in tennis is nothing like the high knee technique of a 100 meter sprinter.Tennis is a game of acceleration of where you are sprinting and getting lower as you approach the ball not getting higher like a track star does.In tennis, to run forward well 1) use a low knee lift 2) take short choppy strides 3) have a short stride length and 4) a high stride frequency. Foot placement is the key to speed. Don’t get feet ahead of your centre of gravity. In effect, that’s like braking every step. Make the feet hit under your center of gravity. Focus on minimal foot contact time, arms crossing the body and driving the feet down instead of lifting the knees up. Practice sprinting with a racket in hand and flick a stationary ball off the ground over the net….if you lift up, the ball will roll into the net!