Bailey’s Blog

There was a error in this previous artice in October which I have re written so it makes more sense (sorry about that! and thank you to the reader for letting me know!!!)

This is the second blog on POSITIONING on the tennis court. Positioning relates to how, when and where is the best place to LOCATE yourself on the court when the opponent is getting ready to hit the ball.

There are 3 important factors when positioning yourself on the court:

1.) Where you GEOMETRICALLY position yourself on the court in relation to where the ball is being hit.

2.) The DEPTH of your position on the court.

3.) How you position yourself in RELATION TO THE BALL when the opponent is about to make contact with the ball.

This blog will concentrate on geometric court positioning.

In tennis it is crucial to understand geometrically how to position yourself on the court as correct positioning will give you maximum time to react and minimal distance to move to your opponents shot. Geometric positioning is UNDERSTANDING where YOU need to recover to and/or position on the court according to where your opponent is ABLE to hit his shot. In a nutshell…..you need to bisect the angle of your opponents greatest possible range of shot or …..position yourself at the MIDPOINT of the greatest angles that your opponent can possible create. Thus I like to call this the mid point recovery position.

For example, if you hit the ball to the center of the court, your mid point recovery position should be the middle of the court.

If you hit the ball cross court you position yourself a few steps to the same side of the centreline from where you hit the ball(your end of the court) so you can cover your opponents sharp angled reply. Remembering, if your opponent goes down the line the shot is coming towards you but a cross court shot is going away from you.

However, if you hit down the line the mid point recovery position changes a few steps to the OTHER SIDE of the centerline from where you hit the ball(down your end of the court)as now you need to ready for your opponents sharp cross court angled reply. The take home message is that when you go the line you must recover a lot further than when you go cross court. i.e. if you hit a f/hand cross court (this is for a right hander) you stay right of center, down the middle recover to the middle, go down the line recover left of center!!!

This brings up a couple of important points about playing a shot down the line. You must understand that firstly……you must recover further….secondly…..understand what contact move suits a down the line shot……thirdly….be very balanced as the shot is more difficult and risky i.e. you hit over the high part of the net, the short part of the court, have less court to hit into and usually are changing the direction of the ball flight. My rule of thumb is only go down the line when you are in control of the point and your feet are well up in the court!

I was watching a great interview of the very famous and successful comedian Jerry Sienfeld. He was saying he was asked to speak to an assembly of school children and gave these 3 rules towards being successful in life (and I really think they relate to being successful in tennis as well)-

1. Bust your arse - to get any where you want you have to work really really hard
2. Pay attention - listen carefully to your teachers as this how you learn
3. Fall in love - this means enjoy the great times, slow down and appreciate things, love it when you get a really great coffee, or get a really good parking spot, enjoy the big and small moments in life ….how can you truly play tennis if you don’t love the game?…you must train because you love it …not because your good at it or you HAVE to do it.