I am starting to suffer a bit from soreness in my right arm. Nothing serious yet, but it has made me focus on string setups for tennis elbow. Tennis can be a pretty injury prone sport and this time all the testing of different strings, racquets and grips have made my arm sore. I haven’t suffered from problems of tennis elbow until I increased my testing of new gear. It will likely require me to structure my reviews differently and focus on string setups for tennis elbow (for a period). I generally like a stiffer string bed and a controlled …
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I am doing some drills together with my hitting partner and we’re both noticing the benefits. This video deals with why you should do drills. My guess is that most club players just play tennis to enjoy practice matches and tournaments. They like tennis for exercise and the competitive element. I enjoy pretty much all aspects of the sport and that is why I even find drills fun and interesting. So I made a vlog that says: Why you should do drills. The reasons are quite obvious. You want to improve your strokes, footwork, positioning, etc. One key point is …
Why do you play tennis? I’ve thought about this question lately and wanted to share my tennis story. I’m also keen to hear yours! So why do you play tennis? For me, there is a multitude of answers. And I want to take this post to tell you a part of my tennis story. Tennis is a great sport. It provides excellent exercise, it’s social, you challenge yourself, you can focus on learning a craft, and it’s fun. All these things are true, but some words ring more true for some people and not for others. I was always into …
I’ve just published a vlog called “Are you switching to a new racquet?”. I talk about my racquet journey and give some tips to fellow players. Switching to a new racquet can be a difficult process. You need to have patience, you need to do things in the right order, you need to stay committed and be focused through the inevitable highs and lows (honeymoon period and so on). I am helping players on a part of the way through my racquet consultation service, but even after narrowing the choice down, you need to commit, find the right setup for …
I get loads of questions about tennis racquets every day, but I have never done a video to deal with some of them. So here is my new vlog talking about different types of tennis racquets. It might be basic to some, but, hopefully, it can give you some of you some good information. There is an avalanche of racquets being released every year and it is very difficult to keep track of what is new, what is different and figure out what you should play with. The goal of Tennisnerd is mainly to help navigate the tennis gear jungle, …
I have just uploaded another installation in the vlog series I call “The Bumpy Road to Improving Your Tennis”. This one is mainly dealing with me trying to improve my forehand. I am trying to switch from a “Semi-Eastern” (between Eastern and Semi-Western) grip to a full Semi-Western. I have been playing tennis for a long time and most of the time with one style of grip. To change this in an effort to trying to improve my forehand is going to take a lot of willpower because I will play and look like a fool for a while. I …
Yesterday I posted a slightly different tennis vlog called “The Bumpy Road to Improving Your Tennis”. In this video I wanted to talk about some the elements I’m working on and consequently struggling with. Keen to hear your feedback on more content of this type. What is different in this video is that the focus has shifted from gear to general tennis improvement. What I mean with the title: “The Bumpy Road to Improving Your Tennis” is that learning is never a straight line. It will bring frustrations and self-loathing, as well as some truly inspirational moments when you feel …
I wanted to spend some time on a common but important topic when you are interested in buying a tennis racquet: comfort vs power. It is easy to fall into the typical marketing jargon and be excited about getting more power on your shots. Sometimes this will result in injuries. Powerful racquets often mean stiff racquets. If a racquet is flexible, the racquet absorbs the vibrations and the ball stays longer on the strings. With a stiffer racquet, the ball shoots off quickly from the string bed and your arm and hand is left dealing with the vibrations. This can …
I thought it was about time to write a little Tennisnerd diary on the side of all the other, perhaps more relevant, posts. Just to update you on what is going on with my racquet testing and my own humble tennis journey. Let us call it: Thoughts of a tennisnerd. Readers ask me questions every now and then what I am playing with right now. It has been a difficult question to answer due to my ongoing knee injury. Do not worry, I know I have been yapping on and on about this for quite a while, and I think …
I have had the good fortune of watching grass court tennis live for the last three years at the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart. There is always something special with tennis on grass. And now I am considering Queens or Wimbledon. Watching grass court tennis live is a special experience. In one way it feels like a time machine to an era when three out of four Grand slams were played on the green stuff. And in another way, it is as fast-paced as tennis can be with the kind of serves and power that the ATP tour players have today. …