Analysis Archives

Latest in Analysis

Match analysis: Medvedev vs Kecmanovic

by Evan Gaudreau May 30, 2022

written by Evan Gaudreau

Coach Evan is back with a match analysis, this time he deals with Medvedev vs Kecmanovic from the French Open third round.

Medvedev vs. Kecmanovic
by Evan Gaudreau

Sometimes I like to pick on coaches.
Ahhh!
Maybe that’s an understatement.
But sometimes, I like to validate coaches too.
Coaching at all levels can be challenging. We spend a lot of time on the court with the players and the parents.
Off the court too.

“What do you want to do this afternoon?” my wife asked as I sat at the desk making notes on a pad.
I had just gotten back from teaching and was making teaching notes with a red pen, thinking about the drills I used and the lessons I had that morning.
“Hello?”
“Huh?”
“I asked you what you wanted to do this afternoon?”
“I didn’t hear you. I was making some notes.”
“I can see that?”
I didn’t realize (all these years) that she was doing crap around the house all morning, so when I walked in the door and after I took a shower, we could be on the go.

She didn’t realize that my brain was going over the training I had that morning with the students and the process I go through thinking about the past training, the present, and what adjustments I need to make in the future.
As the day went on, I would drift in and out of the conversations we were having as I thought about the morning training,
Do a lot of coaches do this?

In some ways, I think they do; in others, I think they are more focused on ego and $$$.

Parents…

The phone calls from parents can be time-consuming. So are the conversations after the training.
“You were just on the phone for over an hour,” my wife said, frustrated.
“That’s part of the job with tournament parents.”
“You need to start charging a private lesson fee for those calls.”
“I’d feel weird doing that.”
“They’re taking time away from the family and us.”
She had a point.
So often, the tournament, players’ parents try to squeeze every penny and are focused on what they want and don’t give a hoot about what’s going on on the other side.
It’s Funny!
That sounds like a lot of people in life.
Give an inch, take a mile.

This brings us to this….one of my favorite players to watch before retiring.
David Nalbandian!
What he’s done with the kid is turn him into a solid top 30….almost.
This year, things are starting to click. The transition from adding a new coach generally takes 9-12 months, just for starters. Then things begin to move forward.
But what if you had a bad coach?
That would stink.
What if the problem was you and not the coach?

Attitudes

Where Tsitsipas is constantly pacing the court, looking like he’s in a hurry to get somewhere, presumably to the bathroom, Kecmanovic looks like the unhappiest dude on the court.

Both these attitudes are holding them back.
It’s not about the strokes.
It’s not as much about the training.
It’s who they are as people (and the environment they grew up in adds a lot to that).
Parents!

What if I told you that the reason your kid could only make it so far was because of you? Not the coaches (although some coaches can also be part of the problem).
Would you accept that?
No, right?
It would destroy the fantasy in your head and you’d feel worthless.
Put Simply!
The goal in life is mental growth!!
Not your kid turning into a professional athlete.
That’s just a by-product of the environment you created.

A little secret

Little secret.
Maybe the kids don’t want that.
I’m not telling you to hold back; I’m trying to re-wire your brain. The journey is the key to life success and what they learn about themselves.
I dabble in stupidity too, with my kids.
I lose focus on what’s important.
Maybe the training my kid does has nothing to do with being a twelve UTR and is more about the process of understanding herself and who she is to be successful in what SHE CHOOSES to do with her life after college.
But, for now, tennis is like a job.
A collaborative one, albeit.
In some ways, it’s something she has to do.
It’s a commitment.
But it’s not torture.
Everyone has limits and most kids will not be professional athletes.

Listen to Evan

(You can actually listen to my podcast with Evan here)

“Why are you listening to Evan?” said the doctor. “I went to Yale; you should be listening to me.”
“Yeah, He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said the lawyer. “He went to a rinky-dink college in Connecticut; I graduated from Harvard.”
How’s that working out for you!
If you have to tell people you are a success….Are you really a success?
Wake up.
Literally.
Rage Against the Machine.
“Although ya try to discredit, ya still never read it,
The needle I thread it, radically poetic,
Standin’ with the fury that they had in 66’
And like E-Double “I’m Mad”, Still knee deep in the systems shit….”

The song is a little heavy for the old-timers.
Now, “One more Unto the Breach, Dear Friends.”

Medvedev plays a game of possum

One big difference between a player like Medvedev and a player like Brooksby is how Medvedev uses his AD side “recycle” spot. It’s not just to recycle the point. He plays a game of possum. He hits the ball deep and “baits” the player to attack the line. And that’s what when he attacks.

A simple drill to work on this is “Dead Balls.” Have the player stand somewhere on the Ad side (depending on their level) and rip feeds into the Deuce side and have the player recover them with a hard angle crosscourt.
I’m an eye for an eye kind of guy. I like these drills because I will lay down the hurt with interest.
I should have been a hockey player.

Another big difference is how Medvedev gets out of trouble.
Quickly.
A timely ace.
A winner.
He seems to Houdini his way out of trouble, a lot.
On the backhand side he has the two-hander he can attack crosscourt and down the line.
More specifically, he trains for multiple outcomes.
When to attack, when to recycle.

It’s so much easier for players to have one out during point play, one recycle spot. It takes years to develop options.
And that’s if you have one coach in the process.
The more coaches you leave and then add….add to the problem of learning. There’s no cohesion. You are always starting from scratch. You may see success early but the wall will be hit and the parent will think it’s time to move on.
It’s funny but sad.

Push or attack?

Like life, one of something is one-dimensional. And what happens if that one thing is broken. Two of something is much better. You can absorb the loss. Three of something and now we’re talking.
Master one game plan and add to it.
Generally, at the club level, players either push or attack.

At the junior level, eight UTR and above, they start to add a little more….but if they spend too much time in the technical world or have too many mental reps on one strategy….when push comes to shove they will go back to the “beginning” for fear of losing.

Back to Nalbandian

Is he still Kecmanovic’s coach?
Or is the Coaching carousel continuing?

Funny note I made during the match. Medvedev used grunting as a tactic. In the first set at 3-2, he recycled the point while grunting during the first point. I’m not a big grunter, but I get the concept. Use the grunt to make your intentions known to your opponent. Medvedev is pointing out the fact with his grunt that he is recycling the point and trying to get it in his opponent’s head.

Another cool thing Medvedev (and Djokovic) do is flip-flop their attacks. They don’t always attack when the opponent redirects the ball while recycling the point. And it’s not random.
The first stage of learning (after you’re done with technique and accept your limitations) is to practice certain patterns when you are down and specific patterns when you are up. It makes sense to work on defensive patterns when you are down, which is fine, and aggressive patterns when you are up…
…but it’s also ok to flip-flop that idea too. Try serving and volleying at 15-30….once you succeed with that….it becomes the precursor to serving and volleying at 30-40….
Point training is a whole another beast. If you wait too long, you will have built up too many “one-dimensional” thoughts in your head that you can’t break out of.

Coaching can be a thankless job!
Side note: If Nalbandian is out as Kecmanovic’s coach, he should be snatched up ASAP.

May 30, 2022 0 comment

Analysis Players

Match Analysis: Sloane Stephens vs. Diane Parry

by Evan Gaudreau May 29, 2022

written by Evan Gaudreau

Coach Evan Gaudreau is back with a match analysis of the French Open match between Sloane Stephens and Diane Parry.

Sloane Stephen vs. Diane Parry
Match Analysis by Coach Evan

“I don’t always drink, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis!”
Translation!
“I don’t always watch the WTA tour, but when I do, I watch Sloane Stephens.”
She’s a pure ball striker. Anisimova is another one. I followed both on Instagram for a bit, but it got a little “chicky” for Evan the Meathead.
But that’s neither here nor there and….
“When the money is gone, it is time to move on.”

And, with all good ball strikers, there lies two worlds: the technical world and the strategy world.
I forgot to mention that good ball strikers tend to be “natural” athletes. Whatever that means.
They’re athletic. Whether you believe they were born that way or molded is a moot point. Tennis teaches us that you don’t have to be the most athletically gifted athlete to play at a high level. It also has a funny way of holding ball strikers in purgatory. Ball strikers tend to spend too much time on feel and how everything looks.
Aesthetically.
Which mirrors their Instagram posts.

Ball strikers smoke winners

Ball strikers generally have a checkered past too. That’s why we delve into the swing and master the mechanics.
It’s our way of escaping.
It’s our way of happiness.
And it’s a world we can control.
When I was a young player, I cared more about how my stroke looked and the shots I could create from “odd” locations than winning. It drove coaches crazy.
“Evan, you should’ve beat this guy one and one.”
I shrugged.
“Seriously.”
“Did you see the backhand I ripped down the line at three-all?” I said as I rehearsed the shot in my mind.
“Who cares? You lost that game.”
“Or the backhand snapper I smoked crosscourt for a winner?”
The thought of the ball scooting by my opponent made me smile.
“Why are you smiling? If you were smart,” the coach said frustratingly, “you would have won the match quicker. Instead, you play dumb shots.”
“You’re just jealous you can’t do the things I can do with the ball.”
“You’re just stupid.”
Trigger word.
“Fuck you,” I said and walked away. I’m not proud of my language, but I don’t mess around when the PTS trigger is activated.
Anyway.

All I knew was that I was happier when I hit great shots. I liked being able to show what I could do with the ball. Coaches tried to take that happiness away, verbally saying stupid crap, nonsensical selfish rants.
It’s probably why I like to listen to the same song repeatedly until I hear all the pieces.
The guitars, the drums, the bass, and the lyrics.
Isolating each piece.
Right now, I’m listening to The Gaslight Anthem, “Dark Places.”
Listen to this song.
Seriously!
Listen.

My my first girlfriend was my tennis racket

“My first girlfriend was my tennis racket,” I used to joke with my buddies.
It’s crazy, right? But there are only a few people worldwide who would understand. I had to “break up” with the technical world and move on and start “dating” the strategy world.
And let me tell you….the “break-up” was tough.
This is why I pick on players like Felix Auger-Aliassime. He’s in love with his swing.
Haha. I can’t help but laugh.
It’s funny when I see myself in other players.

Why do you think Kyrgios travels without a coach?
Ok. OK.
Match time!

Back to the match and what a one-hander!

Diane Parry has a one-handed backhand.
How do you get after it?
Players with one-handers are “different.” On and Off the court.
Generally, righty one-handers like the middle of the Ad side and create havoc from there with their forehand.
One-handers spend a lot of time training in that spot, so you have to put them on the edges (and sneak some droppers to the deuce side service box).
Notice the way Parry takes the racket back. All I see is thought.
A lot of thought into the swing.

Side note.
What’s cool when coaching is when you see the player’s eyes open a little more….like the lightbulb went on.
How many coaches have burnt bulbs?
Lots.
Both players are thinking about their shots…but Sloane has more life experience and she thinks more tactically now than years ago. She has made the transition mentally, but that “old feeling” will come back now and then.
Perfection.
Technique.

Sloane has the right focus

Sloane is getting it. She’s focused more on her patterns than on her technique….then the process is belief in the plan.
Players at home stop focusing on stats and the scores.
The drills to take away from Sloane is to “tap” the center of the court and then hit the sides….but keep the rally going. If you pull the player off the court, tap the center, recycle the rally, and move them to the other side (or back).
There are many variations.
You can open it up and play until one player hits five winners and then switch roles (one player can only hit to the Deuce or the Ad side of the court).

You can also play open on both sides of the court.
Another drill is opens. Make a box on both corners on the Deuce and Ad sides and move the player back and forth.
Cut the Baseline on the other side of the court into “Fours” and have you or the other player hit from that spot, controlling the other player.
You can also do this with Fed ball to hit out on the ball and not have to worry about it coming back.
I call that drill “Cleaners” Or “Smokes.”
It’s fun to just “release” the swing.

I don’t have all the time in the world. I have to go to work.
But I’m leaving you with homework.
Go watch the movie “Good Will Hunting.”
Worst case scenario, watch the video scene “perfect for each other.” That scene will give you a glimpse into what perfectionists think. I think it’s funny that a movie made more impact on my life than a person.

P.S.
The song was good, right?
I wouldn’t steer you wrong!

May 29, 2022 1 comment

Analysis

Match analysis: Muchova vs Sakkari, French Open 2022

by Evan Gaudreau May 26, 2022

written by Evan Gaudreau

Coach Evan is back with a match analysis from French Open 2022: Muchova vs Sakkari. Did you watch the match?

Muchova vs Sakkari, French Open 2022
Match Analysis by Evan Gaudreau

You can watch the highlights of the Muchova vs Sakkari match here.

Here’s the thing about analysis pieces. If I bang it out on the first watch, it’s going to be missing something. Maybe it’s the way I process a match. Maybe my brain doesn’t work fast enough. Either way, there’s always something new that pops up the second time around. After watching the first three games last night, I shut the computer off.
I was frustrated.

There seemed to be nothing going on….and I wasn’t in the mood to watch so many unforced errors.
Waking up this morning, I thought about what I could be missing. Is there more than what we see? Is there something going on behind the scenes? Or is it the way the player’s process strategy that makes them come out of the gates like bucking horses….all fired up and nowhere to go to.
Unforced error city.

That’s a place I’m not particularly eager to go to.

What is Sakkari up to?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how players process information or strategy and use it during matches.
After the first three games, I’m scratching my head.
What is Sakkari up to?

A thought popped into my head. Maybe she trains technical. Maybe she warms up and rips balls here and there, working on a form, feel, and power randomly….yet the coaches are asking her to do a specific strategy during the match that contradicts the training sessions.

For juniors at home, it’s like going to your lessons, hitting back and forth with the teaching pro most of the lesson.
Crosscourt.
Down the lines.
And then playing points and wondering why the student is hitting back to you when you want them to hit the open court.
Does that make sense?

Dichotomy on the WTA Tour

On the WTA Tour, I feel that a similar problem is happening. I feel as though the training and the strategic planning aren’t meshing.
There’s a dichotomy.
The coaches assume the player can go out there and perform a strategy they haven’t worked on (too much technical training).
Is that why the women’s game is so wishy-washy?
Could it go deeper?
Would deeper investigation reveal the “blocker” seed was dropped at ten or twelve years old?
By the parents!
Parents! What you say to your kid’s matters and the words you use are triggers that hold them back.

Easy example.
Do you leave the court on a negative? Are you constantly telling them what they did wrong? How you talk to your kid matters.
No shit!
We’re missing the thing that’s right in front of us.
I’m just as guilty as anyone.
(There is a time and place for negative feedback, though, when you’re planting a seed that needs to be soaked in).

Two things.

One is that my daughter left the court after making an error on her last shot last night. The Dad in me wanted to feed her another ball until she made it, and the coach in me said Oh Well! Maybe she will work harder the next time she’s on the court and not make that error. I joked about it in front of her with another parent.

“The Dad in me what’s to feed her another ball,” I said to another parent and a coach. “It’s funny as a parent. We’re always wanting to baby them.”
The Mom laughed.
“Before I had kids, I had big ideas….like how tough I would be on my kids. So they can learn to be strong..”
Etc. Etc. Etc.
“When I was a kid, I’d go home and beat walls against the garage after leaving a hit like that. I’d obsess over the mistake and try to make sure that never happen again.”
Life is not always so hunky-dory.
Sometimes it’s good to leave the court on a negative.
Sometimes!

The players who get brow-beat after every hitting session are the ones who lose any passion they had for the game. They are ready to call its quits by the time they’re eighteen.
They are sick of the B.S.

Second thing.

So! I’ve been working on a specific combo/drill with my daughter for the last three-four weeks. It’s more of a patient, return-type philosophy pattern. When she was playing points, the girl she was hitting with was pushing her around the court like a rag doll.
I was boiling inside.
Why was she letting the girl run her around like that and why was she hitting everything into the wheelhouse?
And that’s why I woke up with the thought about how coaches train their player’s effects how they construct points.
Duh!

Why would I think my daughter would go on attack mode if we have been working on defense?
I feel lucky in the sense that a lightbulb went off. How often do we blame our kids or someone else for not getting it when the person who doesn’t get it is staring us in the mirror?
Guess what we’re working on today?
Keeping the ball out of the middle and attacking from the first ball. I’ve been spending too much time on defensive patterns….Time to give her some cake instead of a heavy dose of veggies.

Back to the match.

Did Sakkari’s coach talk too much about the strategy going into the match and not training the patterns?
And how much time do they have between tournaments to work on stuff?
Sakkari opened up the match by returning to the center of the court and hitting her first ball to the backhand corner on her first service game.
SO far, she’s down 3-0.
But on her second service game, she hit the first balls over to the forehand side and had an easy hold.
I’m curious to see what strategy will continue.
Always playing short points is a volatile strategy.
It’s streaky.
This is why Barty will be missed in the women’s game. But Jabeur is interesting to watch.

A song popped into my head

A song popped into my head…by Band of Horses. “Casual Party”
The chorus line cracked me up.
“Blind faith, it don’t sit right
You got to rage wound so tight
I wanna leave
Best get out of the way.”

Why is this popping into my head right now?
It makes me think of players playing aggressively and listening to coaches’ faulty strategies.
Having “Blind Faith” in a strategy and how it doesn’t feel right….and after being down in the set, it’s time to “rage” and play the game plan that makes sense to you. And the coach or parent needs to “get out of the way.”
Not a bad song.
Give it a go.
Anyway.

1-4. 0-15. Funny point.

Sakkari gets a lob return that lands at no man’s land. She hits it inside out and Muchova hits a backhand down the line. Sakkari tries to hit an angle drop volley from the service line that sits up…
Listen!
If you can get away with dropping a volley at the service line and winning the point, the player on the other side isn’t that strong or smart.

If you’re working on volleys at home, discipline yourself only to drop when you are halfway up the service box. Develop good habits. Open court drops or deep volleys can work, but they must be “sitters.”
Low volleys from the service line should go forward (for starters) or go to the center of the court based on the side of the court you are on.

For instance, If your opponent is hitting a backhand passing shot from the Ad side singles sideline, down the line, and gives you a low volley and you hit your low volley to the Ad side (straight ahead) and stick it “off-center” what are they going to do with it.
Go right back to you?
Probably not.

Either way, you put the pressure on them. They have one pass option. Inside out. Or a lob. If you hit the volley to the open court, the pressure is on you. Your opponent has more options. As you recover to the other side of the court, they can go back crosscourt….if you don’t recover enough, then they have the line and if you commit too hard (a lot of coaches teach to close the net hard…a lot of those players get lobbed by junky lobs and lose the point).
Again.

There is a time and a place for everything.

You can hit open court volleys, but you have to plan and establish a pattern. Know the game score. I want to find a point that means little to me and see how my opponent covers the open court volley.
Say I’m up 3-0, 30-0. I might force my way in and “probe” my opponent’s open court passing shot. I don’t’ want to wait until they get comfortable in the match, and it’s 4-4 and 30-all to find this out.
So many players on all levels don’t probe early in the match, which is an excellent time to figure out your opponent and “squeeze the pressure” on.
And it’s so hard as a coach to “sell” discipline.

Don’t confuse discipline with pushing the ball back over the net.
I feel the minute WTA players get traction during the match and open up their game, the more they shoot themselves in the foot right after and give the momentum right back.

“My Name is Rex, and if you study my eight-week program, you will learn a system of patterns that will make you never lose a match again.”
How many Rex’s from Napoleon Dynamite are out there??
It’s funny how our memories play tricks on us.
Regardless of the score…we could be up 5-2, down 2-5, or whatever and the second we get some traction we go “bigger.”
Why is that?
What patterns and bad habits have we developed that keep getting in the way of progress?
How many people repeat the cycle….on the tennis court, at work, in our daily lives?

“I’m so sick of your shit”

“I’m so sick of your shit,” my college coach said. “You go for the corners constantly. You need to be more consistent!”
I wasn’t about to lay down and push balls back over the net. Every time I did that, I got pushed around and felt like a chump.
I felt like hitting out, and when I got grooved, I would take over the match. And it worked. Just not against the top players. I lost sets occasionally and was able to rebound in the third set….But I kept chasing it. I had won too many matches waiting for the streaks to happen. Blah. Blah. Blah.

“It’s like you didn’t think you lost the match,” he said.
“I didn’t,” I would say. “The other guy just pushed the ball back over deep. I played to win; he played not to lose.”
“Who won the match?”
“Who cares?” I said like a moron.
“One of these days, you have to wake up! And accept the fact that that guy beat you.”
Deep down, I knew he was right.
But I had dealt with so much mental bullshit from him that I didn’t want to listen.
Not from him.
“Stop believing whatever lies you’re feeding yourself and grow up.”
PTS Trigger.
The words, “Grow up.”

I heard it too many times from my parents. The rage in me wanted to rip his face off. I hate assholes. Call it oppositional behavior. Call it stupidity. I don’t listen to assholes either, even when they’re right.
Kind of.
After the season that summer, I ran the football stadium (privately) and got in ridiculous shape. I didn’t have to hit winners anymore. I could out-work my opponent.

What a revelation?
But the aggressive side had more reps in my mind and on occasion I would “panic” and resort to hitting a few “bailout” winners…
…and errors.
But I was learning.
Slowly.
I wish I had learned that when I was fifteen.

Back to the match again

One successful pattern keeps popping up during the match. Starting the point to Muchova’s forehand side, centered on the Deuce box, and then hitting the same side with a “pull” angled off on the second shot.
If it works on that side, could it work on the other side too?
At 4-5, 15-all, Sakkari hit a backhand up the line for a winner, off of a forehand down the line from Muchova.
I love those.
Line vs line.
But the opponent has to be conditioned to move to the crosscourt (or maybe if you weren’t so self-absorbed and watched your opponent practice, you’d pick up their training habits).
Muchova is susceptible to the double attack in the corners. She moves out so fast you can hit behind her. I wish Sakkari came out with that game plan.

If Sakkari serves down the “T” on the Duece side what are the options for Muchova?
1) Go to Sakkari’s forehand corner? Then Sakkari can pull the forehand cross-court, angled.
2) Go to Sakkari’s backhand; then she can start crosscourt on the first ball and “sneak” some backhands down the line to change it up.
3) Return to the middle. Then Sakkari can either double the ball back to the same middle location or pull the angle again.

I know it’s not that simple, but why not have that gameplan to start the match and not the
first ball to the backhand?
I also don’t think Sakkari has a solid backhand crosscourt to use strategically. Maybe she should add that into her game. Instead of Forehand. Forehand. Forehand.

Men are meatballs

Here’s the funny part that just crossed my mind. And it was right in front of me. Women process differently than Men.
Men are meatballs. But they’re highly competitive and stubborn. They think they know everything about everything.
Women are more trusting. At least they want to feel that you’re on their side. Maybe it’s part of their social aspect. So when a coach is telling them what to do, they listen. And want to be listened to.
Guys don’t care. Because in their head, they are smarter than everyone.

The point is that the WTA needs coaches like a horse whisperer. A dude who can relate, someone who has experience in that department. The problem is that many male coaches are meatballs and only know how to be a meatball.
Women don’t want meatballs!
Or so I’ve heard.
From older sisters, a wife, and four daughters.
I used to be a meatball until having four daughters taught me to look at things differently.
Rambling.

I’m stopping at the first set tie break.
At 3-3, Sakkari played not to lose. The strategy was to hit the ball in the center of the court and hope to win.
She lost the set.
There is so much potential in the women’s game. They need coaches who can communicate their way.
Not meatball to meatball.

The takeaway

It’s ok to have a game plan. But you also need to adjust and know when to adjust, and there’s no correct answer. Why doesn’t Sakkari attack the angles early in the match and realize that Muchova likes to continue moving in the direction her momentum is going? Does her coach analyze matches? If he did, why wouldn’t they change the strategy? Is he too insecure about delegating jobs and worried that he would lose his coaching position?
That philosophy holds back the game.
On all levels.
Guilty as charged.

Tennis is weird in the sense that there is no collaboration between coaches.
Next time you go out on the court, focus on “T” patterns and use the different combinations you can play by shifting your opponents body weight to the center of the court and then pick a side to hit your first ball to. Or serve wides and take your first ball back to the same location for a few games, half a set or a full set and then change the location.
Look what happens!
You’re opponent gets confused.

Worst case. Next time you practice play one set working on something and one set to win. You might learn something.

May 26, 2022 1 comment

Analysis Coaching

Playing in a crosswind

by Evan Gaudreau May 18, 2022

written by Evan Gaudreau

Coach Evan is back with his thoughts and a story about playing in a crosswind. Check out more of his posts here.

Playing in a crosswind – Evan Gaudreau

The town tennis courts were built in rows of three. There were five sections. Two players were playing in the section next to the parking lot. They tried to hit the ball back and forth.
“This is so annoying,” Dave said.
The wind was blowing left to right at fifteen miles per hour.
“Playing in the wind sucks. It’s not even tennis,” his playing partner, Joe said.
The ragweed started blowing across the court. Strands rolled together and clumped. The clumps blew in a circular motion like a mini cyclone and collected at the back of the fence.
“I cleared the court before you came with the blower.”
“It doesn’t look like it,” Dave said, frustrated.
“Let’s warm up a few more minutes,” he said.
He pulled a ball out of his left pocket and fed it across the net.
Dave moved to his left to hit a forehand. As he did it, the wind picked up and the ball moved further away.
The ball hit towards the top of the racket.
Shank.

Hating the wind

Two sections away, Vin was hitting with his student.
“Those two guys are struggling over there,” he said.
“I wish we were indoors today,” his student said.
So did Vin. Teaching in the wind was a pain. Most of the time you didn’t need a basket of balls. One can was good enough.
It was better to work on points.
“Right?” he said rhetorically. “But you‘re going to be playing high school tennis next year and you have to get used to it, unfortunately.”
“Do you like playing out here in the wind?”
Vin remembered hating the wind in high school.
“I like it. But, there was a time I hated it.”
They both walked to opposite ends of the court and began rallying.
“Stand off of the center,” Vin said and pointed his racket left. “The wind will pull the ball slightly to your forehand.”
His student, Graham, either wasn’t listening or couldn’t hear him due to the wind blowing. Vin fed the ball over the net, feeding it right at his body, planning on the wind to move it.
They rallied for a few shots until Graham hit a shot that the wind pulled into the Ad side corner. Vin watched it as it passed by, not attempting to retrieve it.
He fed another ball in and they rallied again.
As the rally extended, Graham moved hard to his backhand side. As the wind pulled the ball back to him, he overran the contact point slightly and jumped right. The ball went back over the net, weak.
“Stand off of the center,” Vin repeated as he waited for the ball to reach him. After three bounces he hit the ball back over the net.
“The ball is going to chase you from the left. You don’t have to over-commit to the backhand side.”

Slice is valuable tool

When playing points in a crosswind from right to left, players could rip balls into the backhand corner and the wind would knock it down. Drop shots worked well to that side of the court also.
Other times, players could use the wind to their advantage and attack the other side of the court.
Vin liked to hit his backhand slice down the line into the forehand corner and watch as the player tried to go crosscourt “into” the wind and the ball would end up in the net. He also liked to use his backhand slice crosscourt, letting the wind knock the ball down and keeping the contact point ankle-high.
It was a tough ball to pick up.
Vin saw the slice as a valuable tool in the wind. Topspin had a way of “hanging” in the wind, providing a meatball for the opponent.
After rallying for a few more minutes, they walked to their bags and got a sip of water.
“How would you play points in this weather? What kind of combos would you use?”
“None,” Vin said. “It’s hard to control the ball in this crosswind. I play more position…like with the wind going to my left, I try to set you up so I can attack your forehand corner…and let the wind carry the ball by you.”
They both took another sip.
“I look at it in halves. Like, if I’m on the Deuce side, I’m trying to keep you in a crosscourt rally and I’m looking for two things….one is if you go down the line, I’m chipping you a short angle cross. For me, that’s when the point starts…once I burn you enough with that tactic and I get you to push out of the corner, I’ll sneak of few pops with my backhand down the line.
And I’ll mostly try to pull you off the court on the Deuce side. But I have to use the down-the-line shot to keep you honest occasionally. I also use the forehand slice a few times.”
“Forehand slice. I used to get yelled at for using that at the Academy. We used to get yelled at for using slice anytime.”
“What Hackers,” Vin said. “There are two types of coaches that don’t use slice. Machines, like the robotic swing players who mostly hit topspin….once their playing days are done and they look back, they realize they were just “hitters” for the players who were the priority.”
“What’s the other one?”
“I forgot.”He took a sip of water.
“I’ll remember in a few minutes. My mind is distracted.”

Sneaky Patterns

They walked back to the baseline and played groundstroke points.
After the first few points, Vin started the points out by hitting to Graham’s forehand and then shooting the ball over to his backhand side so he could work on not crowding the ball while the wind pushed the ball towards him.
Graham was slowly starting to get the hang of it. Vin continued the pattern for a few more minutes. A thought popped into his head. He thought about coaches and how he noticed over the years that they had a need to win and by having that need they tended to focus more on themselves and that need.
Vin only felt that need with hard cases.
Players who thought winning was the priority. He tried to show them that that wasn’t the answer. Against them, he moved the ball around in sneaky patterns, controlling them like a Marionette or stuck them deep in the backhand corner for half the game and didn’t let them out like holding a piece of candy over his seven-year-old daughter’s head, teasing her, and watching as she jumped up and down, flailing. His daughter finally learned to poke his stomach and bring his arm down.
Lesson learned.

Developing, not only winning

The sad part about teaching, he thought while he picked up a couple balls in the corner, was that those types of players….the ones focused on winning and not developing, had parents that were holding them back.
A lesson he learned after thirty years of coaching.
Vin fed in a ball and played a few more points.
He was getting more patient with his footwork and he wasn’t charging to the backhand corner unless he had to.
Five more minutes went by as the points continued.
“Let’s get a quick drink,” Vin said.
After the drink, Vin rolled out the hopper of balls.
“We’re going to do a little fed ball,” he said. “I’m going to feed you random feeds. And I’m going to try to get you stuck in the backhand corner.”
At forty-seven, and spending a lot of his teaching years doing more hitting during lessons than feeding, Vin was starting to incorporate a few more feeding drills, and trying to get ready for his fifties.
It had mixed results.
If you fed too many drills hour after hour it destroyed the forearm. If you hit live ball too much, they missed out on some conditioning-type drills.
A hyper-volt massage gun helped at the end of the day.
As he fed a few balls, Mike laughed at the idea that life was life.
The search for balance in all aspects.
Teaching,
Marriage,
Being a parent,
A friend,
A co-worker (he didn’t have to worry about that. He was a private contractor and worked on his own).
He thought about how each aspect affected the other, to a certain degree.

Learnings

When you’re playing in a crosswind, you can throw out the combos, especially in the New England cold. It’s more about controlling the ball from left to right. And digging in for the grind on return points.

Simple drills you can use are two-ball combo drills where you hit to the center of the court and then pick one of the other sides of the court. Or whatever two spots you want to work on….maybe try three-ball combos too. But really, it’s about control. For us in New England, we can spray balls in the wind if our “mindset” is still playing indoor tennis. A lot of the balls that drop in when we’re hitting in the wind would be five to ten feet out indoors.
I remember when I was high school age, a got a call on the landline that a player from the South was up for the week on vacation and looking for a hit. He was a man in his forties.
“This is tennis,” he said on a changeover referring to playing outside.
“I’d rather be playing inside,” I said.
“All you New England players do. It’s fake tennis. Perfect conditions. No sun, no wind, no learning how to play in the elements. That’s why New Englanders lose when they play in the south. They don’t learn how to play in the elements.”
Whenever I think of these old stories, I think of the movie, ‘Good Will Hunting’ when Robin Williams’s character said, I’m paraphrasing here….”What a super philosophy you have, keep playing indoor tennis that way you can be safe and secure and never expose yourself to the elements and the fear of losing to players you would beat indoors.”
OK! I fudged the line a bit.
If you don’t expose yourself to the elements and embrace wind tennis and learn to adapt you’ll never truly get it.
You can hide in the safety of perfect conditions and pretend you’re better than you are….but in the back of your mind, you know you’re cheating yourself on learning opportunities.
And more importantly….You’re cheating yourself on mental growth.

One last thing

Training and learning how to play in the wind is fine, but you have to play more points in these conditions to “sear” point patterns and confidence. When I think back to learning how to play in the wind and finally understanding relaxation, I think back to the movie Bloodsport with Jean-Claude Van Dam. The moment where his opponent throws salt in his eyes and he had to fight blind. He had to relax his mind after the initial frustration of being blinded. Because he knew he was going to win (as if he was playing tennis indoors) and then he was convinced he would lose because of the handicap (playing outside and losing to someone whom you felt was inferior, because you beat them so many times indoors).

Who is coach Evan? Check out this video.

May 18, 2022 0 comment

Analysis News

Djokovic vs Tsitsipas Rome Final

by Evan Gaudreau May 16, 2022

written by Evan Gaudreau

Our prolific guest contributor and analyst, coach Evan, is back with his take on the Djokovic vs Tsitsipas Rome final.

Djokovic vs Tsitsipas Rome Final by Evan Gaudreau

Have you ever heard of the sniff test? Me either. When in Rome, players, before the final have to put a hood (or a bedsheet) over their head, and a patron brings over Tupperware bowls filled with random crap and the players have to sniff the contents.

Here’s the deal. Only Tsitsipas played. And in his Tupperware bowl was Taleggio aged cheese from 1920 And he threw up.
That would explain the bagel in the first set. When in Rome….

I’m going to keep this first set simple. I’m only going to focus on the first three shots, maybe four.

Djokovic worked off the center of the court, as he has for the past few weeks. Tsitsipas probably should have taken some smelling salts after the cheese episode. Or at least done his homework. More on that in a sec.

After the return, each second ball went to a different location. Hmmm!

In his first service game, the first two +1’s after the serve went to the backhand corner and the second two went to the forehand corner (there was a missed return in there). The cool part was point two in the game. Djokovic hit his first two shots to the middle of the Ad side, shot the next one over to the forehand corner, and went back to the backhand side but moved the location closer to the side. He snuck a changeup in on Tsitsipas.

Now, did Tsitsipas do his homework?

He noticed, in previous matches, Djokovic is getting burned on droppers. He pulled one out on point two. It’s comical that players play other people’s strategies, not their own. Just because someone did something that worked doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Ask Zverev how that worked out against Rune a couple of weeks ago. He noticed Rune’s first-round opponent had success at the net. So, when in doubt he too came into the net. On crappy approaches and got passed most of the time. This happens on every level. Players cannot think for themselves and play a game of follow the leader.

Just don’t follow Borat. His B.O. will knock you out.

Players at home! Work on YOUR game. Not someone else’s.

More grip change combos

I’ve spoken about this before.
Grip change combos.

To beat Tsitsipas and Felix and Musetti….use grip change combos….Watch the youtube video of Jonas and me to learn more about that.

In the words of one troll that wrote in the comment section, “This is crazy to think the pros are doing this.”

In my words, “Spoken like a true a$#hole.” Thank Chubbs Peterson for that one. Happy Gilmour’s caddy.

What do you think of Tsitsipas’s shirt?
I bet you didn’t know that Adidas went to hundreds of kindergartens to seek advice for designs from five-year-olds.
“Make the wheel of a ship!”
“I want wavy lines like sea.”
“How about a line like a rainbow and put a quack “crack” in it.”
“Or how about an Atari logo.”

The first set was pretty quick. But go back and look at the two-four ball combos by Djokovic. There’s so much to be learned.
What you do with your first few shots matter. How close together are they? How far apart? Mix up the space and location.
I wanted to pick on someone sooo bad for their analysis….but my wife yelled at me. “Be the bigger man. Stop picking on people.”
Wife-1
Me-0

Let’s go to the second set.

When I watch Tsitsipas play, I think about grip changes….but on a mental level, I see a player who struggles to adapt when the stress is on. Like his brain can’t process or adjust during those moments.

But I’m sure he’s working on it. The funny part is that he always looks rushed like he’s in a hurry.

Do you think he’s in a hurry to win a Major? Does he believe that time is running out? I’m no psychologist, but regardless, he needs to extinguish some childhood demons if that’s going to happen.

Don’t we all!

What’s holding you back in your life? Do you think there’s a correlation between your life and your tennis game? We all have a mental breakdown during points.

For instance, if I do conditioning hitting drills with players, they will hit the wall mentally at some point….could be on ball six or eight….could be on ball twelve….from a coaching standpoint, your trying to find your player’s breaking point….the point where you see them start flying a ball out, hit the bottom of the net, flail like a turkey. That’s the point where their mind cracks. It’s their brain or subconscious wanting to stop and it comes out in their body language. They need to understand this and so do you. And you have to work on improving your concentration and the player needs to understand this and improve the number they can sustain before they crack.

Tsitsipas cracks

Tsitsipas cracks in the first game at 40-15. He served to the backhand five times in a row. On the fifth point he gets fooled by a Djokovic dropper.

What’s his brain thinking about?

He “lips” the second shot (like the ball licking the racket…shank) and his mind is so caught up in the fact that he is on his patterns. He’s trying to focus.

The lipped shot annoys him and his concentration is technical and not tactical. Hence, he was fooled by the dropper because his mind was elsewhere. Happens to all of us.

But, it is good to see that he takes the first game on Djokovic’s four missed returns by his serving overload to the backhand side.

Djokovic had one cool point at 15-0. Go check it out.

From a club player standpoint, the match looks like an attack on the backhand. I’m trying to open your eyes for when you watch the French Open.

It’s more than that. It’s about taking time away from your opponent. Not necessarily the way your coaches have been telling you, but by establishing the distance (or lack of space) between your first two shots and your two shots afterward. And it helps to be able to watch your opponents train to confirm beliefs.

If you see a player constantly training with long-distance side to sides, stick them in the corner for a few….if you see them hitting tons of cross courts, put them on the run.

What did Djokovic do for those two years?

The concentration it takes Djokovic to do this is built over time. Look at his history. He had two years in his career where he didn’t win a Major.

What do you think he was doing? Maybe working on higher-level combos and patterns? And he bought into it by his coach or…. One of the world’s top brain docs…

Speculating there, but if I had his money, that’s what I would be doing.

Question:

Have you ever played a match against a weaker opponent and just hit second serves down the middle of the box, knowing the opponent couldn’t hurt you and worked on point structure?

Rather than waste time hitting winners and not getting anything out of the hit? No? Or were you too busy focused on winning and the score? That’s a great way never to get better.

BTW.
The other thing about the combos is that you have to fit in a few basics to trick the other player’s mind and keep them from noticing. If you go to the well, good players will recognize and adjust.

This comes back to changing your training routine, building new patterns, and stop focusing on winning in practice to make yourself feel better.

“Who’d you play today?” the parent said on the car ride home. “Did you win?”
What a great parent….focusing on their own needs and not their kids!

Parent! Have you ever thought that your insecurities seep into your kids and hold them back?

I’m not just picking on you. I’m in the same boat. But I’m correcting the way I approach my kid in the hopes they don’t develop any more mental blockers because of me (I wanted to write mental midget but that nomenclature is getting frowned upon….but it’s the first word that popped into my head).
I am just being honest.
Look!
(I just let out a big sigh).
Pattern development isn’t overnight…it takes many years if you start early enough. But when winning is the mantra, you are S.O.L.
And if you are “older” and trying to make it at the highest level….the goal should be to understand this so your kids don’t make the same mistakes and repeat the cycle.
And YOU develop as a person!!

May 16, 2022 1 comment

Analysis The Game

Playing groundstroke points

by GP May 14, 2022

written by GP

Coach Evan is here with his unique take on playing groundstroke points. Word over to Evan. Check out his other posts here.

Playing Groundstroke Points by Evan Gaudreau

The grey sky hid the sun. It was sixty-five degrees, and there was a five-mile-hour wind blowing. Perfect tennis weather.
“Do you want to play a twenty-one?” Noah asked after warm-ups.
“Sure,” Mike said, but he really didn’t want to.
Twenty-Ones were getting boring.

As he walked back to the baseline, Mike thought about starting the game off playing cross courts only and not worrying about what Noah would do. He wanted to think as little as possible and play as simply as possible.
After trading the first six points, Mike built a slight lead.
The score was 7-3.
If it had been 5-5, he would have continued playing the simple cross-court strategy. As he walked back to pick up a ball at the fence, he thought about switching to a quicker pattern. He planned to move every second ball for the following five points and see where that would get him.
He won 4 out of the five points, stretching the lead.
11-4.

He continued the open pattern for a few more points. They traded three points apiece.
Pawn vs pawn, Mike thought.
14-7.
Mike played conservatively and consistently for the remainder of the game and rode out the game with very few mistakes, trading seven points each.
21-14
Once the game ended, they walked over to their bags.

Playing not to lose

“You didn’t miss much,” Noah said. “Especially towards the end. I had a hard time getting into the points.”
Mike shrugged.
“Groundstroke games are boring, dude. The last half of the points I was playing not to lose.”
“But you won the game.”
“Sometimes winning is not everything.”
Noah looked confused.

“Let’s say for the next few months, I keep playing conservatively and winning a lot more groundstroke games. And I do it playing not to lose. Well, I’m going to think it will work all the time, and when I play sets, I’ll carry over that same mentality. But sets are a lot different than groundstroke games.”
“How so?”
“I used to remember going toe to toe with players during groundstroke games, probably going 50-50 in a lot of them and then wiping the player out in sets because their serve stunk or they were pushing the return back, and I would serve and volley the weak return.”
Mike took a sip of his Yeti. Then he went into his bag and pulled out a tube of liquid-IV and poured the powder into a separate water bottle.
“I played consistently at the end to show you winning by playing not to lose can block your game from going forward. Yes, I won, but what did I get out of it.”
He shook the water bottle, mixed the powder with the water, opened the cap, and took a sip.
“Lemon-Lime?” Noah asked.
Mike laughed.
“Yup. That’s all Costco had on the shelf.”
“Lemon-lime or Strawberry.”
“Ya. Their website has tons of options, though. Just don’t buy the Guava flavor. It was nasty.”
They both took a sip of their water bottles.

Two gameplans

“What should I be doing during the groundstroke games?”
“During twenty-ones?” he said rhetorically. “Start out playing two gameplans. One to start the game and one to finish with. During this game, I just focused on crosscourt points; once I got a lead, I played quicker attacking points and finished you off with consistency.”
Noah stared off, thinking and processing what Mike had said.
“If we play another one, I would work on a three to one combo to start and then hide the quick points in the middle again and potentially work on coming into the net.”
“So, I take it we’re not playing another one.”
“Nope. But we’ll change the point format.”
“Like play to 11?”
“No. 7 and 11’s are shooter games. Quick start, then ride it out…there’s not much game-planning in those.”
Mike played a lot of “shooter” games growing up on the court. Most of the time, they were in clinics, and most of the time, they were to keep the clinic moving and rotate the players around so Joey or Jimmy could say they played with whomever the better players were. Just another clinic trick.

Shooter games were more emotional-based too. Like anything quick and easy, like giving a kid a snack every time he whined. Those games focused more on winning than getting an opportunity to switch up gameplans and work on patterns.
Many players fell into the trap of winning being the goal.
They didn’t understand that winning was a by-product of game planning.

Gameplans…not shooters

“During most 21’s, you can play three types of gameplans…during shooters, it’s hard because if the score is at 7-7 or 8-8, you’re more focused on winning or losing than working on anything. They only work if you take winning and losing out of the equation, pretend you were playing a twenty-one, focus on one pattern, and keep getting more reps on that pattern.”
Noah let it soak in.
“So, what kind of format do you want to use for this game.”
“Regular scoring. 15’s, 30’s, 40’s. In some ways, it’s like a shooter game, but you can’t ride out the game.”
“With Ads?”
“Today, yes.”

Take-aways

Here are a couple of things to think about the next time you go out on the court. I was guilty of playing 21s—a lot of them. I felt like they were part of every hitting session, whether it was the groundstroke version or by serving five each. They work to a certain degree if you work on patterns and combos and aren’t afraid to lose while working on them.

Too many players hit the wall through repetitive practicing. There’s a gap time. If you put the work in and improve the simple stuff, you can get to 10 UTR, but many players hover between 10-12 and never get passed the next wall, which is harder to break through than getting to 10.
Duh!
As if you didn’t know.
If you are a higher-level player, start using more regular-based scoring games to work on actual point structures that will carry over to sets.
But, if you are under 8 UTR, any points will help. You are probably not playing enough points and doing too much technical training.

May 14, 2022 0 comment

Analysis Tennis Instruction

The Volley Warm-Up

by Evan Gaudreau May 13, 2022

written by Evan Gaudreau

Coach Evan is back, talking about the volley warm-up. The volley is an often overlooked topic these days…

What racquets are good for volleys? I would think most control racquets…

The Volley Warm-Up by Evan Gaudreau

“I didn’t realize there was that much to the volley,” a new student said.

Daniel came from a tennis system that didn’t put much value into the volley, overheads, or serves, but the teaching pro did put value in the Mcdonald’s dollar menu, spending all that earned money on cheap burgers and fries.

Mcdonald’s has its limits. So do tennis coaches.

“When you warm up,” the coach said. “You’re just going to use your base volley. It’s more like a block. There’s not much movement after contact. You just want to make your racket a wall and keep a rally going.”

Daniel stood at the net and tried to poke volleys back, contacting too far out in front and knocking quite a few into the net.

“Contact, step! Not step, contact!” Mike said. “Watch my shoulders,” he added.

The coach moved forward, taking a big step with my left foot. The momentum pulled him forward as if he was pushed from behind and my shoulders dropped to the ground.

“See how my shoulders dipped?”
“Yeah.”
“Where do you think the ball is going to go?”
“Probably in the net.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”

Why in the net?

“Two reasons. One, my shoulders are dropping so quickly. The only way I can get the ball back over the net is to manipulate the face of the racket which is going cause a weak volley. And two, the contact is so far out in front and the racket is descending, that the ball will follow the momentum down into the net.”
“My previous coach always said…”
“….Out in front, Out in front, Out in front.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s going to cause you to one-step the volley and reach too far.”
“So, what am supposed to do?”
“Use two steps on the volley and on your forehand volley, you are going to start with your right foot…technically the footwork is the right step, ball contact, left step, and then get ready with your right foot following.”
Daniel looked confused.

“Watch,” Mike said. “Feed me a forehand volley.”

As the student fed Mike a forehand volley, he made a few quick steps as he moved forward, stepped with his right foot, and contacted the ball, then the momentum pulled him forward and he landed on his left foot, and then his right again and then back to the ready position.

“Oops. I just added another step I forgot about. Most volleys, especially during point play are three steps and back to the ready position.”

He mimicked using three steps on the volley.

“I see that a lot at the tennis clubs or players at the Park with One-step volleys. You can always tell who the player is who gets local lessons. They one-step the crap out of the volley and they punch through the volley.”

Punch the volley?

“Wait! Aren’t you supposed to punch the volley?”
“With your body momentum. Not your racket going through.”
Mike moved backward, a few steps behind the service line.
“Feed me a ball. Watch what happens.”
Daniel fed a ball and Mike punched through the volley with his hands. The ball shot off the racket and landed past the baseline.
“Feed me another one.”
The ball hit the same location.
Out!

On the next feed, the ball landed inside the baseline. But on the next one, I reached for the volley and it went into the net.
“That type of volley is so volatile. The timing has to be spot on. You can’t control it. If you’re slightly early, it goes in the net. If you catch it a little late, its shoots out. Back in my day, we used soft strings like synthetic gut and it absorbed the ball and you had a little more lee-way.”

The student had never used synthetic gut. He had probably never heard of it, Mike thought. Nowadays most kids were growing up on Polyester strings that made the ball jump off the racket.

“Nowadays, with the poly strings, the ball launches off the racket because of the stiffness of the string. The body is the punch and you have to break across on contact and the momentum through the contact is the punch.”
Mike fed Daniel balls. He fed regular feeds using a continental grip.

“Move back to the service line. Most volleys in matches are going to be contacted around the service line unless you’re playing a weak player. Plus, you can hit three types of volleys from there. Low, medium, and high…plus half-volleys…so actually four types.”

Daniel made a lot of errors into the net. His contact was too early. Having hit most of his training volleys from on top of the net, he was conditioned to reach for the contact and he still was using one-step on the volleys.

What Daniel didn’t know was that a lot of “high performance” academy’s stuck kids on top of the net, as the parents stared with bulging eyes, so they made most of their volleys and looked good.

After five minutes of feeding, Daniel was looking a little bit better.
What Daniel also didn’t know was the process for rehabilitation on the volley was going to take a while to get rid of the previous patterns that were molded into his game.

Summary

Notes to take with you.
Make sure you work on volleys from different locations, especially from the service line and beyond, teetering on no man’s land. Working from a variety of locations can give you a better understanding of the volley and the fact that each location offers a slightly different contact point and finish.

May 13, 2022 0 comment

Analysis Players

Evan on the latest #1

by Evan Gaudreau April 26, 2022

written by Evan Gaudreau

Our prolific analyst and commentator, Evan Gaudreau is back with some thoughts on recent matches and events. We call it “Evan on the latest”.

For more of “Evan on the latest” and his other content, check out the analysis tag. Word over to Evan.

On the Djokovic vs Fokina match in Monte Carlo

When I watch a player who hasn’t been playing or is on a layoff, I look at a few things. One of them is the conversion rate on service game points. I’ll look at the conversion rate on the return games also.

For instance, it’s interesting if you look at Djokovic’s first service game and what he does with his +1 ball. When the point was played out, each first ball went to a different location. Never in the same spot twice in a row.

Let’s see what’s going on in set 2.

Man! So many errors by Djokovic!

Maybe he would play better if he was using a different racket. Let’s say, a Head Ti S6. Do you know the racquet? The oblong racquet that is shaped like the Queen of Hearts head from Alice in Wonderland.

What a bargain! (Until you play with it.)

There’s a story about a man, not satisfied, who left the racquet at the local tennis courts and sat against the fence all winter. People avoided it as if it was roadkill. Last I heard, a bum had been seen walking around the park with it on his foot, using it as a snowshoe.

Stats? Return deep down the middle

Stats drive me bonkers. Not all stats. Just the stats they throw up on the screen during matches. A stat just popped up about where Fokina’s 1st and Second serve placement is.

The bottom line is: if you want to play smart, return through the center. Nick Bollettieri taught that over 20 years ago. And I’m sure someone before him and so on. Take your shot on the return when the opportunity arises. Change speeds, Change spins. And go practice that for a set. Pick one of those options and hit the bricks.

Djokovic plays chess on a tennis court

The more I watch Djokovic, the more I see patterns. It’s as if he plays tennis like chess because there is a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Yes! Games can only have four points, but they can have six or eight, and so on.

Take a game with six points, for instance. I see Djokovic play the first two sets of points a particular way. The second two are a little different and the last two different from the others. Then I’ll see one particular primary pattern in the next game. There’s a bit more to it. But it’s frickin cool to watch and break down. The number of patterns he has and can play deliberately is pretty cool.

I’ve never seen it done the way he does it. The closest one is Nadal. And Medvedev is next in line. Then Brooksby.

Returns

One aspect I’ve been looking at this year is the return of serve. And what I’ve been noticing (with the weaker returners) is that their body is not going forward at contact. They’re either lifting at contact, causing timing issues, or “popping “up because of the hop split forward, which again messes with the timing.

How can the big three come back and play so well?

Have you ever wondered why good players can get back to a decent level, quickly? Whether they’re returning from injury or “holiday?”

Federer, Djokovic, Nadal. And why some players don’t? What is the secret sauce?

During this match (Djere vs. Djokovic in Belgrade), Djokovic struggles when he is game point down. Last week too. The thing I like about Djokovic is “big picture” thinking. Because of the layoff and lack of tournament matches, he is “experimenting” on game points and trying to get his “nerves,” timing, and footwork under check. He’s thinking of peeking at the end of May.

What else could he do? (He still won the match).

Does Kecmanovic have a sense of humor?

At this point, after watching Kecmanovic, I’m wondering if he has a sense of humor. He looks so serious. But almost too serious. So severe, I think it could hold him back from winning more matches, yet the reason he’s winning more matches is that focus. It’s like a double edge sword. I’m no doctor, but do you think if you grabbed a sword by the blade, you could still wield it. I’d rather have a double-sided ax. At least there would be somewhere to hold.

40-0 Djokovic, and what does he do? Serves T and shifts for the down-the-line return and hits a sharp angle crosscourt that is missed long. That’s what happens when you think ahead and pay attention to your opponent’s patterns.

How?

For starters, stop thinking about your strokes so much. Or your breathing (You can breathe and relax…but be a grown-up about it. Don’t hyperventilate in the back of the court like a five-year-old who didn’t get his ice cream).

That was a Cheap shot. But someone has to speak up.

In Tsitsipas’ head (from the match vs Alcaraz in Barcelona)

Tsitsipas is a player that is full of mental anguish. I am not Freud, so I don’t have the answers. But I can see it, just like you can also.

Is he overthinking? Is he underthinking? Who’s in his head telling him what to do? Is HE making the choices? Or is his father? Does it matter?

I’m just hypothesizing! But something mental is going on, and it has nothing to do with the stroke.

April 26, 2022 0 comment

Analysis Tennis Instruction

Box Drills

by Evan Gaudreau April 14, 2022

written by Evan Gaudreau

Coach and analyst Evan Gaudreau is back with an interesting post about box drills. Give them a try and let me know what you think.

Ps. Check out Evan’s other content here. Ds.

And support Tennisnerd and get more insightful articles and videos via my Patreon.

Box Drills – by Evan Gaudreau

Box Drills are important early on. They’re necessary for learning to hit to different areas. But here’s the problem. When I was a kid, we hit at cones and the cones would be in roughly the same spot every week. And a lot of times, it could be the same drill every week or if a teaching pro had a limited arsenal of drills. My friend and I used to see who could predict the drill for the day.

Repetition is good. But boredom is bad and stops the learning. And what you are “brainwashing” the player can be detrimental in the long run. Let me explain.

A student only gets fed ball for the majority of their early years of training. And their training consists of different fed ball drills. In the beginning, you see progress, especially in the hitting. More consistency. Better footwork. But, where you see the discrepancy is in the matches.

Use golf to improve your tennis

One analogy I use is golf. In any sport, though, what’s more fun? Training or Playing? I learned to be a better tennis coach because of golf. It brought me back to the early learning phases.

At first, I would play rounds with my friends. And get frustrated. By losing and by not playing at a “level” I think I could achieve. So, I mixed in buckets of balls at the range and built some good habits and some bad habits. But I was getting better.

At the range, I learned a few tricks I picked up from better players. I would see a person better than me and ask a few questions. I would play as a Single with random people and either ask questions or watch their mistakes. Finally, I would play with good players who gave me ideas to work on.

Then, at the range, I stopped aiming for the wooden targets that say 100, 125, 150 etc…because when I played my rounds, I started making notes on the scorecards of the yardage I found myself at. For instance, when I played certain golf courses, I found myself at similar yardage and I started working on that yardage at the range (And I started picking up that professionals play to certain yardage also).

What’s hurting you in matches?

What does this have to do with tennis?

You have to take stock of what’s hurting you during matches or holding you back. And we are generally playing for short balls. So, work on those too!

Consistency, Depth, Two-ball combos, Change of pace, more box drills. And create more holes in your opponent’s game.

In box A drill, it’s a deep corner shot and then a shorter drop in the middle of the Deuce side. I wouldn’t look at this as a strategical combo. I would look at it as a control combo. A feel combo. This drill will teach you why you hit the ball short because you can “FEEL” it and not be told.

Why is that important?

Because being told is listening to someone else’s version. “FEELING IT,” on the other hand, makes it a part of you. It helps the player understand the difference and it solidifies the training in the mind.

Box B

Box B drill is slightly different. The swing path doesn’t change. The only thing that changes is where you contact the ball and how you finish the swing. To hit Box 2, you have to contact the ball a little earlier and “Break” the finish quicker. And to get the ball deeper, you can hit through the ball and the finish will extend more…or will it?

Experiment with the swing!

For instance, I’ll hit the ball “regular” in this drill and then use a “buggy whip” like Nadal. Except I’m older and have been doing this almost before he was born (When I was 16, he was probably 6). I’ll also use a ‘flick” swing to activate my wrist. It’s almost like a windshield-wash swing. And then I’ll mix the “flick” with an abbreviated finish.

Why?

Because when someone comes to the net and I know how to flick the swing, I can wait until the last second and get him to commit (hopefully) to cover the line and then flick crosscourt. The shot is sneaky and hard to read. It goes with my personality.

Box C

In the Box C drill, you can hit an angle, which makes you get around the outside of the ball and contact a bit earlier, and then hit the next shot deep middle, by pulling the contact back and hitting a straighter swing path.
I’d rather do these drills than the drill where the player goes crosscourt and then the other player goes down the line.

Box D

In box D, you can combine the two deep shots and then the angle. YOU CAN FLIP THE NUMBERS ANY WAY YOU WANT! I suggest it to understand the contact point better and so it doesn’t get “set” or “brainwashed” into your mental system.

Training

1) Single box hitting. Just make one box and have the player hit into it and go for (5,10,20 or whatever number you want). Don’t do it for 5 years though. Once you see improvement, start introducing a second box so they can start working on two box combos. This helps the learning process and makes the player adapt quicker.
You can also have the player hit into a target area 10 times, 3 times. Once they get to 10, do it again. This breaks up the training. And it’s easy to do something once. The funny thing about novice tennis players is that because they do something once, they think they don’t have to do it again.

2) The player has to hit into the box area 5, 10, 15, or 20 times in a row. And you can make them do it 2,3,4 times in a row (depending on what the issue is).

Funny story from way back in my coaching career. I had a player, an aggressive baseliner, who could hit the snot out of the ball, but he wasn’t as consistent. I made him rally 25 in a row (counting just his ball, so we really did 50s), until he did it three times in a row. And on occasion, we would do five times in a row x 25.
Man! Did that could get consistent.

Important note! We didn’t push the ball over. We were hitting at a pretty good clip. Probably swinging the racket at 85% swing speed. And we worked on drives (3 feet and
under) and “Overs” (three feet above).

3) With combo drills, you can use a “set”. Like if the player hits to one box and then the next successfully, that’s “1.” Etc.

4) Flip flop the drills. You can start any which way you want.

April 14, 2022 2 comments

Analysis The Game

The Secret of Being Great

by Evan Gaudreau April 9, 2022

written by Evan Gaudreau

TN guest contributor, coach and analyst, Evan Gaudreau is back with another one. It’s called The Secret of Being Great.

Check out Evan’s other pieces here.

If you want to support Tennisnerd, please join my Patreon.

The Secret of Being Great – by Evan Gaudreau

There are certain qualities you need to be successful. Not just on the court but off the court too. Without them, you won’t make it. At least not as far as you’re dreaming.

Your outside life mirrors your inside life and if you don’t understand that, then work on understanding what makes you tick and if you don’t understand that, there’s no need to read further. Some you can control, some you can’t.
To be Frank!
May I be frank?
Who is Frank?
Anyway.

I’m going to start with work ethic. Everybody has some form of this. At the pro level, they have a lot of this. Even at the junior level, they have a lot of this.

It’s funny, all the information that’s out there and the studies done. The 10,000-hour rule, for example.

Is that all you need to do?
“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”
“Practice! Practice! Practice!”
Really? Is that all?

If that were the case, Midtown Manhattan would be flooded with wannabes.

Work ethic is a layup

Work ethic is a layup. We’ve all heard that before, yet many players or athletes who don’t make it to the professional level probably have practiced just as much as the current pros, and in some cases, probably even more.
So, what happened?
Let’s shift to Parents.
We can’t control that.
But, Parents can have a significant effect on how far you go in life. Is there a right set of parents?
Not really!
Great people and great athletes come from all kinds.
Good and Bad.
Absentee parents, Divorced parents, single parents doing it on their own, but not helicopter parents (maybe…).

What about having brothers and sisters? That can help in some ways, and it can hurt in others.

For instance, I don’t mind when my kids fight. I let them hash it out. How else are they going to learn? Sometimes, this can be OK, but if it’s the norm (like it has been in my household), it can cause resentments…Between each other. Between the parents. From the parents to the kids.

Now I try to do something different. I’ll get to that soon.

Can family have a stake in the game?
Sure.
Strong family.
Strong bonds.

For sure, but it’s just another piece that keeps the negativity away. Like Toni Nadal. Rafa says in his book Toni was challenging, sometimes over the top, yet he says neither would be successful without each other…AND the robust and tight family and friends that surround them.
That’s rare.
Rafa, with his background, probably would have been successful doing whatever he wanted.

What is success anyway?

If you view success as monetary, you don’t get it. Yet, money can go a long way.

But in the end, after you feel empty inside, and your character sucks, drugs and alcohol, or whatever you’re into by that point…hopefully you’re not Epstein-esqe, the Reaper will come to collect. He always does! Have you never watched Scrooge?

Money can only buy you short-term success. It’s a cheat code that makes you feel like a cheat at the end of the day.

Just ask Lance Armstrong. About cheating, not about money. He worked his butt off. When he was winning the Tour De France, I watched every minute. And I don’t care about the EPO, because he was just evening the playing field…like playing a cheater in tennis. Isn’t it only fair to make the court on your side the same size as the court on the cheaters said?
Half-joking, but if you make bad calls VS me, be prepared. Kidding!

Funny story

In college, I was playing a match in which the other player was cheating…A lot! We had won the doubles point and were up a set in most of the singles matches. My Coach walks over on the changeover and said,

“Hey. You’re hitting good shots and he’s calling them out. That last shot was in.”
“I know,” I said. “He’s been doing that the whole time.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do?”
“Win. Do what you have to do.”
“We’re going to win the match. If I lose, I don’t care. The team is going to win.”
“You should care,” he said and walked away.

At the changeover, I was down a set and 1-4. What the coach said to me ignited something in me, and I started to work for every point. I was able to get it to a tiebreaker, and at 3-2 me, my opponent was serving.
He hit his first serve. I called it out. It had hit the line. Actually, it was inside the line.
He never said a word and got ready to hit his second serve.
What I did next, I’m not proud of but…
He hit a second serve kick that landed in the middle of the box. I caught it with my left hand and said, “OUT.”
4-2.
I yelled over to the roamer (umpire) who was two courts away.
“I need a line judge over here!”
He was pissed and put up a fuss over the call. I just let him get worked up and tried to stay focused.
I won the following 3 points.

At this point, the match was already clinched. So, we played a breaker for the third also. I won that too.
Oddly, he wouldn’t shake my hand after. I didn’t care. But I walked in his direction and said,
“So, it’s OK for you to hook me 6-8 times, and I take one back, and it’s not OK.”
His teammates were blocking me.
“Have fun on the ride back,” I added. “Don’t kill anybody,” I added for good measure.

I was a kid. I had a lot more maturing to do and lessons to teach.

Creativity

Let’s talk about creativity. Do you need it?
Maybe when it comes to workouts and training sessions.
That’s more of an intangible.
But it does help a little.

Do you need a cerebral brain?

Can Daniil Medvedev Win A Grand Slam?

Like Medvedev? Or Djokovic? It helps, but unless you want to be #1 it is not entirely necessary. Usually, these players think and plod their way through matches. They can’t live on their skill set alone.

Circumstance

Circumstance can play a role. I would have never played tennis if it wasn’t for two things. My neighbor, who played 4-5 days a week, needed a hitting partner and there was an indoor tennis club built five minutes from my house.

It also helped that I could do “errands” at the club for free court time because my parents were blue-collar. And tennis isn’t cheap. I’m like a usurper. Mucking it up with the mucky-mucks.

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone wrote a book on How to become an 11 or 12 UTR without a coach? Wink. Wink. Hint. Hint.

Parents, coaches and mentors

Coaches and Mentors play a big role.

Think Brooksby. He has that in one guy throughout his tennis life, which worked out OK.
Oh Yeah! And Nadal.

Parent/player combos don’t seem to work too well.

The parents being involved help also…when they know when to back off when it relates to things they don’t know about.
(This is a huge factor. Parents who can’t let go, can hold the player back. Especially when they brainwash the kid into thinking Mommy and Daddy know best. Sometimes they do).

(Same for the pros. Picking a pro isn’t easy. Like I said, there are a lot of charlatans out there).

Compassion

Do You have it and does your kid have it? If you answered no, how can you get it? Maybe you can learn it from the back of a Fruit Loops box.

Do you know what bothers me? I wish I had learned that a long time ago, not necessarily for me, but to be able to teach my kids. And I’m still working on that.

Do you know what else bothers me? They still haven’t found the Oak Island Treasure. They keep stringing us along. So annoying! Right?

Humility

I want to etch this word into a wood board and smash it with a hammer. Not really!

Humility is tough. Growing up, I hated to lose, even in board games. It would ruin my day until my neighbor and I controlled the $$ in Monopoly. One of us would be the banker and “sneak” a hundy here and a 5 spot there. It was no surprise we would be the last two standing. The Devil made me do it.

Man! This was a tough one. To learn it was OK to lose and have fun. Fun to me was winning. I actually had to teach myself how to lose and it was agonizing.

I’m reaching my word limit.

This next one is hard to write. I feel like Jim Carrey in “Liar. Liar” when he can’t tell lies and he chokes himself jokingly.

Love, Unconditional Love.

Too much of anything can be a bad thing. Not enough can be a death sentence.

Without it, Good luck! All the stars have to align and you need plenty of $$$ to overcome…but like I will echo, it comes with a cost. You pass on your crappy-ness to your kids or your friends and the cycle repeats itself, like every July 25 when I put a used toilet in my buddy’s backyard while he’s at work. That’s more of a tradition, I guess.

The last thing, and I probably missed a couple of minor things, that I will end with is Hugs.

Hugs

Seriously!
My family is not Huggers.
No way.

Yet, it has been brought to my attention that that is weird. Comedians joke about it, but I’m sure they understand it. I thought this last one was a joke…but the joke was on me. At first, it was weird to hug, everyday….man!
Get away from me…creeper.

But I was surprised…something so simple and easy…You can call it intangible if you want. It’s not like you can say, “If I was hugged more, I would have been pro.” That’s cuckoo!

Here’s the deal! There’s not one thing! There are multiple. And I’m sure you can add a thing or two I missed…

But here’s the real DEAL.

Tiger Woods is about to Tee off at the Masters, and I need to go.

Good morning, good afternoon, and Good Night!

April 9, 2022 1 comment

Newer Posts

Older Posts

Analysis

Latest in Analysis

Medvedev vs. Kecmanovic by Evan Gaudreau

Parents…

Attitudes

A little secret

Listen to Evan

Medvedev plays a game of possum

Push or attack?

Back to Nalbandian

Sloane Stephen vs. Diane Parry Match Analysis by Coach Evan

Ball strikers smoke winners

My my first girlfriend was my tennis racket

Back to the match and what a one-hander!

Sloane has the right focus

What is Sakkari up to?

Dichotomy on the WTA Tour

Two things.

Second thing.

Back to the match.

A song popped into my head

1-4. 0-15. Funny point.

There is a time and a place for everything.

“I’m so sick of your shit”

Back to the match again

Men are meatballs

The takeaway

Playing in a crosswind – Evan Gaudreau

Hating the wind

Slice is valuable tool

Sneaky Patterns

Developing, not only winning

Learnings

One last thing

Djokovic vs Tsitsipas Rome Final by Evan Gaudreau

Now, did Tsitsipas do his homework?

More grip change combos

Let’s go to the second set.

Tsitsipas cracks

What did Djokovic do for those two years?

Question:

Playing Groundstroke Points by Evan Gaudreau

Playing not to lose

Two gameplans

Gameplans…not shooters

Take-aways

The Volley Warm-Up by Evan Gaudreau

Why in the net?

Punch the volley?

Summary

On the Djokovic vs Fokina match in Monte Carlo

Stats? Return deep down the middle

Djokovic plays chess on a tennis court

Returns

How can the big three come back and play so well?

Does Kecmanovic have a sense of humor?

In Tsitsipas’ head (from the match vs Alcaraz in Barcelona)

Box Drills – by Evan Gaudreau

Use golf to improve your tennis

What’s hurting you in matches?

Box B

Box C

Box D

Training

The Secret of Being Great – by Evan Gaudreau

Work ethic is a layup

What is success anyway?

Funny story

Creativity

Do you need a cerebral brain?

Circumstance

Parents, coaches and mentors

Compassion

Humility

Love, Unconditional Love.

Hugs

Medvedev vs. Kecmanovic
by Evan Gaudreau

Sloane Stephen vs. Diane Parry
Match Analysis by Coach Evan