People of the Internet love lists so here’s one. Unscientific, but what the heck. What you need to play well on grass * Bendy knees. Due to a lower bounce you need to be able to bend low and hit the ball from lower positions. * A good slice. A slide skids nice and low on grass and is a more powerful weapon there than anyone here else. Can definitely be used more aggressively. * Shorter swings. You don’t have time for big windmill style swings on grass courts. Balls bounce fast and low. You need to be able to …
Latest in Tennis Instruction
I’ve been struggling with my serve lately and decided to go back to the basics and try to get the feeling back. I’m usually a fan of watching good video content and then doing practice swings at home. Do that until you’re confident of the mechanics and then take a bucket of balls to the training court and work hard. What you can do is to bring notes (like a short bullet list) with you to the court so you remember the basics. Here are a few notes I would bring: 1. Positioning feet towards where you’re going to hit the serve. …
Improving your game by daring more
To become better at something you need to challenge yourself and move outside your comfort zone (besides practice, practice, practice of course). You need to dare trying different shots and losing training matches you wouldn’t lose or lose as badly with your standard game plan. Let’s say you want to broaden your tennis game and introduce a new shot – let’s say the drop shot, then you need to make sure that you dare to play it in a match situation to gain confidence. If you’re a sore loser or hate losing also against your practice partner this can be …
After watching the action in today’s Madrid Masters, I have drawn up 5 quick tips about how to play good clay court tennis. 1. You need confidence. How do you get confidence? You win matches. The lack of won matches was obvious in Flag-Pole Jerzy Janowicz lacked patience today againt Gulbis so despite that he played a good set and had Gulbis on the melt-down, he couldn’t keep his level up in the decider. 2. You need patience. Longer rallies. Far longer rallies. You can’t keep going for broke because the opponent will retrieve and retrieve and retrieve. And you can …
Have you ever been in a tennis match and you’re playing brilliantly for three-four games and then suddenly you lose focus and start to throw away points like they were candy wrappers? I have. Did you feel have difficult it was to get back to the right mindset? That feeling is so disappointing i t’s disgusting. There are no simple remedies for this, everybody gets into a slump from time to time, but you can change your mindset to make it easier to get back that important match-winning focus. How do you do that? Just buy my secret focus potion …
It’s the shot that most people have great trouble executing properly – the backhand. Then you look at guys like Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray (double-handed backhand) or Stanislas Wavrinka or Richard Gasquet (one-handed backhand) and it looks so damn SIMPLE! So how do you improve this often weaker wing? Well, you obviously have to make sure you practice it. Most people tend to avoid hitting the shot even in practice, because they’re scared of fucking it up. Fear never got you anywhere in life, right? Hitting a backhand requires footwork and some technical basics, but the main thing is …
Yes, thats my latest quest – finding the best tennis strings. Or maybe I shouldn’t call it “the best”, but just the tennis strings that fit my game the best. I have decided to start testing four different strings: Babolat RPM Blast Nadal’s string of choice and a super-spin-friendly string. Has received decent reviews. Curious about what it can do on my Head IG Prestige MP and my Wilson Pro Staff Six.One 90 BLX (the latter being the racquet I play with the most). Description of the Babolat RPM Blast: The string of choice for Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick and …
Following up on the very popular article “The Best Tennis Racket for Intermediate Players” here is my most recent take on the subject of so called “tweener rackets”. I hope to be able to shed some light on good options for people who have stepped up from beginner level rackets and want to take the next step and find the best tennis racket for improving their game. Racket technology is taking great strides and there are loads of very good tennis rackets coming out these days. That’s why it’s important to really do your research and preferably test the racket …
A great way to improve your tennis is watching practice videos where you can focus on pro player technique. Since Federer is my favorite, I mostly watch his videos. You can definitely pick up a trick or three in those videos. Since Nicolas Almagro hits the ball with such power I was curious about how a training session with him would look like. You rarely see people throw their rackets while hitting, but Nicolas sure is  a hot-headed guy. Look how he tries to blast the ball. The guy must be really angry. And really fun to watch.
Choosing the “right” tennis racket is the eternal question, isn’t it? Because we are never quite happy with racket we play with, there’s always a new model or a thought at the back of our heads that maybe, only maybe that racket might be what I’m looking for to change my game for the better, get that shot of extra power or spin you need. Here is a good infographic from Tennis Express about choosing the right racquet. I wrote a post earlier about the racket not making all the difference, but the footwork, the mindset and your technique, but …