Sunday, October 30, 2011

Doc's Tip of the Evening -- Ball Movement at Surface Contact

Did you know that a tennis ball will slide across the surface of the court at impact when it is hit with a lot of underspin?
As the incoming rate of underspin decreases, a point will be reached where the ball begins to roll across the surface at the END of impact.
With an increasing rate of incoming topspin the ball will impact with a mixture of sliding and rolling.
At higher rates of topspin the ball will tend to roll more than slide.
Note that the ball will never fully roll upon impacting the surface of the court as today's players are not capable of generating fast enough spin rates. dd

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

DOC'S TIP OF THE EVENING -- PRACTICING

If you are in the learning stages of maturing into a good tennis player you must practice and play with many different levels and ages of players.
This simply means that it does not matter what level or how old or what gender you practice with.
You must understand that every time you walk out onto the court to practice you have something you can improve whether you play against someone a lot better than you or someone considerably weaker than you. In fact, it is often more productive to practice with weaker opponents as it is easier to control game situations where you can practice shots you need to improve. However, this implies that when you practice you have a purpose or a goal or goals you want to accomplish.
I do know this is true because when I was a youngster at the tennis club where I learned, I would go up to the club every day after school and on weekends and play with anybody that wanted to play. I did not care who I played with and neither should you. I became the best player in my state as a junior, one of top two juniors in the country, one of the top college players in the country and achieved a pro ranking of 125 in the world in men's singles.