hey let me start you off with this drill i want you in the baseline you start
hitting softly Ii want you to hit forehands in the corners okay all forehands
and come on up safin go buddy go okay you're feeling a little bit loosened up
yeah so i know you came from the car and you're probably a little bit stiff
i want you like like the loading a little bit more like trying to maybe bend the upper body
down a little bit just a more powerful loading position let's see what happens because when you
load powerfully you're most likely going to unload powerfully you probably get airborne believe it or
not okay so sometimes on your forehand this is like the very first time i played with you
remember we talked about like you're not bodying the forehand right so you still have that a little
bit in you i know you were just warming up but let's try to make it more explosive like the last
time i saw you play against milan the forehand was on absolute fire remember
you were smacking forehand winners left and right and you're really bodying the forehand
hard so let's continue along that path okay the same drill you body that thing come on oh
oh my goodness good
again one more time
fantastic okay now safin i like to work a little bit on your spacing so
i'm going to give you a ball there you hit a backhand from the forehand side
now give your ball there you hit a forehand from the backhand side
all right here we go come on i want you go inside out okay backhand no problem backhand
forehand
give me a couple more now you got two more because you missed that one and last one come on get more
space on that backhand you're getting jammed come on more space you got three more now come on two
match point more space okay good okay now let's do high high and short and short come on high
get in there go reverse it we get a high backhand short forehand go cross-court
and short come on up real quick it's an unnecessary risk to take that ball that
early you're literally taking it below your hip
when it's high that's too risky let it come up a little bit
but you can take it on the rise i don't have a problem with that but take it a little bit higher
let the ball come up the more it comes up the more time you have the easier it's going to be
to hit it remember down here below the hip is just when you're doing bunt backhands
and short come on deep one more blast okay good now what i want to do is i want you to hit
a forehand on the run you come back to the middle you tap that line with your racket
another forehand then you're going to sprint from the forehand side to the backhand side
hit it backhand tap the middle line with your racket hit another backhand and
then you sprint all the way across okay so we're working a little bit
on lateral movement there's going to be a tough drill we'll do a set of 12. tap
and again forehand try try try try tap control that ball come on you got four more
backhand no slice tap go go go and match points
okay okay i want to work on the quickness on footwork where you're
moving your feet like crazy just a little bit more intensity i'm going to drop feed the ball
here you come around that cone every time you take a cross-court okay yeah you'll be aggressive
nice work
good
and take a little breather that's the type intensity that i like to see from you all the time
all the time you got a ball to your forehand these adjustment steps you know trying to put yourself
in a perfect position every time that's going to reduce the mistakes by a lot that's one of
the most common causes of errors is improper setup which is due to a lack of intensity
okay so the intensity has to be sky high come on keep squeaking those shoes here we go come on
again no mistakes control the ball a little better control the ball you're slapping it now control it
more spin good five more one two two come on three
here we go four and five okay same thing on the backhand small steps go cross-court
come again safin go don't steer it come on now freely accelerate that thing come on yes sir
come on safin no mistakes five more come on and last one right here come excellent work nice job
are you still doing tons of fitness yeah okay good because your fitness has gotten better
yeah but it's not yet there where it needs to be like it has to be
it has to go to another level but it's already gotten a lot better
and i think the best result you had in your last tournament with this wake forest guy
you won two matches and this wake forest guy plays for wake forest right now yeah what number
he's number six number six and what was the score it was seven six seven five in the tie break yeah
and then six two so seven six six two against the wake forest guy all right good what's his utr
he's a 12 12. all right so see you're close that was a little disappointing though because like i
said in the first set i was serving at six five and i had 30 love and then from there it was a
double fault forehand in the net yeah and two winners all right well do you know that next time what to
do at 30 love you treat that as a match point you know because with 40 love you got the set
you got to you got to put a little bit more more pressure on yourself there and
put the importance of that point to the to the foreground a lot of times players will
get a little bit relaxed when they have 30 love right i wouldn't say i get relaxed but it's just
unnaturally i just missed shots that i wouldn't miss well maybe you're not conscious of it
maybe you you lose a little bit of that intensity because you think okay 30 love i got the game won
yeah that's what i'm saying it's very small it might not even be visible to somebody watching
it from the outside but it's up here so you got to tell yourself 30 love it's like it's it's
match point or you're down love 30 like you got to treat that as the most important point and then
the chances of winning that point are going to be higher and just tell yourself that's the set point
right there because you win that point 40 love chances of him winning the game when you're up
40 love very small chances of him breaking you when it's 30 15 it's a lot higher that's why i
feel like in matches in these tournaments the main thing lets me down it's not my thing it's
all my mentality okay it's gonna get better you just keep plugging away okay slice same thing
all right listen here feed me a couple balls just like that i want to show you 44 year old
man with with a broken foot i'm going to do more intensity than you yeah watch this slice
oh no no no i can't miss that come on see this intensity safin it's insane right that's what
i mean like i did six balls i'm completely out of breath i don't see you enough out of breath
which means that you're not working hard enough
okay now lateral forehands i still feel like there's a little bit of a weakness there sometimes
on the run like you make more mistakes on the run obviously
everybody does but i think you make a little bit more than what someone of your your level
should be making and it's mostly shot selection i think you try to hit it too hard
exactly so i want you to go more for control more spin more height over
the net not necessarily hit it like softer but like go more margins more acceleration
i don't even care if you go through the middle of the court just get that thing in because you
don't want to be making mistakes so simple drill forehand on the run go around the cone
come on safin fast feet fast feet come on good come on much better when you're doing these drills
the intensity has to be so incredibly high that even after 10 balls you should be completely
exhausted you got to put everything you have in every single one of these shots
the most amount of effort that's how you have to treat practice when you do it that way
you don't have to practice as long you practice short amount of time more efficiently
you have more time in the day for to do other things do fitness and do all that stuff
all right okay now we're going to do backhand okay same thing
say again uh just play it as it comes you know might be able to do both no please don't
safin don't don't do slice man come on man come on man the slice is fine but
i don't like it in practice because sometimes the slice can be a lazy shot
it's the easiest shots in tennis easy by easy i don't mean the technicality of it but more the
level of effort that's required to hit a slice a very low amount of effort so a lot of people
get fall in love with slicing high intensity i told you every ball like it's your last come on
finish your backhand all the way don't bunt good again come on you got last one right here come on
yes sir exhausting right well it's exhausting when you give this much effort
that's what you're supposed to be doing i'll tell you when i used to practice
my dad we used to practice like half hour 45 minutes i'd be dying dude dying that's
the most effective way to practice but just giving it a 100 effort on every single ball
and you're more likely when you practice that way you're more likely going to do that
when you play matches too and not go through these phases where your intensity goes up up
and down okay now we do forehand backhand side to side okay three more go fight come on two
and last one go yes sir so safin you know what the the biggest similarity is between me and you
no no we both don't like the bend come put it right here put it right
here so now we're going to work on low balls okay i'm going to make you bend
okay because you got to bend now remember um when the ball is low you got to stay low
so this could be a problem for you when you get somebody that you know figures you out
kind of in a match and start slicing a lot do you have a problem with guys who slice a lot
loop a lot okay that's a whole nother subject but you definitely don't like bending so we're
gonna do low balls now so you stay right there i'm gonna drop feed it super low and you're gonna bend
you're gonna bend like you never have before
three four five two more now you missed two in a row one more okay good
all right yes sir here we go come on no slicing i got it well we're going to slice later we now
do topspin okay because you're going to be on a low ball it's okay to slice here we go come on
back knee touching the ground four five good work shake off those legs then we'll
do slice it's easy for me to get down low on the backhand side it's true it's more natural
you know what it is because i'll tell you the reason the most the vast majority of forehands are open stance
so the vast majority of backhands are closed stance so it's more in your muscle memory
you don't go like this on the forehand only 20 of the time yeah you go like this on the forehand
right okay on the backhand though you go like this probably 90 of the time that's why it's easier but
just to clarify when you get a ball that low you don't want to be open stance right because
open stance versus close and depends depends on the penetration of the incoming ball so
this is the we're building the correct muscle memory here don't worry man all these
drills make sense these are all drills that are going to help your game okay good you don't read
the comments it's probably the smartest thing you stay off social media you stay on the court man
you stay on these courts you see my instagram there's nothing on there i follow it it's private
i can't even get on it i follow 20 people it's private right public oh it's public yeah are
you got nothing on there nothing you follow me right yeah okay good just checking slice
back knee touching the ground come on down safin down back knee touching the ground
buddy come lower come on i'm gonna burn those legs out five more one two no mistakes three
four down more there you go and now we're gonna do low forehands low backhands on the run
this is gonna be a leg burner set of 20 low down no slicing we'll do slice later
come on here we go seven come on eight knees touching the ground no mistakes
i'm not looking at the ball but i can hear it when it goes out come on 12. no mistakes 13 14 good
15 come on safin 16 stay with it more spin on that backhand 17. and three more last two
down lower all right good we're going to burn you out my friend i'm going to burn out those legs
well we're going to practice the fourhand squash shot okay so i'm gonna pull you a little bit wider
and forehand backhand slice here we go come on stay low come on don't cheat on this still gonna stay
low if you want to slide this is the right time to slide practice your sliding come on come on slide
backhand slide safin come on come on let's burn out those shoes get you a new pair of shoes
come on ten more one two three four come on five come on six come on seven eight
no nine come on safin one more slide all right get some water and a new pair of shoes