When you play a tennis match you're bound to make mistakes. This is true even
at the highest level of the game. So you're not gonna be able to completely
avoid making mistakes but what you can do is try to understand what causes
these mistakes and then try to minimize them as much as possible.
There are four main causes of errors and one of them is improper technique and it can range
anywhere from the wrong grip, the wrong take back, the wrong contact point, or
even a wrong finish. And this can be a confusing
subject because there's many different opinions on what the right technique is.
What I recommend to my students is to simply go by whether a new technique
that they're adapting is working or not. You should see an immediate improvement
in your control, if you're picking a technique that is correct.
I'm not of the belief that a technique takes a while to settle in. In other
words you learn something new and then you continue spraying the ball and
making a lot of mistakes. That is probably not going to change. You're
going to continue making these mistakes and the technique that you're adapting
is probably not the correct one. So simply go by feel if you pick
something that makes sense to you and it's working immediately you'll see an
immediate improvement in your control and then a gradual improvement in power
that is probably the right technique for you and you should stick with it.
Another cause of mistakes is improper footwork and this is a big problem at the
recreational level. So even if you have perfect technique but suffer with bad
footwork you will make a lot of mistakes because you will be not positioned
correctly and you'll be forced to improvise. And it's these improvisations
in technique that are causing you to miss whether you're too far away from
the ball this way. This is a cause of footwork or it can be in a lateral way
and both ways so you can even be you let in the ball and get behind you and you
improvise new technique and therefore making a lot of mistakes. And the way you
fix your footwork so that you don't have to improvise anymore it's the number one
have a lot of intensity with your footwork. I see a lot of recreational
players they're kind of flat-footed as they're waiting for the next shot and
you see high-level players they're on their toes they're bouncing around they
have an intensity in their feet that's constant no matter what situation
they're in in a rally. And more importantly with a lot of recreational
players suffer with is actually ball recognition
this is correlated with footwork. So in other words let's say I'm at the
baseline and I'm expecting a deep ball and now a short ball comes instead
recreational players do not recognize the ball being short and therefore they
don't move fast enough towards that ball. See high-level players do not have
problems with that they recognize the ball really well and
are able to make adjustments with the feet accordingly. And the way you are
going to fix your ball recognition is simply by playing more and seeing more
balls coming at you. It's kind of like driving. Imagine yourself being a novice
driver and you're pulling out of an intersection and there's a car coming at
you and you don't really judge the speed of the incoming car correctly and you
pull out anyway it almost cause a crash. Experienced drivers however they can
judge the speed of the incoming car quite well and they know when to pull
out on when not. And we can apply this analogy to tennis. Experienced tennis
players are quite good at judging the incoming ball. They have seen many balls
coming their way and therefore can easily pick up whether the ball is gonna
be high or low, whether it's going to be short or deep, whether it has spin or underspin
and most importantly they can easily pick up how fast the incoming ball is.
And recreational players will often misjudge the ball and therefore be
out of place and this is why this is a footwork problem that's connected to
your ball recognition. As you recognize the ball better you will be able to
adjust your feet and be at the right place at the right time.
Another cause of errors is shot selection and this is a problem from the recreational level all
the way to the elite level. So a lot of players will go for the wrong shot at
the wrong time. One example is going for winners from defensive positions. If
you do that if you're trying to hit a winner on the run when you're out of
position or if you try to hit a winner when the ball gets behind you. You are
going to make a mistake for sure. Another example of the wrong shot selection is
going for small targets. If you go down the line too much you will make more
mistakes but it's probably wise to direct the majority of your ground
strokes cross-court because you've got a bigger court to play in to. See the
problem with hitting down the line is if you are aiming down the line and you hit
the ball a little bit late it's gonna go out.
If you select to go cross-court and hit the ball late yes you will not get your
desired target but at least the ball is not going to go out it's going to go
towards the middle of the court. Another example of the wrong shot selection is
trying to finish the point off too quickly whether you are coming to the
net too much are you going for winners too much you have to remember to be
patient and to go for a winner when the chance
presents itself. Another example of poor shot selection is playing too cautiously
in other words pushing or steering the ball or playing too far behind the
baseline and maybe moon balling and believe it or not the intention that you
have by pushing the ball is to get the ball into the court really badly but
what happens in reality as you're steering the ball you're making just as
many mistakes as if you're going for the shot. And one tip that I can give you
when it comes to shot selection is to play high percentage tennis. Basically
playing the majority of your balls cross-court staying away from going down
the line too much. Not playing overly aggressive but also not playing overly
defensive. Make sure that you hit your balls at 75% pace and then when you get
an opportunity to be more aggressive you can go full blast. And if you follow
those rules you will improve your shot selection and therefore will minimize
your mistakes. And finally another cause for errors in tennis is your mental game
and I'm gonna give you some examples and this applies to the recreational level
all the way to the professional level. So imagine yourself being down 30 40 it's
four five set point for the other person you have to come up with a second serve
and you double fault. Now this error was simply caused by your tension. Or
another example of your mind affecting your mistakes is if you don't try hard
enough. So imagine you're playing a match and you really don't feel like playing
on that particular day so it kind of lazy out there we've all felt like that
so when we feel like that mentally we are not gonna be able to play our best
and we're gonna make a lot more mistakes therefore. So what can you do to not be
so anxious the next time you play and also how can you guarantee that you're
trying your hardest? Well first I want you to understand why you're anxious to
begin with. So we as humans are animals after all and animals have programmed in
their genes to be very still and quiet when a predator is lurking around.
And this is why you see a deer for example when it sees a car it identifies
it as a predator and then instead of running away it stands still. And you as
a tennis player identify the person on the other side as a predator and
therefore still just like the deer is when it's stuck in the headlights and
what you have to do is with all professional players do and you have to
move. Just think of Sharapova before she does every service action she's
bouncing around and she's not doing this to get in shape or she's not doing it for
fun she's doing it to loosen up to fight her anxiety. So the number one
thing that you can do to fight your anxiety is to move around all the time.
And when it comes to trying your best every time you step on a court we can all take
a lesson from Rafa Nadal because he's incredible he tries so hard every time
he steps on a court. Now this is easier said than done of course and you don't
have to be perfect there are gonna be matches where you're not feeling your
best but let's all try to take a lesson from the great Rafa Nadal and try
our best every time we step on the court.