hey guys in today's video i want to do something that makes absolutely no sense i'm going to tell
you how you can beat me i'm going to reveal my biggest weakness on the tennis court and
the reason why this makes no sense is that no tennis player in their right mind would ever do
this but hey i'm gonna do it anyway i'm gonna give you the blueprint on my biggest weakness
and the funny thing about my biggest weakness is that it actually used to be my biggest strength
now before i reveal my biggest secret we have to go a little bit back in my tennis history so that
the whole story makes sense so i used to play high level tennis i was one the best division one tennis
players in the country when i was in juniors i had a pretty horrific injury that is important in the
context what i'm about to tell you regarding my biggest weakness but in any case this injury didn't
really prevent me from playing high level tennis i was doing okay and then right after i finished
college i actually started teaching but the first i would say 10 years of my teaching career
i continue to play a lot of high level tennis i played a lot of prize money tournaments on
the weekends and so on but then i re-injured this specific part of my body again and for that moment
in time i was not able to compete at the high level anymore i have not played any tournaments
since that day and this is going back seven years but then three and a half years ago i started
uploading videos to youtube and i was having some great success pretty much from day one and a lot
of you guys were curious to see me play and that inspired me uh to play some more matches however
last year 2021 was a horrible year for me my dad passed away and also i was having some injuries
that were very frustrating i injured my ankle and other parts of my body were causing some
trouble as well and i had not played a single set in more than a year and then i had this
crazy idea that i want to do a weight gain slash weight loss challenge i wanted to see
how i perform on the tennis court with having extra weight so i ended up gaining 45 pounds
and i went on a tennis court without having played in a year and you can watch that video
on my youtube channel and i want to tell you a little bit about how i felt in that particular
match so on that day i felt like i wasn't going to be able to play at all i felt like i wasn't going
to be able to move because my ankle it's still bothering me and also the fact that i hadn't
played any points i don't know if you can put yourself in my shoes if you don't
play any sets any competitions for a long period of time even though you're hitting on the court
it's just something that's completely different once you're out there playing
sets that before going on that match i literally thought that i couldn't play at all i thought
that i wasn't going to be able to even keep the ball in play even move around on the court but
then we warmed up we started the match and to my surprise i started the match phenomenally
well with two aces and i think i made three out of four serves and i felt amazing in that first game
and guys i couldn't tell you how happy i was after that first match because
i literally thought that i wasn't going to be able to play everything combined
the weight gain that was done on purpose by the way because i wanted to prove several
points which i'll get into in a minute but having gained weight having these lingering
injuries and i haven't played for such a long time in my head i thought that i was done and i wasn't
able to play tennis anymore so the fact that I came on the court against a quality opponent i
was able to play a pretty decent tennis made me so happy and also prompted me then to actually start
losing weight to document the whole thing and i actually ended up playing a lot of tennis i play
a lot of sets a lot of matches and you can see my tennis body transformation in this video if you're
a member at intuitivetennis.com and also you can see the match that i played after my weight loss
right here on youtube so in any case uh there was a lot of video there that i was processing
i played tons of sets i was on the court a lot and i was recording everything of course
and i started noticing something really weird in my game something that i've never seen before
something that i wasn't aware of and that is exactly what the biggest weakness is
in my game right now so you can probably already tell what the weakness is and it has to do
with the backhand side yes but i'm still not going to get into the weakness i have to tell you one
more backstory so that this weakness makes sense so when i played juniors in germany i played a lot
on carpet in the winter and this is where my first horrific injury happened and what happened
was i was playing on carpet and i was hitting a backhand passing shot in a tie break where i
was up 5:3 i'll never forget the score this was a high level german junior ranking tournament
it was the semifinals and it was in a tiebreak and i was up 5:3 and the guy came to the net
and i planted to do an open stance backhand and this happened to be the best shot that i had my
two-handed backhand was absolutely my best shot i could hit it aggressively i could play it on the
defense and especially from defensive position i was able to go down the line to hit winners
this was something that was a big strength of mine i'll never forget this particular point so
this guy came to the net and i was ready to hit a backhand passing shot and what happened was
there's a lot of rotation on the two-handed backhand but unfortunately because i was on carpet
my left foot got stuck on the ground and i twisted my entire body around my left knee now i collapsed
down on the court and actually had to carry me off the court i ended up going to the hospital and it
would end up happening was that i did tear some ligaments and i was out of the game for a while
but then of course i was young and i healed pretty well and this injury didn't really hold me back
from playing high-level tennis until i was playing the men's open nationals in fort lauderdale on
clay and i've played this tournament and many times and this particular year i had the road
to the final one of my friends john goldfarb was a great player ended up making it to the final
that year and i looked at my draw and i felt i had a pretty good shot of making the final and
then in the first round i played a guy from gulf coast university i'll never forget this and in
the second set i won the first set i was up in the second set towards the end of the second set
i went to pick up a ball like this it was back in the fence i went to pick up a ball and i went like
this a little bit of a bend and my left knee just buckled it just buckled and i fell to the ground
and a couple points prior to that i had hit an open stance backhand where i did feel something
in my left knee so i ended up taking an injury timeout i taped up my knee
i ended up doing something super super stupid i finished this match which i won the next day i had
played somebody that i knew i wasn't going to lose to so even without being able to move i i still
ended up playing that match stupidly and winning i think it was like three and three barely able
to move and then when i was in the third round i ended up calling in and pulling out because i
couldn't even walk and that really was the last time i played a high level tournament after that
i just have this fear in my head that if i being really tested on my backhand side if i'm being
pulled wide if i have to put pressure on this knee that's been so damaged
throughout my playing career i just have this fear that is actually subconscious
i'm not aware of it but i have this fear of hitting an open stance backhand that doesn't
mean that i can't hit open stance backhand i can but you guys have to understand that when you're
testing your body at a high level you're testing your body to the limits and there's this fear
that i have and it's for that reason that i can't play high level tennis anymore so when i started
my youtube channel which is about four years after that particular match i started playing again okay
i hadn't played before that and interesting things are starting to develop because of this fear i am
playing some high level opponents and there is something that my body is figuring out how to
get around this problem again i'm not making any of these things happen at the conscious level but
i did notice something very peculiar happening on my backhand side so here's my biggest weakness
it turns out that if one of these players like a milan or a safin pushes me to the backhand side
if they had a really strong ball to the backhand side 99% of the time i will slice my backhand
now i made a video titled the easiest shot in tennis which happens to be the backhand slice
when we're talking about playing defense on the backhand side i'm opting out uh for the easy way
because there's something in my head that's blocking me for hitting my open stance
two-hander and you're probably asking yourself nick why is the slice a weakness it's a great
shot there's some truth to that i hit my slice pretty decently i'm able to
stay in the point but the fact remains that a slice is not something that you're gonna
be able to turn defense into offense that easily yes it's possible but you're gonna have to
hit your slice extremely well and this doesn't happen all the time on the other hand
if you're able to hit your backhand from defensive positions whether it be a one-handed backhand or
a two-handed backhand there's a lot more possibilities there to turn defense into
offense to go up the line even sometimes you're able to hit winners from defensive positions so
unfortunately after reviewing the tape of my matches it turns out that i'm hitting mostly
slice backhands when i'm being pushed on that side and i'm just not trusting my body
to hit a two-handed backhand because the body involvement on the two-handed backhand when it
comes to defense is enormous because you're gonna be putting a lot of pressure on your offside if
you happen to be right-handed those shots have to be handled by your non-dominant leg and there's
just not enough stability in this knee for me to do that consistently but my left knee is not the
only reason why my two-handed backhand has turned from my best shot into my worst shot see what happened was
is that i started teaching right after college and i've been teaching on a full-time basis
ever since and this is a tip for all you tennis coaches all the tennis pros out there that
have two-handed backhands you have to learn if you haven't already to have one-handed backhand why do
i say that because the off hand or the left hand for right-handers is there when you're coaching
to hold tennis balls and you want to hold as many tennis balls in your left hand as possible my dad
could hold a ton of balls in his hand he had pretty big hands i can't hold that many i can
do five comfortably i can do six if i squeeze one in right here and you're probably thinking
why is that important well if i wasn't holding balls in my left hand i would use my two-hander
every time my student would miss i would have to go to the basket pick up a ball and you're wasting
your students time by having a lot of balls in your left hand as soon as a student misses you
can shoot another ball their way so what ended up happening is that once i finished college tennis
i developed a one-handed backhand because i was teaching full-time every single day i was on the
court hitting one-handed backhands on a positive note i can hit a pretty decent one-handed backhand
there's nothing compared to my two-hander so when i play against players who are
similar to my level i can't use my one-handed backhand it's not strong enough for that but
when i'm playing at the recreational level it's good enough to be quite an effective shot
at the rec level but here's what happened to my left hand or my left arm for that matter
as a result of it my muscles in my forearm have atrophied if you take a look at pictures of my
left arm back when i was in college to pictures of my left arm now
you can see that the muscles have atrophied my left arm has become a lot smaller and the
easy explanation for that is i'm simply not hitting enough two-handed backhands oh
so while there's not much that i can do about my left knee there's definitely something i can
do about practicing my two-handed backhand and because i'm planning to play a lot more matches
you guys seem to enjoy watching me play i'm going to be practicing my two-handed backhand a lot more
i'm going to build up these muscles for this stroke to become one of my better weapons again
because here's the fact if i'm not being pushed if i'm hitting a backhand that's
within my reach i can hit the backhand still pretty well it's only when i'm being put in
defensive situations on the backhand so even if i have time on my two-handed backhand to step around
and hit it off my my dominant leg is definitely no problem and the only problem occurs when i'm
being pushed laterally and when i'm being pushed with the penetration of the incoming ball where i
am relying on my outside leg that is the part of my body where i'm unwilling put a lot of stress
there and therefore i settle mostly for a slice backhand now another thing that i've been doing
to hide this weakness i've been running around my backhand a lot more something that i didn't do
back when i played actively there was absolutely no reason to but now
since my two-handed backhand has gotten a lot worse i find myself running around my backhand as often
as possible and that's something that i have full control over i can get myself fast enough because
my movement is not inhibited when i'm moving laterally this way i'm going to try to not
only improve my two-handed backhand but also i'm going to try to run around it as often as possible
so guys there it is my weakness exposed now you know what to do and you probably think at all this
is so easy all i have to do is put pressure on nick's backhand and i can beat him but here's the
thing because i can't move that much anymore due to my ankle and due to my knee i am pretty much
forced to play hyper aggressive tennis you know what that means basically when i play uh playing
hyper aggressive tennis someone like a becker or sampras used to play like that at times not all
the time but what that means is when i'm serving i'm going for the ace every time i'm not going
to kick the ball in to get a rally started no every serve that i attempt is going to be an ace
also on the return games there's not gonna be situations where i'm gonna try to extend the
rally get in a groove no if i get my hands on a return you better believe i'm going for the blast
the only time i will extend the point and get the ball back in play if i'm in extreme emergency
situations this is where my high percentage brain kicks in and i'm like unlikely gonna go for a
winner in these type of situations because the likelihood of making shots like that on a long
term basis meaning through course of a match is extremely low so basically hyper aggressiveness
means that any chance that i get any sliver of the chance that i get you better believe
i'm going to be going for the kill and the reason for that is is not so much that it's
the smartest way to play tennis but that is pretty much the only way i can continue
uh playing high level tennis and present it to you guys on my youtube channel