one of the most important elements that every player needs to get better is ball recognition
let me explain what I mean by ball recognition I talk about this and a lot of my other videos
let's say you're playing against someone and your opponent hits the ball and now the ball's
been struck and it's flying towards you and you collect the information of this ball and make a
decision regarding your setup process accordingly that is Ball recognition now some players have
excellent ball recognition that means that they can read the ball really well and make a decision
accordingly so they know when the ball has very little penetration and they have to step up to
a ball they also know when the ball has a lot of penetration and they make a decision accordingly
to the situation that they find themselves in but it's not only that players are also really
good at reading Top Spin under Spin and side spin now players will not always be able to recognize
the ball correctly this is not a foolproof method by any means there are going to be opponents who
are so good and hit the ball so fast that a ball recognition is going to be useless for example if
you're trying to return the serve of somebody like an Ivo kalovic or John Isner no matter
how good your ball recognition is the ball is just coming too fast or if you're trying to return the
Top Spin forehand of Carlos alcaraz or Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer no matter how good your
ball recognition is sometimes the opponent is just too good but when we're talking about ball
recognition at the recreational level it is one of the biggest issues that recreational players
face so high level players are really good at recognizing the ball most of the time and
recreational level players are not very good at recognizing the ball and you're probably thinking
why would this be the case well the answer is very simple ball recognition is learned with
experience so let me tell you a story that has nothing to do with tennis but it's going to help
you understand how important ball recognition is and why experience is the only way to get
better at recognizing the tennis ball so when I got my driver's license on my first day driving
I was at a gas station I was going to pull out and I saw a car coming but I pulled out anyway
and this car had to slam the brakes and it stopped maybe a centimeter in front of my car and almost
turned into a crash so my recognition of the speed of that incoming car was very poor why
I have not been driving at all I just passed my driver's exam and this is a mistake that happened
because of a lack of experience now that I'm an experienced driver I can judge the speed of a car
much better and I know when there's enough time to pull out at an intersection and when there is not
enough time I've gained a better recognition of the speed of cars through experience and it works
the same way in tennis the more tennis you have played the better you're gonna be at recognizing
the incoming Ball but it's not that easy the ball recognition will not improve completely by itself
you have to make a mental effort to recognize the ball this is what a lot of players don't
understand they have a nonchalant attitude to playing tennis they will be on their heels and
they will be overall with a low intensity in their entire body and this includes the eyes
when you are under intensity and when you are moving your feet when you keep your heels off
the ground your body is more ready but it's not just the body it's the eyes as well you
have to have this mental preparedness to be able to recognize the ball better so in order
to activate your ball recognition you have to be ready your body has to be under a lot of intensity
ball recognition is when players don't recognize a ball that has very little penetration so they will
stand at the Baseline and somebody will either hit a shank shot or a dink shot or a slicy ball and
they recognize that ball too late and then they scramble up to get the ball and they're forced to
improvise and this mistake has to do with what I just talked about which is a Readiness to be
able to read the ball so yes ball recognition is something you're going to have to be patient with
and the more tennis you play the better the ball recognition is going to be but it's never going
to get better if you're not ready so what I'm asking you to do is to be patient to learn how to
recognize the ball better but in the meantime what you can do right now is every single ball that you
play your body has to be under electricity the body has to be under intensity your heels have
to be off the ground your eyes have to be wide open and you have to be ready to exert an enormous
amount of effort on every single ball what that is going to do is gonna give you a better chance
to recognize the ball better and then over time the more you play your general ball recognition
is going to get better and better you're going to be able to recognize penetration different spins
different directions of the ball it's something that will happen very gradually but right now
start improving your intensity and your Readiness I talk about this all the time I'm sure you heard
me say it a million times but yet even though I say this to a lot of my students they still don't
do it and I know exactly why because it's very uncomfortable to play tennis with intensity it's a
lot more comfortable to just stand there have the heels to the ground and just play like this if you
go to your local club and you watch somebody play doubles most likely you're going to see players
standing around a lot but then when you see the top Junior at your Club you don't see that you
see the shoes are squeaking and they're on their toes bouncing around now it's very uncomfortable
to play tennis with intensity and this is why a lot of players don't do it but guys that's
not all the reason why most recreational players play in a nonchalant way with their heels on the
ground and not moving enough is because moving a lot and playing with a lot of intensity can
be counter-intuitive so let me explain that in a little more detail let's say I'm warming up
with someone and we're hitting back and forth to each other right down the middle it is completely
counter-intuitive to move a lot and have a lot of intensity in a scenario like that your brain
is telling you this ball is easy I don't have to exert that much effort this also happens when you
play in a match and you get a really easy ball your brain is telling you it's a super easy ball
I don't have to exert that much effort but here's the tricky thing about tennis is that the easiest
balls can be the most difficult ball sometimes because the ball is unpredictable you don't know
exactly how it's going to get to you so on All Balls where the ball is coming fast or super slow
no matter the quality of the ball that's coming to you you have to exert a tremendous amount of
intensity and here's how you're gonna do it right now you're gonna stop being on your heels you're
gonna get the heels off the ground and start being on your toes now this is going to be
something that's going to feel weird I'm not gonna lie to you but you're gonna start bouncing around
like this now you don't necessarily have to leave the ground and go like this this is a more high
level way of doing it but just simply keeping your heels off the ground and constantly moving never
being in the same place now the return of serve is going to be a little different because here
you can rock back and forth you don't necessarily have to bounce up and down but once that ball is
in play you're gonna have to stay on your toes and start moving around all the time now remember that
you're gonna have to set on your shot so don't do this inside your shot that's going to mess up your
shot so you will have to move find the ball and eventually set and plant your feet firmly into
the ground but starting right now the way you're gonna include intensity your practices is that
you're simply going to tell yourself to move at all time maybe write this down or a piece of paper
put it in your tennis bag keep reminding yourself even if it feels weird even if it looks weird I
see a lot of players that adapt my teachings and I go out and start moving like this and it
looks kind of odd it doesn't look natural but it doesn't matter guys who cares what the other
people are going to think about you when you start doing it the more you do it the more natural it's
going to become and the more refined this setup process of each and every shot is going to become
so starting today you have to learn intensity is something that a lot of recreational players
lack and this is one of the most important elements on your pathway to tennis success