come right at me
you hear how loose my strings are can you hear it yeah I strung this racket by hand wait really yes
what do you mean by hand by hand completely by hand no Stringer that's that's hard yes
you have one handed backhand Volley or two hands one hand two
oh you have two two and release two and release okay let me see okay
okay there's way too much movement on your Volley so we have to minimize the movement of the of the
racket you stand right here okay I'll show you how to do it okay let's start with the
forehand take your racket back and when you make contact two things I would like you to
do number one you keep the racket head above the handle the whole time and also keep the level of
the racket head up so imagine that like there's a table underneath you you don't want to drop here
keep the racket head up because you could technically keep the racket head above the handle
and still go down like this you're going down way too much that's why your're missing a lot of balls
into the net and your control is off so we need to keep the racket head above the Handle we also need
to keep the level of the racket up and all I want you to do is you can take the racket slightly back
like this you come into the contact and you freeze okay do it again come into the contact and freeze
you see that let's do forehand volley first and then we'll do backhand you come in here and
you freeze take these right down the center okay right down the middle and then freeze
go again freeze go go a little stronger you can go into the ball a little bit stronger
and faster and just freeze it at contact so the ball pops off your racket there you go
okay sara we have to find the correct angle your angle is still a little bit off where you make
contact it's not correct yet first of all you straightening the arm too much I want you to do
two things keep the elbow in front of you at all times okay okay elbow needs to be in front also
bend the arm a little more like this oh now at the same time bend the wrist back this way so this way
you need to make contact watch when I do it I go here you see this angle right here so it needs to
be a lot of space between the elbow and the body and the wrist has to be bent backwards okay like
that but doesn't have to be so far away from the ball remember there's the further away from the
contact you are the less feel you have all right so you want to be a little closer to the body
but there needs to be space in here and the wrist needs to be bent back and again you're going to
lag it slightly behind and just freeze right here you're coming to the ball fast okay come
into it fast and just freeze it right here okay all here we go best one so far come on freeze it
again
just think of freezing the contact freeze there you go okay there's a little bit of a wrist
movement happening shortly after contact which I don't like because it's an indicator there might
be some movement at contact as well so here's what you want to do once you freeze you're going
to stay here okay racket face can be slightly open so you might not be that open at contact
but slightly after contact you open and hold here hold here your racket is closing this way
I go freeze freeze that's it and just stop it right here maintain this level of the racket
head so you want the head of the regularly facing up slightly I like that because you know why when
you have the racket strings up it promotes an extension of the wrist okay remember Patrick
rafter he used the volley like this used to hit and then go like this afterwards it promotes an
extension of the wrist because that's exactly what we need at contact and extension of the
wrist you have a straightening of the wrist here like this slightly after which is an
indicator for movement around the contact as well not necessarily but it can have that
effect okay okay so again you come in here and you freeze make this shape when you're done okay
better freeze more but okay do you see how it's like just kind of plopping off your racket it's
not a lot of power come in there and just squeeze the racket a little tighter like give
it some but finishing with the racket up yeah but give it a little bit of pressure
at contact you come into the ball and then you just freeze hard okay it's a hard freeze
okay without much movement though you freeze but less movement but you come in fast like that okay
good again okay but now open the racket face a little more and we're perfect
good perfect one that was the best one so far come again
yes Sarah that's the volley right there come again best volley of your life here we go
Sarah what do you think perfect it's better right it's good look at these volleys they're crazy
okay dropped a little too much come again freeze it's dropping a little too
much keep it up you know what I mean it's dropping now again hold a little tighter
come on there you go okay what do you think is better better I mean I feel I have more control
they all go they go exactly where you need them to go now some of this droppage of the racket can
be a strength issue where it's your wrist a little bit collapsing after the contact you know what
it might be because I do feel like not the wrist but the hand the hand but so there's muscles in
the hand there's muscles in the forearm that will help you with stability at contact and a
lot of players have some deficiencies in those muscles and obviously I mean you're a coach too
you see a young kid hit a one-handed backhand volley the wrist almost always collapses
it's a strength issue so some of these droppage on your forehand could be a strength issue so if
you go to the gym and do some forearm exercises there's plenty of them the easiest one you don't
even have to go to the gym is like squeezing a ball or hit volleys against the wall or in
general do a lot more volleys yeah but that forehand Volley looked a lot better
so Sarah on the backhand Volley we have to decide whether we're going to do a one-handed backhand
Volley or a two-handed backhand volley you have a hybrid which I don't like I don't necessarily
have anything against the two-handed backhand Volley but I don't like a hybrid Volley what is
a hybrid one so you're coming in with two hands and you letting go like this okay yeah that's me
yeah I don't like I don't like it so let's just do a one-handed backhand Volley okay okay you can do
this you're going to hold the racket by the throat now here's what you're going to do it's a lot more
simple as far as the angles that you're going to achieve on the backhand Volley you don't
have to worry about getting this you just keep the racket on this side and now you're gonna again lag
the racket slightly meaning that the tip of the racket is going to be behind the handle here you're
going to hold the racket with your left hand now the ball is going to come you're going to stay
with two hands stay you're going to come in and now let go you let go right before contact and
where do we go where do we go with that keep it close don't go like this yeah you don't need that
there's no counter action because you're freezing at contact remember on a slice yeah you are
going this way so there's a counter action with the left hand there's no counter action on the
volley you can stay close the whole time all right so again let's do it together we come in this way
contact let go it's too early let go later now there you go okay again
now there you go and you do this as close to the contact as possible again when you
make contact you think about freezing you squeeze the racket tight and you try
to keep the racket head above the handle okay let's go go right down the middle okay
Sarah hold as long as possible don't do too much here don't get too wild freeze the contact
these volleys this is crazy Sarah what do you think simple well is it better or not it is
here we go come on Sarah this is the most insane Volley transformation I've ever seen look at you
this is absolutely crazy what's happening right here
good Sarah what do you think it's better I mean they all go to the same place that's
this thing you got a lot more control it's much better you got tons of more control
Sarah now we're going to test whether you can do this when you're moving around but
a lot of times as you know like you start moving and the technique kind of goes out
the window you know so we'll do a simple drill where you're closing
and tried to volley okay okay the technique stays exactly the same all right we go
okay come up real quick so what's happening now is that once we start involving movement in this
case it's transitional movement the technique fell apart and it's very common the reason
why it's falling apart because you're stopping and trying to volley and you're losing balance
and you end up kind of reaching and and the arm loses control so you can't even do what
you're trying to do because you're completely off balance so what you need to do is super simple
you're going to make contact the same way I showed you before but you're going to continue
transitioning through the ball and make two steps after you've made contact okay you're gonna go
contact one two got it okay contact one two here we go forehand better okay keep the same technique
though but I can't come through through better and again come on contact one two get in there
you get your nose up to the net come on get in there better and again get it get it get it get it
keep moving now back pedal don't turn around back pedal
and back in contact one two much better back pedal and contact one two come on Sarah go go
go best volley I've seen so far one more contact one two come on get in
see the difference much better you understand the difference so sometimes it's not necessarily your
form but it's rather your footwork that's wrong and it's causing you to have bad form okay you see
I want to do one more test okay this one's going to be this is more transitional diagonal movement
now I'm going to test your lateral movement okay so I'm going to send you side to side and you put
everything down the line come on Sarah go again backhand here we go come on Sarah come on come on
and again come on five more come on Sarah you got this come on Sarah go all right come on Sarah go
better and again and one more sir come one more okay I am happy with the way you're
hitting volleys laterally in the beginning I was worried because you were reaching because that's
the number one mistake on the lateral volley where players instead of moving their whole body there
the first instinct they have is just to go like this and then the body follows okay so you have
to imagine playing the ball more with your body always want to maintain a contact that's closer
to you and not have this Instinct where the first thing you do is to reach towards the end
you are doing a lot better job with it but now we'll do one more round where you're cognizant
of moving your entire body to the ball not reaching unless it's an emergency you only
reach when it's an emergency and none of these that I'm giving you are really emergencies you
can get all of them with the contact being a little bit closer to you okay again the
advantage is when you're too far away there's less you can do with the volley you have less
control less peel and actually less power and a lot of times less stability where players
can start doing some kind of wrist movements and not missing the volley because of it when you're
close to here you're stronger better stability better feel and it's a better rate of Ollie
okay let me get water go ahead I said one more time lateral volleys let's see what's going on
how many balls? uh let me think about it okay it's not going to be more than 10 I promise
Come a Little Closer how you feeling you tired tired come on closer Sarah closer go again no
closer don't don't reach get your whole body there come on whole body there bye time out
I don't like the racket flailing like this in the forehand flailing control the contact remember the
first thing we worked on you have to keep that in mind that is extremely important control the
racket head okay okay now one more thing that you're probably wondering or maybe you're not
wondering this why not transition on these values I need to see it okay sit down I don't know what's
wrong I don't know I think it's the Sun it might be the Heat I'll go ahead and sit down
take a drink so this is hard training here I know this is really hard training
but I was going to tell you one more thing about the volley no you don't feel good I've got this did
you eat something today no no yet that's the problem you came to the tennis court without
eating anything remember you can't fast in tennis it's like driving a car without gas
it doesn't work Sarah you have to fuel your body when you go on a tennis court no you're
right you're gonna be like dizzy shaky I'll tell you what we do a couple more drills and we're
out of here unless you're telling me you can't do anything then we stop right now I can but
I need time you never want to come to the court without food they didn't eat I think about 18
hours and by the way it's not not wrong to fast but you have to do it so that yeah you have fuel
in your system you can probably get away with it when you're teaching but not when you're playing
you know what's happening because I can go teaching 24 hours fasting are
you okay I don't know if I can do it I'm not gonna lie you can't do it I don't know
really I feel bad you feel really bad okay we're gonna get something to eat after this
we'll go to the gas station we'll get you we'll get you something to eat sugar I don't know you
need sugar Sarah no now I'm better okay okay I'm all right we're almost done okay we're
almost done let's see let's try it again either not eating you're right of course I've done all
the tennis mistakes you can possibly do Sarah I've gone to matches without eating and have uh you
know collapsed see I never do it like for much but now that I'm coaching I do it well I don't think I
can listen I I'm a fan of fasting I like it I'll do it myself but you have to be careful because
even when teaching this is uh you're exerting yourself a lot in this type of heat but be careful
Nikola I don't think I can do it I'm dizzy for real you're busy for real yeah okay we just call
it okay all right but you understand the volley that we improved today no I did totally you're
volleying so much better much better the one thing that we didn't do that would have liked to do
was um testing your reflexes I was gonna go to the Baseline and rip the balls hard really hard
right at you and see what you do there we do that next time and then we talk about lateral volleys
you did a little better on the second round just keeping the the arm close to the body remember
the most important thing The Volleys were super wild in the beginning and you were able to control
him much better by getting the movements of the racket under control okay that's the number one
thing that you adjusted and continue doing that and the more you do it the more it's going to
go into your muscle memory okay all right because yeah let's get you something to eat I'm gonna sit