A lot of players that i teach personally will say the following thing to me they'll say nick i
always play really well when we're practicing but then when i go on to the match court i
play completely different and i'm playing horrible what can i do to fix this well it's not so easy to
fix this because this is what makes tennis so difficult this is true even at the elite level
i don't know if you guys know but rafa is my favorite player and i can recommend his book very
highly there's one paragraph in this book that is fascinating that will explain what i'm talking
about when it comes to playing better in practice versus matches so take a listen you might think
that after the millions and millions of balls that i've hit i've had the basic shots of tennis sewn
up that reliably hitting a true smooth clean shot every time would be a piece of cake but it isn't
not just because every day you wake up feeling differently but because every shot is different
every single one from the moment the ball is in motion it comes to you in an infinite i can't say
this word infinite okay we're gonna skip this word okay you guys teach me how to pronounce it anyways
the ball comes to you at blank number of angles and speed with more top spin or backspin flatter
or higher the differences might be minute microscopic but so are the variations your body
makes shoulders elbows wrists hips ankles knees in every shot and there are so many other factors the
weather the surface the rival no ball arrives the same as another no shot is identical so every time
you line up to hit a shot you have to make a split second judgment as to the trajectory and speed of
the ball and then make a split second decision as to how hard and where you must try to hit the shot
back so guys this is a fascinating thing that rafa wrote and even though this is more applying to the
elite level we can apply this to the recreational level as well because
here's what's going to happen let's say you take a lesson with me and now you're going
to get used to the type of ball that i'm giving you even though i'm going to try to mix it up
i'm going to do all kinds of different spins and i'll do my best to give you the most variation
possible but it doesn't matter because once you step onto that match court whoever you're
playing against is going to give you a completely different look another scenario could be that when
you're playing a tournament you have one match where you're playing absolutely amazing and in
the next round all of a sudden you're playing horribly and the reason is because every time you
face somebody different the ball is going to come at you differently you're going to have to make
adjustments and this is what makes tennis so difficult a lot of players get so frustrated by
this that they even think about quitting tennis because they just can't replicate their game in
practice onto the match court but guys what you have to do is just accept that this is the reality
of tennis playing competitive tennis is not easy it's unbelievably difficult at the high level
but it's also very difficult at the recreational level because think about it this way at the
recreational level often players that you're playing against do not possess proper technique
so their strokes are even more unpredictable than at the high level so what can you do to
start playing your practice game in a real match situation now one thing that i want you to do
right away is stop worrying about your opponent because you can't control how your opponent is
going to play anyway and too many players they psyche themselves out even before the match i
hear all the time oh i have to play this dinker i have to play this guy who slices everything
i have to play this guy who's so annoying he moon balls everything so even before the match
these players are psyching themselves out they put negative thoughts in their head and they're most
likely gonna lose as a result of that and the way i approach whether you should think about
your opponent or not depends on the level of your game so if you happen to have automatic strokes in
other words all your technique is correct and you don't have to think about your technique
you possess all the shots you know how to slice you know how to volley you have a good second
serve then maybe you can start thinking a little bit about your opponent then you can apply certain
tactics however if there's holes in your game if your technique is incomplete there's absolutely
unnecessary to think about what's going on on the other side of the net you have to focus on
what's going on on your side of the net so if your technique has not developed yet you're taking it
one step too far it makes zero sense to think about your opponent and many players spend too
much time applying certain tactics and they're looking at their opponent and they're completely
forgetting about working on their own game there is too much work to be done on your
own side of the court so therefore do not worry about your opponent worry about yourself
now one thing players do very rarely is properly warm up before a match so they're going into a
match cold and on top of that and they might be a little bit nervous and anxious and now
it's very tough in the beginning of the match and the first set is probably going to
go your opponent's way so what can you do to prevent that you have to properly warm up
like the professional players do and what is the absolute best way to warm up for tennis it's
actually playing tennis ever been to a pro tournament you see how federer and all these
other guys are hitting balls before their matches they're doing this because this is the absolute
best way to get into a rhythm and to warm your body up the perfect way for a tennis match so
my recommendation is that before you play a match you hit 10 minutes on the ball machine
or you hit 10 minutes on the wall and you're gonna do a lot better in the beginning of your match
it's up i'm going to receive are you guys surprised by that i love to receive first
you know why because i'm going to use that first game to get into a rhythm see if my opponent is
serving i have less to lose and now i can use this first game to warm up because even though
i'm i'm properly warmed up prior to the match i'm still going to have a lot of nerves in the
beginning of the match and by receiving first i'm going to give myself that buffer that extra game
to loosen some of the nerves and additionally get into a groove in the match also the way you should
play the first couple of games in a match is try to extend the rallies this is going to be great
for the same reasons as i mentioned before you're going to loosen up some of that anxiety
and also you're going to get into a great rhythm and you're going to be able to warm up more so
it's super important that you try to have long rallies in the very beginning of the match and
guys another thing that i see way too much at the recreational level is that players obsess with
tactics and you have to realize that at the elite level the tactics that a player is using they're
very general tennis is not like a chess match it's a very intuitive game players are not at
all thinking about technique and they're employing very simple and very general tactics and what do
i mean by that but simple tactics for example are you going to tell yourself that you're going to be
more offensive or maybe you're going to be a little bit more defensive those are simple tactics
but what recreational players often do they treat the tennis court like a chess board and they're
thinking about all these different type of tactics and you have to realize that at the recreational
level players do not have automatic strokes so there's a lot of mistakes in their technique and
players can't execute the tactics that they're trying to employ anyways so this is a big waste
of time it's actually going to clutter your brain and you're not going to feel good on the court and
you're going to play worse keep things simple and realize that even at the elite level tactics are
very simple and general in nature and lastly and most importantly the reason why you're not playing
in a match like you are in practice it's because you probably haven't worked hard enough and i
hate to say it guys the muscle memory that needs to be developed in order for the strokes to be
accessible for you in a match this takes a lot of time it takes a lot of repetitions you can't just
work on a certain technique on your strokes for a couple of weeks and then expect that
this technique is going to be there for you in a match so guys let me explain to you how this
works and i've done it with so many students i know that this is the case so you have to repeat
the certain technique that you're learning tens of thousands of times in a practice situation and
then you have the chance that this particular thing that you're doing is going to become
automated and then when you play a match without thinking about it at all it will be there for you
so let's say you're working on something technical on your forehand could you do this in a match
absolutely not because what's going to happen in the match is that you want to win now that means
that maybe even at a subconscious level you're going to be using the game that's going to give
you the best chances to win that match so in other words this new thing that you're working on on the
forehand is not automated yet and you know that if you try to use this it's not going to work you're
going to make a lot of mistakes and you're going to go back to what feels comfortable what gives
you the most chances to get that ball into the court and therefore give you the chance to win the
point or the match so to put it simply the only way you can play more like you do on a practice
court in a real match situation is to practice more you need to repeat these strokes tens of
thousands of times in a non-match situation in a practice session with no pressure where you're
only thinking about technique and when you do that you have a good chance that the stroke becomes
automated and is accessible for you in a real match situation so what i'm telling you guys is
that you shouldn't try to work on your technique in a match and maybe even if you're developing
something new if you're working on your strokes put matches aside for a while because often what
happens is this is true even at the junior level let's say you're working on something technical
on your game and then you go out and play a bunch of matches you might actually get worse
because like i said you're probably not going to think about technique in your match and you're
only going to further ingrain the old muscle memory so if you're working on something new
it might be good to lay off of matches for a while and just get those reps in so that eventually this
new thing that you learn is going to be automated and will be there for you in a real match
situation infinite infinite i can't i don't know what this word i guarantee you rafa his english is
obviously worse than mine he doesn't know what this word is i don't think he wrote this book
or at least he wrote it in spanish and someone translated it or maybe they helped him out with a
couple of words here and there let me try it again infin infinitesimal oh i think i know it okay i
got confused infinitesimal infinitesimal is that it infinitesimal yes okay i got it infinitesimal
still a great book though i highly recommend it this is the best player in the history of the game no
i'm just kidding it's the big three they're all the same but i love this guy the most