Are You Working Hard on Your Game?

If you take tennis clinics, are you getting the true value of your time and money spent?

What type of clinic are you taking?

Do you take Cardio Tennis Clinics? If so, any expectation of improving your technique and racket skills should be shelved and replaced by the goal of breaking a sweat and getting a vigorous workout! Move your feet and raise your heart rate! It's a HIT and GIGGLE SESSION that will benefit your fitness level, nothing more.

Maybe you take Strategy and Tactic Clinics. Here again, don't expect to improve your mechanics and stroking skills. This type of session is best done with players of the same level and is designed to improve your fundamental positioning and shot selection concepts from each of those positions. Where should I place my serve and why? When should I move toward the net? What should I do if they lob it over my partner? When and where should I use the lob? 

Aside from the repetitive situational exposure that is the hallmark of a good tactical drill session, its true value is to accurately and unemotionally catalog where you fail in the execution of your tactical concepts. You can have the greatest idea ever conceived by a human on a tennis court, but if you don't possess the racket skills to pull it off, what is that idea worth?

Imagine a golfer who has a 75-yard shot to the green and has a wonderful idea (mental image) of hitting a gentle wedge onto the putting surface and sinking a putt for a par. That golfer had better have a high skill level with that wedge, or they'll be off to the side of the green and struggling to make a bogey! 

GOOD IDEAS ARE A DIME A DOZEN! CAN YOU EXECUTE?

The point of this column is to convince you that tennis is very much a SKILL INTENSIVE ENDEAVOR.

It’s a bit sad to see players improving their fitness (cardio clinics) and gaining understanding of strategy and positioning but still making the same technical errors week in and week out without addressing the truth of why they aren't getting the results they are working for.

You may be really fast and have superior endurance as well as being a tactical savant, but if your racket skills are suspect, competitive failure is in your future.

Be kind to yourself. Make a clear evaluation (WARTS AND ALL) of what skills need to be acquired and then go about acquiring them.

Tennis is about being a sharpshooter! It's as simple as that!!