First of all, wow, and I do mean a big time wow, many thanks to all of you who were so kind to write to me during my time over in Perth recently for the ITF World team and individuals tournaments.
Von Cramm Cup (60s) Team Silver Medal
Mai and I got home here in northern California late last Wed night, and I have just found the time to at least approve of all of the great comments and replies.
Now I’ll look for some more time to respond to them individually. (Uh, well, you know, that may take awhile, so don’t hold your breath…).
But, I’m just amazed at the feedback, how much you enjoyed those updates, and especially something that I hadn’t thought about before, that those of you who have never seen me play, well, it seems there is some interest to do some video clips of actual points in matches in addition to the regular instructional video tips.
So, we can do that. For now, I can set up a camera over at the Berkeley Tennis Club and video some points and then give you some feedback as to what I’m thinking and how you might use some of that feedback for your own game.
And hopefully in the future, I can get organized enough to get some video of a tournament match (probably my next tournament is going to be at the Babolat World event in Palm Springs, CA in January 2010).
But please. don’t be shy, let me know specifically what situations you’d like to see where you may need some help with your own game. Just reply by filling out the form below this post.
OK, I’m off to an early dinner with my kids and my step mom Corinne over at Spenger’s in Berkeley (that’s right, and you know who you are, we’ve been doing some damage over there for what, something like almost 60 years?). Mai’s got here holiday pie baking business going full tilt today, so the kitchen is off limits to the rest of us, and she won’t be able to join us. Dang…
My two oldest kids are home from college for the Thanksgiving break, Georgie is a senior at Georgie Southern U in Statesboro, GA and Molly is a sophomore at Ft. Lewis College in Durango, CO. Our baby, Cassie, is kicking some butt as a freshman here at Campolindo High School in Moraga. So, yours truly is feeling pretty darn good about stuff right now with all of them home for a week or so…
Again, thanks so much for your continued support of me and Webtennis.net. Glad you enjoyed the updates from Perth. Sta in touch and let me know what challenges you want solved with your tennis game…
Brent
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Are You A Competitive League Or Tournament Player?
How To Win More Points, Games, Sets, & Matches
Brent:
Let me chime in with my vote for video of some points and what you are thinking during them. I look forward to see them. Thanks- Phil
I have a pretty reasonable power game, but get frustrated by the moonballer and the guy who ‘just gets everything back.’ With these guys, I can be winning the point pretty convincingly, then moonballed into, basically, starting the whole point over.
I guess it gets me impatient and I end up making the first error.
What do I need to know?
Peter Kean
Berkeley Tennis Club
Orange, New Jersey
Peter, you old Dane you…
I’d suggest trying to make a statement early in the match by trying to take a moonball out of the air, play it as an approach shot, and even if you lose a couple of those points, two good things may happen.
You might find out that you feel pretty darn comforable with that type of an approach shot, and #2, your opponent just might stop with the moonball and then start driving their groundstrokes the way you want them to…
Practice taking the ball out of the air as an approach shot. Get a practice partner out there and have them feed you some simple balls that you can start to get the feel for this shot.
It’s not that difficult, and don’t put a lot of pressure on yourself to have to hit a great approach. If you can get decent court position inside that service line when your opponent then has to hit their passing shot, you’ll get some unforced errors from them…
B-
Hi Brent
I played in a tournament recently with a woman I had never played with before. She considers herself to be a top A player, me I am a good B. I find myself in situations in doubles both men’s and mixed where my partner sets us up for failure. Some examples:
Service Placement
They always serve wide to the forehand on the duce court, thus getting a much stronger return than if they served down the T. If I ask them to serve down the T and they cannot. My question is rhetorical I guess, is someone who cannot place their serve really an A (or 4.5 or better) player? The side effect of wrong service placement is that it takes me out of the game poaching to a degree. Same applies on the AD court. They serve wide, but because they cannot hit it as hard wide I need to be even more carefull to guard the ally.
Service Return
We were playing a woman in the Duce court and a lefthanded man in the Ad court. I suggested she hit her returns more up the middle thus to both backhands and again to help me, help her by poaching some of those easy ones away. She could not/ or would not do that. Thus was faced with hard returns at her feet which she was forced to hit up, mostly to him at the net, you know where the next ones going, right at me. YIKES.
There should be a different USTA rating for doubles. The strategy required in singles are less strategic than in doubles I think. One can get away with making positioning errors and placement errors more in singles if you have the speed to compensate.
Some talk about this would be great. I send your articles out to my friends.
Thanks Greg Minogue
Hey Greg and let me address a couple of your questions. Don’t get me started on the USTA and their pathetic NTRP rating system. TENCAP has the best system far and a way, and as you mentioned, TENCAP gives you both a singles and a separate doubles rating. Only makes sense. More to come on TENCAP and how to get involved in 2010.
Serving out wide can be dangerous because it forces you and your partner to have to move out slightly towards your respective alleys to cover the angles now created by that out wide serve. If your opponent gets a chance to move out to receive that serve and not be off balance, then it’s trouble… And you’re right, pretty tough to poach on out wide serves.
MXD to me is a lot more about fake poaching, showing movement, making the returner wonder if there’s a poach on. Get ready for lots of overheads.
Returns of serve. Sounds obvious to me that you’d want your partner to try to play them down the middle but depending on the placement of the serve to her, that can be tricky. I’d have her focus more on a solid cross court return that ends up at their feet directly in front of them. You should then be able to to mix in fakes, poaches, and fake & then poach to take advantage.
Brent
Hi Brent,
Welcome Home! So happy to hear all is well on the ‘Able Front’. Happy Thanksgiving……..and the most bountiful of blessings to you and yours!
Cici
How ya doing Cici? That dance card from Dart’s filled up yet? Mine’s still got lots of blanks on it! Hope you’re well. Fun emailing to Mandy. B-
Followed your progress in Perth, was lots of fun seeing your comments etc. I would also like to see video of a match or two, especially serve an volley footage.. thanks
Brent,
Have a super Thanksgiving Day and week with your family. Always enjoy your comments. Stay in touch.
Danl
I really have some problems with my two hand backhand and a HUGE problem with my serve…. (Please take note that I am right-handed)
Hope you can give me more tips
Thanks Mr. Silver Medalist.
Way to go…Brent!!!
Pick up one of my 3 lesson packages at a 30% discount (where you can choose specifically which 3 lessons you want) over at:
Brent’s 3 Lesson 30% Discount Package – Click Here
Well done mate.
Looking forward to some play-by-play of your doubles/singles matches.
Some help with the mental game. Two items in particular are 1) keeping my mind focused on the ball and the immediate point. Second, how to develop more confidence?
Try my detailed lesson on the mental skills required for competitive tennis players over at:
http://www.webtennis.net/tennis-mental-skills.htm
Hi Brent.
The pleasure is mine. Thanks for the brief info on your family. And I am glad to see that you and your team mates did very well.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Cheers
Roy
Brent, I forgot to mention that your DVD’s and tips are definitely helping me out. But as the old saying goes practice makes perfect. I make it a point to watch your DVDs at least everyday. Also I play tennis indoors four times a week. Nice to hear from you.
Thanks
Roy
The most common missing elements in improvement is the simple act pf make practice a daily habit.
You don’t have to actually be on the court to practice.
There are lots of off court ways to practice from rehearsing strokes without a racket, visualization, etc., etc., etc.
Have a great Thanksgiving with your family and please give my best wishes to your stepmother, Corinne. I remember her as a truly great and kind lady.
Brooks
Hi Brent…and welcome back…if i had to choose, as a fellow serve and volleyer, i’d like to see how you do it…specifically, how you set up the points, where you volley to depending on the return, etc…I set up the points well, but make too many volley errors, either in placement, tactics, or both…this would really help my game…thanks again…matt
Hey Matt. Sure, no problem, I’ll get a series of videos done where I show you what I do with S/V, shot choices, etc. Brent
Hi Brent
I feel like I really know you!
Thanksgiving is a huge event in USA. I am sure your celebrations will be very meaningful. We all have a great deal to be thankful for, don’t we! Living in Africa, I am constantly reminded that having food on the table and a roof over my head means I am highly privileged.
I run a tennis development program for disadvantaged kids in the area, and am constantly amazed at what tennis can do for a person’s whole life. It’s so much more than teaching them to hit a yellow ball across a net. it’s about life skills, self-belief and knowing that you are a worthy person.
And in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about Tim? You’re right, we should all be a ton more grateful for what tennis does for us individually and for those of us around the world… Brent
When stretching very wide to reach a flat backhand or forehand, the advice is, throw it up.(Or if you do not really know what to do, throw it up). OK.
Could you give some advice about how to reach out and hit a kind of lob. Hope you understand what I mean.
Mogens.
Hi Mogens and always good to hear from you.
One of the keys to being able to play a good controlled lob when you’re pulled very wide is to make sure you don’t “reach” with your racket too early.
Our instincts tell us to reach early so we won’t get our feet too far out of the court, but in reality what happens is we’re off balance, fall a step or more further away from the middle and our lob stroke mechanics aren’t very good when we’re reaching and falling…
What I like to do is feel that I’m actually going to run through this shot a step or two, be on balance when I do, because I’ll temporarily sacrifice court position to get better lob stroke mechanics.
Better lob stroke mechanics equates to much better control of the lob (height & depth) which equates to more time to recover back to the middle of the court.
This is a good question that requires a follow up video that I’ll get posted soon. Brent
Congrats for completing the tourney. You may have not won the title but you have done your best and that is good enough for me.
Happy Thanksgiving!
love to be always hearing from you.
thanks.
> But please. don’t be shy, let me know specifically what situations you’d like to see where you may need some help with your own game. Just reply by filling out the form below this post.
Got any tips for the situation of you serving in doubles, returner hits short cross court drop shot your partner can’t get. I have trouble on doing something with this, esp. forehand side. I either shoot it long when I try to whip it over with big topspin cross court or catch the net when I try to hit it flat past their net guy.
Try a lob over the opponent’s backhand (in case your lob ends up short, a high backhand from your opponent won’t bow a hole through you like an overhead might…).
Take your time with this shot and make sure you’re not having to force a topspin lob with too much of an eastern, semi-western, forehand grip.
Go continental on it, loft it over the player directly in front of you (that player is normally crawling all over the net at that moment) and then back up to the middle of the service box you’re in and get ready for what will most likely be a lob from your opponent…
Brent
Hi again, Brent,
Your opponent (or mine) is putting pressure on your backhand, of course, and the ball is bouncing pretty fast in the back corner, maybe two-three feet inside the baseline and one foot off the sideline… He (a righthander) is moving with his shot to the net…
What can we do? Hit it hard to his body? Try the low cross to his backhand? Or ‘simply’ try to lob him back? Well, the problem may rather be: HOW do we (I) produce the shot (any of the three I mentioned)???
Greetings from Joergen in Birkeroed, Denmark
Good question Joergen. My response needs to be in the form of a video which I’ll put on my “to do” list for next week.
All 3 of these shots require specific footwork patterns, grips, swing shapes, mindsets, etc. And of course, a lot has to do with specifically where you are on the court when your opponent plays their shot. We’ll get into all of that on the video.
For now, work on you being up to net prior to you giving your opponent the chance to do so!
Brent
As a rule of thumb in doubles
should the person on the ad side or deuce side always be responsible for covering the middle of the court on a shot coming from their direction, There seems to be confusion on that point
Sometimes the net ad player will poach
on his backhand side, and leave his side of the court wide open, if he doesn’t put that shot away.
The person who is cross court from the ball should take responsibility for the down the middle shot.
If you haven’t already done so, pick up your copy of my detailed lesson on doubles where we discuss this specific situation.
DOUBLES – “Why and When To Be Where On The Court”, a detailed downloadable & DVD lesson by Brent
Brent
Hi Brent -
I probably will never meet you but I wanted to thank you for your website. Watching your videos has improved my tennis game – even my coach comments on my improvement.
We were rooting for you over in Perth. Thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Thanks again Dy
Thanks Dy and that’s a great compliment to read that even your coach noticed your improvement!
Appreciate your support when I was in Australia recently.
Brent – WebTennis DVD & Downloadable Lessons
There seems to be so little time to think about strategy & tactics between points let alone stroke corrections so it would be great to hear the process that you go through during a match from point to point, game to game and set to set.
Hi Dan and good question. I really try to figure out in general if there’s a weakness over there on my opponent’s side, and for me, that centers more on my opponent’s passing shot ability. Is her better on one side or the other…
Of course, alot of what I do when I approach the net dictates where my next shot (1st volley) is going. If I can approach and get my opponent pulled wide, then playing my next shot to the open court is obvious, even if that means I’m playing into their strength. I’d rather stretch out an opponent to their strength than allow a good set up to their weakness…
Between points is my time to control the background chatter going on in my head. The more I can dumb myself down, the clearer my decisions are when I play the point.
If you haven’t already done so, pick up a copy of my lesson on the mental skills required for competitive tennis players over at:
http://www.webtennis.net/tennis-mental-skills.htm
Brent
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