JAK'S MONTHLY ESSAY SERIES: Achieving Your Personal Best
Why good players are good players!
September 2023
Remember all those self-help books in vogue a while back - "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" being a memorable one. Core traits, or habits, most often welcomed sequentially on the tennis court, are the right stuff that good club players, really good club players, and, of course, professional players collectively embrace, and habitually execute – some with their own signature approach - over and over to be highly effective in their performances.
Here's what they do, somewhat invisible to the television viewing eye - at least in terms of every dueling back court rally - in singles or doubles:
- Split step at every opponent's point of impact,
- Immediately recognize direction of incoming ball to forehand, backhand, or runaround opportunity with early racket prep,
- Read, be cognizant of, how the approaching shot is coming – speed, spin, shape- trajectory, projected bounce point – in order to achieve good forward-back (longitudinal) positioning,
- Commit to then playing the shot either on the rise (coming fast and deep) , at or right around its apex moment after bouncing (high), or as it is descending into one's wheelhouse-strike zone (landing short with low incoming trajectory),
- Visualize intended response without fail – direction and net margin including shot shape,
- Keep head still through impact while exhaling simultaneously after inhaling prior to contact,
- Visually reacquire one's own shot/ball, distinctly after impact (channel Roger Federer) avoiding "looking-up," while the ball is going through the court "downrange" to the opponent,
- Simultaneously maintain a peripheral awareness of an opponent's contact point to get off the mark immediately,
- Repeat sequence while maintaining energized footwork versus standing motionless.
That's all accomplished in millisecond time frame. A literal no-brainer for those who schedule practice time, instead of playing match after match after match with no practice at all.
Copyright©2017- by Jak Beardsworth Tennis. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
COMMENTS WELCOME: JB1tennis@comcast.net