Tip of the Week: How to Deal With Nerves

By Steve Annacone
Everyone gets nervous. The best tennis players have methods that they use to keep nerves from affecting their ability to play the next point the way they would like. Most players have a speed that they normally play the point—they either take the majority of the 25 seconds allowed between points,...Read more

Tip of the Week: Play Your Game

By Steve Annacone
A lot of coaches these days spend hours and hours on scouting and analyzing the opponent. Tennis is a very difficult game to figure out and sometimes knowing your opponent's strengths and weaknesses can be helpful. However, the majority of the time spent training and preparing for matches should be...Read more

Tip of the Week: Learn Transition and Volleying From the Start

By Steve Annacone
There has been a lot of discussion about the difficulty of successfully moving towards the net and winning points with volleys in the modern tennis game. The game has changed and the balls are going faster. However, the biggest obstacle moving forward these days is that most players do not have the...Read more

Tip of the Week: Do Something Different

By Steve Annacone
Tennis is a game of repetition. Players get very used to hitting the ball a certain way, playing a point with a certain strategy, and doing things that feel comfortable. Your opponent is trying to get all of these ideas to be difficult and make you feel uncomfortable. It is very important in both...Read more

Tip of the Week: 105

By Steve Annacone
There are a lot of discussions going on about pickleball these days. The sport is definitely growing and if you have been a tennis player in the past, you can likely be very successful on the Pickleball court. I stumbled across a game a couple of years ago that could give tennis some momentum to...Read more

Tip of the Week: Simplify Your Thoughts

By Steve Annacone
Staying calm and keeping things simple on the tennis court is very difficult. It is so easy for your mind to go wild when you are playing a tennis match. Your adrenaline level increases, you have a ten second point that seems like it lasts an hour, and you have a huge opportunity, but then you make...Read more

Tip of the Week: Return Serve Differently Than You Hit a Groundstroke

By Steve Annacone
Returning serve is an extremely important aspect of the game. The trend these days is to stand way behind the baseline and take big swings at the ball. Since tennis is a game of position, as well as hitting the ball, standing close to the back fence or the wall puts you at a pretty severe...Read more

Tip of the Week: How to Play in the Wind

By Steve Annacone
I remember waking up in the morning when we were living in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and checking the trees in the distance to see how windy it was. We were playing tennis mainly at the Bridgehampton Racquet and Surf Club (which was right on the ocean) and it seemed like it was almost always windy on the...Read more

Tip of the Week: Keep the Speed of Your Swing the Same

By Steve Annacone
There is always a tendency to swing at the ball faster when you are trying to win the point and slower when you are trying to keep the ball in play. Both of these things can contribute to a loss of timing and rhythm. I would recommend finding your "comfortable speed" for each shot and keeping it...Read more

Tip of the Week: Smooth is the Key

By Steve Annacone
Ever since I heard the news that Roger Federer is retiring after the Laver Cup, I have been trying to come up with a way to use his approach to the game as a tool to help tennis players who are striving for improvement. Obviously, we are not going to be able to play like Roger Federer. However,...Read more

Tip of the Week: Adjust Your Court Position

By Steve Annacone
Adjusting your position on the court can be the difference in a match. Most players prefer to stand in close to the baseline or way behind the baseline. In both cases, it is important to adjust according to how the point is going. If the opponent is hitting the majority of their shots very deep,...Read more

Tip of the Week: Serving and Returning Serve Determine the Outcome of the Match

Photo Credit: Simon Bruty/USTA
By Steve Annacone
Statistics are becoming a big part of coaching tennis players. First serve percentage, points won on first serve or second serve, and percentage of return of serves in play are often compared when analyzing a match. There are still crucial points in a match which may influence the outcome. However...Read more
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