Coaching

Recently, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) held a QuickStart training for tennis professionals at Sportime Lynbrook. QuickStart Tennis is the USTA’s new play format for juniors ages 10 and under. It has been designed to make tennis learning and playing more fun, and to help juniors have...Read more

Will you know it when you see it? In fact, we have all seen it when watching tennis. To most, it is the pink elephant in the room that we do not know what to name. Last year, Karen Crouse of The New York Times began naming it when she wrote an article called “Toss the Ball, Hit the Ball, Oops, Oops...Read more

One of the greatest misunderstandings in tennis is the topic of control. All tennis players desire to have more control, more control of their emotions, more control on their shots, more control over their opponents; the truth is though that the things we think gives us more control often do not...Read more

Sports are almost entirely a visual motor game, and when the mind fills with chatter, this is when the trouble starts. Many players begin to over think when under pressure. They secretly believe that words will help them make better shots. They will say things like “don’t hit it long, do not double...Read more

The Tennis Channel has a feature in which top professionals dig into their bags to see what they have inside. I suspect that they find some long lost items when they do this bag check, and the tone of this feature is more flippant than serious. Junior tournament players, however, should recognize...Read more

I scored two goals playing tennis in one day ... how you may ask? I mishit a ball so severely on two separate occasions that it flew backwards over the fence and into two soccer goals which were adjacent to the court. It may be one of the biggest clichés in sports, but “keep your eye on the ball”...Read more

“I’m the better player, how did I lose?” Does this phrase sound familiar? Imagine this: it was the finals of the annual 16-and-Under Tournament, the weather was hot and muggy, and the sun was beaming down like a laser. The time was 3:00 p.m. and the stands were jammed with fans, coaches and the...Read more

We know teaching is more art than science, but we're still undecided on what matters the most … the message or the messenger? First, let's take a look at the messenger, or the way in which we deliver the “goods.” Methodology is determined by many factors. Every teacher and coach, has their own...Read more

Whenever I step on to the court to teach a lesson, I ask myself three things: (1) Who am I teaching? (2) What am I teaching? (3) How am I going to teach it? When planning my lessons, I consider the age and level of the student, what the student's goals are, the strengths and weaknesses in his game...Read more

One of my first tennis instructors when I first began taking lessons in the late 1960s-1970s taught me something I will never forget. I preach this message to this day to many of my students, as well as my own two boys who compete in college and the USTA Junior Circuit: “Just let your racquet do...Read more