Coaching

The game of tennis has evolved into a power struggle, with both players often trying to hit their shots through the opponent. An underused strategy is to hit the ball up in front of your opponent so that they have to deal with a short, low ball while moving forward. This strategy is especially...Read more

One of the most frequent requests I hear from my students is how to achieve more power. After a short discussion and acknowledgement of the first priorities of getting the ball in and getting the ball in away from the opponent, the goal of power may be addressed. The two biggest components to...Read more

What qualities matter most in a tennis coach? A long, strong record of success is, of course, one trait, but how about considering how a professional coaches above whom and how many they coach? The defining positive quality of a teacher is rarely service volume, so why then do so many coaches...Read more

Serving is all about the toss, timing and rhythm. Hitting a first serve more than 100 miles per hour and then hitting a second serve 20-30 miles per hour slower makes it very difficult to time the motion and point of contact. In addition, the variation in the speed often affects the toss because...Read more

Watching the ball is the most important point of focus when trying to hit a tennis ball well. It is a necessity if you are striving for that consistently solid hit. Your line of vision is something that is rarely mentioned, but equally as important. If you can focus on the area to your right or...Read more

The modern pro game is typified by shorter rallies and explosive, aggressive tennis. Huge serves and dominating returns are the norm. Rally length data promoted by analysts like Craig O’Shannessy have supported the concept of aggressive first-strike tennis at the top of the game. However, while the...Read more

I have taught tennis to people of all ages, from five-to-85-years-old, maybe even older, and one of my specialties is teaching wheelchair tennis. I am also Tournament Director for the annual Jana Hunsaker Wheelchair Tennis Tournament held at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center for 20...Read more

Bob and Mike Bryan decided to retire prior to this year's U.S. Open. They have to go down as one of, if not the best, doubles teams of all time. Watching them play helped me teach my students how to cover the ball hit down the middle in doubles. It always seemed like there were no dividing lines on...Read more

Many times during a match you will be faced with a decision on whether to go for the winner or just make sure you get the ball back in play—or at least it seems like that. However, there are many other options besides these two obvious ideas . My thought is to play the shot like you would play it...Read more

There are so many reasons to hit most of your shots cross-court in a match: early point of contact, the angle, the ball crosses low part of the net, it makes your opponent move more, etc. Another great reason is because a cross-court shot does not have to be hit nearly as well to be effective. You...Read more