It is time to thaw out from the winter freeze and start planning ahead for a summer tennis camp for your little tennis champs. Attending a tennis camp can be one of the best experiences a young player has in their lifetime. When I was 14-years-old, I went to a Nick Bollettieri tennis camp in…
Bethpage Park Tennis Center hosted its 8th Annual High School Tennis Coaches Workshop on March 8. The free event gathered high school coaches from across Long Island and taught different tips, methods and drills that coaches can use for their players. There was a great turnout as more than a couple dozen coaches came out…
Tennis is ever evolving. Professional players are getting faster, stronger and bigger at a greater rate. Rackets, strings, training methods and strokes are changing just as fast. A broad spectrum of online teaching and information is at our fingertips. Watching videos of the top players and emulating them is thought to be the “best” way…
Why is it that most coaches have only one or two number one players in a career, yet Pat Etcheberry, Trainer Emeritus, has had more than 15 players. Granted a coach spends a much greater amount of time with a player than a trainer. The partnership between coach and trainer, however, as we have seen…
Every year, players returning home from college tell me that they were "tested" in a two or three mile run for their teams. They were told, "Since you run several miles in a match, let's test this on the track." A three-mile run is a poor assessment for tennis, performance. In the past, I've called…
It's a new year and time to pick up the pace. Have you taken inventory of where your game is now and where it has to go to reach your full potential? I always found the offseason on the ATP Tour was an opportunity to attack the areas of concern in my game that needed…
I have, for some time now, wanted to write about why I think American tennis has suffered in the recent past. Think back to a time, not long ago, when American tennis boasted multiple champions on both the men’s and women’s side. What happened to our dominance? Where are our champions? As of writing this,…
What’s the secret to sustained peak performance? Let’s face it … this is the million dollar question! Federer, Monfils, Sharapova … all competitors are trying to solve this great mystery. In the next six articles through 2015, I will highlight a key principle called “More Than an Athlete: Person First. Athlete Second (MTAA.A1.P2)” which I…
The tempo of the take-back is the first and most critical phase in the timing of the serve. It doesn’t matter whether you use a classic, abbreviated or somewhere in between motion. Remember you have to organize your feet, legs, hips, torso, shoulders, arms, hands and head in a continuous chain event to get to…
What are the first things we do when things are not going the way they should be? Let’s say in tennis tournaments you are not getting the results you would like. In fact, you just played in the quarterfinals of a tournament and lost in three hard-fought sets. However in the second set, you held…