Category Archives: Tennis Parents

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

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If you have not seen the story of Venus and Serena Willians in the movie King Richard yet, I urge you to do so. Richard Williams had a dream for his daughters to be professional tennis players and with that dream he had a plan, a 78 page plan to be exact. The basis of his plan is repetition, repetition, repetition. He takes his daughters out everyday rain or shine. What he was lacking in tennis information he made up for in good old fashion hard work and consistency.

Repetition really is the secret to excelling in tennis. Richard Williams might be crazy, but he was consistently crazy, and that consistency in getting the reps was the foundation for their success.

When you can combine information on how to efficiently hit a tennis ball with repetition great things happen. I have seen it over and over again with the GreatBase Tennis Curriculum that we utilize. Hard work definitely beats talent every day of the week.

Once you know how to hit a tennis ball there are so many ways to get in your repetitions. The limit is really only your imagination.

You can shadow swing in front of a mirror, hit off a cone or combine the two as in the video below.

You can hit off a wall or portable backboard.

You can use a metronome app on your phone.

And this is why I love the summer. When kids are out of school there is time. There is time to slow down and learn how to hit a tennis ball efficiently. There is time to practice every single day. And when you do that day in and day out the repetitions accumulate and skills are developed and refined.

Please consider joining us for our summer daily tennis training sessions. Your goal may be to be the next Serena Williams or it might simply be to learn the sport of a lifetime. Regardless, everyday we work to provide opportunities for learning and getting repetition, repetition, repetition.

Additionally, if you are interested in learning some more creative ways to practice at home. Please check out one of my mentors, Steve Smith, and his course on GreatBase Tennis, How to Practice at Home.


Online Lessons

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Teaching is simply information transfer.

Winning in tennis is a by-product of skills. Tennis strokes are mastered by learning how to perform them and then practicing, a lot.

When learning a skill like the forehand practice is slow and deliberate at first. When a fundamental baseline of skill is established then speed is increased and technique adapts in response to situations presented in the game.

I have had success getting players to acquire skills at home during the pandemic with nothing more than a Zoom call, sometimes an Eye Coach, and a routine of a few minutes of daily practice. I am even finding strokes can be mastered quickly at home because the player’s attention is 100% on their performance of the skill instead of where the ball goes after they hit it. The convenience of practicing at home for just a few minutes each day also makes consistently showing up to practice easy.

Above is are examples of online coaching. If you are interested please reach out to me for more information. One great thing that has come from this pandemic is that my skillset has improved and adapted. I am a better coach. I have acquired more coaching skills!


Practice Secrets

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A few weeks ago I began an experiment. I wanted to teach myself to play tennis right handed. As a reference I am actually left handed in all I do.

Here is a video of my right and left comparisons.

I wanted to do this experiment for several reasons.

  1. A fellow coach @BigFootTennis can play righty and lefty which inspired me.
  2. I wanted to better relate to the kids I work with. I wanted to experience what it was like to learn a stroke from scratch.
  3. I wanted to see if I could discover a way to speed up the learning process.

So each night my 4 year old son and I head down to the garage and pull out the cars. I toss him some balls, he tries to hit me, he gets some coaching without knowing it and we have a lot of fun before bed. Once he loses interest I spend 5 minutes practicing with my right hand. Sometimes I practice with only a racket doing shadow swings and other times I use my Eye Coach (Coupon Code “SlezakPro” gets you a discount). My practice session is not long but I do it each and every day.

In a couple of few weeks I have seen tremendous growth. More importantly I have found out exactly how to speed up the process of acquiring a skill and it even works well in a pandemic.

  1. You must understand the movement. If you do not know what exactly to practice you are in a cycle of trial and error. That cycle wastes a lot of time. This is where a knowledgable coach whether in person or online via video analysis comes in. A coach is invaluable because they save you time and the only thing in life you cannot get any more of is time. Believe me I wish I knew then what I know now about tennis.
  2. You have to be consistent. I did not spend a ton of time each day practicing but I did show up everyday. By practicing just a few minutes each day it sends the brain a message that, “this is important and we want to become efficient at it.”
  3. You have to think about what you are practicing. I started slowly and deliberately focusing exclusively on getting the movement right. Gradually the motion got smoother and more coordinated. I noticed that when my toddler would distract me my practice was terrible but when I was thinking about what I was doing just for a few minutes it was obvious how good the practice was.
  4. It helped not to be on a tennis court. It helped tremendously to not have an end result to focus on. By not seeing a tennis ball flying through the air it allowed me to focus exclusively on my technique, which goes right back to number 3.

I am not surprised by any of the things I learned. In fact it only reinforces what I have known as a coach for years. But I hope learning to play with my opposite hand in my late 30’s inspires youngsters to practice just a few minutes each and every day wherever and however they can.

Here is a video where you can shadow swing right along with me.

2020 Spring & Summer Tennis Dates Released

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Courts February 2020

The weather is changing and we are ready again for outdoor tennis!

We will continue with our Sunday tennis sessions in the Spring moving outdoors March 29th and concluding June 7th.  Information and how to register for the spring sessions can be found at by CLICKING HERE – Spring 2020 Tennis Registration.

We will transition right into the summer camp sessions Monday-Friday beginning June 15th and concluding August 7th.  These dates are still tentative and will only change if we do not get a blizzard in March and have a bunch of snow make-up days.  Info on the summer camp can be found by CLICKING HERE- Summer Camp 2020 Registration.

2018 Summer Camp

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Assuming the end of the school year does not change through the rest of the winter, tennis camp will tentatively run for 8 weeks this summer, Monday-Friday June 18th – August 10th.

Click Here to View the 2018 Camp Flyer

Register Online By Clicking Here

Tennis camp has grown tremendously over the past few years.  I thank you for that because it you who took the time to share your experiences with your friends and family.  Last summer we reached full or near full capacity especially in the intermediate and advanced groups.  If you plan on attending please register your son or child early to avoid any conflicts and allow me to best plan for an excellent experience.

Tennis Scoring Abbreviations – The Hidden Consequences Will Impact Everyone

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Chuck KrieseI have a guest post from a man I am honored to call a friend and mentor, Coach Chuck Kriese.  

With all the changes going on to the scoring system in collegiate and the junior tennis this is a MUST read.  We need to think long and hard about how changing the scoring system changes the game of tennis itself, and the lasting impact those changes will have.

 

For 141 years, the consistent barometer for marking levels of playing abilities, determining the rites-of-passage to new levels and the measuring of every competitor’s achievement has been the fascinating and challenging scoring system of tennis.  Traditional Tennis Scoring is now under assault as there is an attempt to change or abbreviate it at nearly every level.   The stated motive by the ITA and the USTA has been to attract more participation and the building of larger fan-bases at collegiate events.

As the 10-pt Tie-Breaker is now being used regularly instead of a learning-packed 3rd set for matches in junior tennis, No-ad Tennis is being bled into our youngster’s events as well.   In the college ranks, strong opposition by coaches and players was not enough to prevent the ITA from finally forcing it through.  Regardless of an ugly 4-year battle, the ITA made it a rule anyway for 2016.  Players and coaches complained in unison, but the end result was for coaches to do-it-or-else.   Multiple junior events are following suit this year with a narrative by USTA that suspiciously states, “Our kids need to play no-ad to get ready for college tennis.”  REALLY!!!    It is time to take notice!

The unintended consequences of such changes to the fundamental structure of tennis does much greater harm than is noticed on the surface.  Youngsters and Collegians are getting skewed and random results.  More harmful is that they don’t learn the depths of the game.  Seemingly, the path is being paved for abbreviated tennis to go into other levels of tennis. Since experimentations are already commonplace at the junior and collegiate levels, it might not be a stretch to assume that it soon becomes experimental at Grand-Slam and Davis Cup events.  The plan seems to be that in a few short years our youngsters and collegians to be integrated into acceptance of abbreviators.  Unfortunately, making things ‘easier to pick-up also makes them easier to put down!’

The fall-out of trying to make tennis easier could be far reaching and be impossible to reverse.  The following list shows 10 reasons why ‘Hard to pick up has also been proved as hard to put down’ and why Traditional Tennis Scoring and this great game have survived the many up’s and downs since 1874.  Other sport’s scoring systems have never been able to compare in depth nor in genius.  The scoring system of tennis is the game’s ‘most precious heirloom.’  It must be protected as such.  The following list represents the brilliance of our game’s wonderful scoring system.  Maybe it is not too late to let our tennis voices be heard.

  “Honor our Game – Protect Traditional Scoring!!!”    

Like many aspects of tennis that seem simplistic on the outside, the depth and intrigue of its scoring system have inspired and challenged players for 132 years.  Successes or non-successes have been benchmarked and gauged by its accuracy of measurement.  Its’ genius has presented the ultimate challenges to the body, mind and spirit of the competitor.  It is a most precious heirloom and should be respected as such.  Consider the following:

Traditional scoring is a fair, accurate and time-tested barometer for the many skill-sets that it takes to win in tennis. Skills to overcome ‘pecking orders’ and to go through the normal ‘rites-of-passages,’ for tennis levels have been assessed by consistent measurement for over a hundred years.  These give critical guidelines for player development.  Randomness and skewed results greatly harm developmental process.

Tennis is a game of simultaneous scoring opportunity for both offense and defensive postures. Thus, the need to win by 2 points instead of one per-game is paramount!! The 7th point of no-ad is of double-jeopardy value and is actually worth two games instead of one.  (eg. This overloaded value is easily understood when the set-score is 4-2 and one point makes it either 5-2 or 4-3;   however, the same weight is true every time a player loses the 7th)  Sadly, the benefits gained from dishonest line-calls are enhanced because such weight is given to the 7th point of the game.

Fitness is a Corner-stone for Success in Tennis. Abbreviations to traditional scoring dilute and minimize the elements of conditioning and endurance of mind, body and spirit; therefore, results are often skewed.  Best USA athletes will not be inspired by dumbing down the physicality of the great sport of tennis!!!

Conversion Point (3-in-a-row) mastery is a critical skill-set for success in traditional scoring – The length of every game in no-ad scoring is 4-7 points. Also, no-ad requires the winning of only 1 point in a row for success. Those multiple situations that require very disciplined skill-sets to solve are minimized by no-ad. The skill of ‘War-Zone Endurance’ or the ability to carry and defend a lead is critical for success in tennis.

Abbreviated scoring promotes random momentum swings and neutralizes the small differences in the better player’s skill base.  Traditional scoring is designed for small differences of skill to become a big advantage as a match unfolds. This is where separation of players takes place. Early war-zones that are won usually set the tone for the match; however, no-ad diminishes that hard-earned separation earned by the stronger player.  Momentum that is well-earned by the better player is usually minimized.

Point Construction and a well-rounded game are highlighted by Traditional Scoring. No-ad accelerates false parity between levels without the deeper mastery of skill-sets usually required for advancement.   Abbreviated scoring rewards Ball-striking skill more than Point-construction skills.

Traditional Scoring produces great drama in the closing out of each game, set and match. The bi-product is usually heightened excitement. No-ad and abbreviated scoring dilute these opportunities for drama as one false crescendo after another is manipulated by the scoring system and not by skill-sets.

Players and Coaches want to play regulation tennis! They want to play the same system that professionals have used for 132 years.  They do not want to mark improvements nor important rites-of-passage that are manipulated by hybrid scoring methods.

No-Ad is not a rule of tennis – No-ad was originally invented as a novelty experiment during the tennis boom of the 1970s. There was no research done before its implementation into competitive arena. It has always been marketed as a ‘Time-Saver.’ Research in the 1980s prove that is causes more 3-set matches.

When we use traditional scoring, we are ‘Honoring of the game’ and protecting a precious Heirloom. Abbreviated forms of scoring will not sustain interest nor do they inspire players for the long-run.

Please  Do Your Part to Protect and to Promote Traditional Scoring….Ask our tennis leaders to do the Same!!!

Chuck Kriese was the coach at Clemson for 33 years and retired as a hall-of-fame coach in 2008. He has returned to collegiate coaching ranks at ‘The Citadel.’  During Kriese has been named to 4 national-coach-of-the-year awards.  He has coached 5 players to Junior Grand-Slam titles and 4 other second place finishes.  11 of Chuck’s players have risen to top 100 spots in the ATP and WTA.  He has authored four published Tennis books and has co-authored 2 others on Clemson sports history.  His 36 years of collegiate coaching produced 34 All-Americans, 4 national sr. Players of the year, 16 top 10 teams.  He is a former USA national Coach; Junior Davis Cup Coach and technical Director for SE Asia Tennis. He continues to teach, coach, to write and to give motivational speeches for coaches and young people.  To learn more about Coach Kriese visit his website www.ChuckKriese.Net.

Ending The Early Specialization Debate

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I was just talking to the parents of a fairly elite 10 year old swimmer in how to deal with the issue of early sport specialization. They were concerned their son is spending too much time in the pool but at the same time worried he will lose his edge if he does not swim enough.  I immediately saw the parallels to what tennis parents and coaches experience and it inspired me to write this post to help those of you out there going through the same issues.

In tennis it is without a doubt true that early sport specialization is linked to overuse injuries, prematurely peaking careers, and plateaus in player development.  It is fairly common to see the best tennis players at the age of 10 go on to later be plagued by injury, hit a roadblock in development, and burn out.  While at the same time it is also true that you must be a fairly decent player at younger ages and regularly play tournaments if you want a shot at doing something special.  If you understand tennis you know how important technique is and that players must hit a countless number of balls to lock in their strokes.  The end result is that we end up at the paradox of “how do I hit a lot of tennis balls and not specialize early on?”

Being both a tennis and physical preparation coach I have a unique perspective because I see both sides of the argument.  I am actually not against deciding on one main sport early on provided a long-term athletic development approach is taken from the beginning.  I believe the odds are good that you can specialize in making tennis your main sport at a young age, remain injury free, and continue to break through to new levels of physical and tournament performance.  The key to doing this is to understand the role strength and conditioning plays in tennis player development.

As I said before tennis is a sport that requires a lot of time spent hitting tennis balls.  If you spend a lot of time on the court you will get very good at tennis specific skills.  The goal of a tennis player is to then accumulate as much tennis-specific volume as possible on an annual and multi-year basis.  To clarify, by tennis-specific volume I mean hitting tennis balls or playing matches because being on the court is as specific as it gets.

This would lead one to conclude that specializing early and spending as much time on the court as possible is the way to go.  However, you must understand that in order to accumulate as much tennis-specific volume as possible a player’s body must have the fitness to support such a high volume of training.  This is where most people miss the boat.  They have juniors accumulating a ton of volume hitting balls and playing matches but their bodies cannot handle it.  The high levels of specific volume lead to better and better tennis but at the same time all the stress slowly but surely accumulates, wears down the body, and injury occurs and/or performance suffers.  This is why strength and conditioning or general physical preparation is so important.

The ultimate goal of strength and conditioning in tennis is to achieve a high enough level of fitness to support all the necessary specific training volume and recovery from it.  Sure strength and conditioning will make a player bigger, faster, stronger, and allow them to express their strokes at a higher level.  However, in a technical sport like tennis the best way to improve your skills is to hit tennis balls and lots of them.  The trap people fall into is that they think if they keep hitting more and more tennis balls they’ll continue to improve and they will but without a strong base of fitness to support that amount of specific volume, and the ability to recover from it, it is only a matter of time before injury or burnout occurs.  Achieving this level of fitness takes a long time and it is only achieved through a variety of movement patterns and training methods.

So to answer the paradoxical question of “how do I hit a ton of tennis balls without specializing in tennis” is to take a long-term athletic development approach from the very beginning.  Begin with the idea that tennis is going to be the main sport and hit a lot of tennis balls while at the same time working on all aspects of fitness (coordination, balance, strength, conditioning, etc.).  Over time you will gradually build up the fitness to support hitting more and more tennis balls and the ability to recover properly from doing so in order to stay injury and burnout free.

If you really want to do this right you have to educate yourselves or get with a coach who truly knows what they are doing because strength and conditioning looks very different at different ages and the process is unique to each child.  For example, strength and conditioning in general for an 8-year-old involves playing tag, crab walking, climbing, and free play to improve conditioning, agility, coordination and strength.  While strength and conditioning for a high school junior will involve running to develop the aerobic energy system, lifting weights to develop strength, or doing more of what comes to mind when you think of traditional fitness.  But making an 8 year old run hill sprints or hit the weight room isn’t going to get the job done.  In fact, inappropriate training will only increase the odds something bad will happen.

Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments below and if you have any questions add them as well, I’ll be happy to answer them.

For those coaches and parents out there who are looking for more information the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA) is launching a product this week called Long-Term Athletic Development.  It is a darn good resource to have if you are working with kids and thinking long-term in developing them.  It also happens to be on sale this week for $99.

Stop Chasing Points & Start Chasing Ratings

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“The moment a player starts worrying about their ranking the is moment they stop improving” is a wise old tennis saying because it is true.  As soon as a young athlete begins focusing on what they are ranked instead of improving 1% each time they train or compete they lose focus of the long-term process.  They end up with a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset and development comes to a grinding halt.

Allow me to paint a picture about our current junior tennis landscape.  The points per round and ranking system in USTA junior tennis looks really good on paper, after all it is exactly what the ATP and WTA tours are doing.  The problem is children are smart and they know the most important thing is the points they earn and the ensuing ranking they get because it is ultimately what qualifies them for bigger tournaments.  And like I said before this all looks good in theory but the problem is the players are not chasing improvement instead they are chasing points because that is what they are rewarded for.  They start looking for ways to manipulate the system and a big disparity comes into play because some players simply have the means to travel and play lots of tournaments thus have more opportunity to earn points.  I hope the bigger picture is starting to become clear.  And I want to go on record as saying that I am not against rankings because they have their place and purpose but there is a much better way to measure just how good you are…

The best way to measure how good you are is with a rating.  To be specific a Universal Tennis Rating (UTR).  I have blogged in depth about the Universal Tennis Rating System before and its benefits.  The biggest benefit is that the only way to improve your UTR is to chase improvement and prove those gains in competitive match play.  If every player was focused on improving their own unique UTR they would have a growth mindset and look at every single time they take the court as a way to improve just 1%.  And as Coach John Wooden says, “a bunch of small improvements eventually add up to be a big improvement.”

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So players, parents and coaches out their stop chasing points and start focusing on improving your rating.  And If you do that you will certainly be on the right track to truly becoming the best you can be.