The fol­low­ing arti­cle is by guest con­trib­u­tor, Steve Tourdo.

How To Lose Your Fear Of Net Play

The net is one of the most avoided posi­tions in ten­nis. In this les­son we will explore a few sim­ple ways to increase the effec­tive­ness of your net game.

Your three tac­ti­cal weapons are enhanced by your pres­ence at the net.  Angle is increased, the abil­ity to reach the ball above the height of the net and hit it with power is enhanced and the opponent’s reac­tion time is shortened.

Despite the intel­lec­tual knowl­edge that the chances of end­ing the point are greater from a net posi­tion, many devel­op­ing play­ers elect to stay on the base­line because it per­mits more reac­tion time. When this hap­pens, they’re not spend­ing enough time prac­tic­ing vol­leys rel­a­tive to the amount spent hit­ting ground strokes. Soon, weak vol­leys pro­vide a valid rea­son to avoid the net alto­gether. Read more

The fol­low­ing arti­cle is by guest con­trib­u­tor, Steve Tourdo.

What can you do when your part­ner won’t come to the net?

Dou­bles brings a com­po­nent to the game that can often be very chal­leng­ing. In fact, your partner’s tac­ti­cal approach may be so dif­fer­ent from yours that you swear they’re really on the opponent’s team!

It’s com­mon that two play­ers have dif­fer­ent tac­ti­cal ideas on how to win a dou­bles match because there are so many dif­fer­ent styles of play. What we’re talk­ing about today is a polar oppo­site team: one player is very aggres­sive and likes the net, but his part­ner only comes for­ward to shake hands at the end of the match.

This can be one of the most frus­trat­ing matches to play for the aggres­sive player. As he advances, his part­ner typ­i­cally backs up. He wants to keep the balls low and move for­ward but his is part­ner wants to stay back and put balls up in the air. When the aggres­sive player takes a stand at the net, every­thing goes to the deep part­ner so he gets no action at the net. It’s easy for a player who’s expe­ri­enc­ing this type of match to learn to hate dou­bles and pre­fer sin­gles. At least in sin­gles he gets to hit the ball! Read more

The fol­low­ing arti­cle is another in a series by guest con­trib­u­tor, Oscar Wegner.

A Note On Coach­ing, Espe­cially For Par­ents and Coaches

One of the biggest obsta­cles not only in ten­nis but also in life, is when a teacher or par­ent decides for the stu­dent how some­thing “must be.”

I have had many instances of stu­dents, when I asked where a prob­lem with a stroke or tech­nique started, describe in the same terms how a dam­ag­ing habit got grooved. The answer, more times than not, was “my coach (or parent/coach) told me that that was the right thing to do.”

That was my own case when I was 16 years old. I had a huge fore­hand, sim­i­lar to Jim Courier’s. Being a few decades ahead of him, I had not seen a pro hit like that, and I just took it as being my per­sonal devel­op­ment. I devel­oped because it worked. All the other strokes I copied from top pros such as Pan­cho Gon­za­lez (serve and smash), Ken Rose­wall (slice back­hand), Tony Tra­bert (top­spin back­hand), and Lew Hoad (volleys).

On the fore­hand, though, as I got noticed as a junior player, I was coun­seled to switch from my West­ern grip to Con­ti­nen­tal, to be side­ways, take the rac­quet back early, step into the ball, and fol­low through towards the tar­get. I still made it onto the tour from 1963 through 1967, but with no con­fi­dence on the fore­hand side. Read more