Global Tennis Teaching Institute

Is tennis talent hard to find? I don’t think so. I believe it is everywhere and just needs development! Tennis champions are not born, they are made. Nevertheless , certain talent is needed.

 

To describe talent, it is necessary to analyze what tennis talent is all about. It is well known, that a tennis game is the most difficult sport of all sports. For a young player it is important to have a body, able to develop into athletic ability with an accent on speed and agility. To this we should add the need of dynamic and balance, so that the physical execution of a perfect stroke is possible. Based on today’s professional playing level, rhythm and hand-eye coordination is a need to play balls at any speed and spin, Let’s not forget that the body of the player must be fit, as games can last very long. Let’s add the mental game which is necessary as the right decision must be made in the split of a second. We could add desire, discipline and hard work, all ingredients or necessities to become a good tennis player.

 

Can all these criteria be found in a very young boy or girl which has found fun in playing tennis? I don’t think so. All these parts of tennis talent must be developed.

 

The most first and basic requirements are a body with athletic possibilities, able and willing to move with some form of agility. If a child reacts to the teacher’s request and retains the practice movements, with the time the individual parts of the stroke technique and their improvements will show the student’s so called talent. As a young tennis player progresses it becomes more and more difficult for the teacher to continue the development shown by the student’s performance if the teacher does not distinguish the natural abilities from the progress made through hard work. If the demand on the child’s talent is not kept up by the teacher, the chance will be missed to reach a level of game through the combination of talent and hard work.

 

The question how many talented children never had a chance to reach their goal should really be asked. My experience is that the reason was in many cases the very limited tennis teaching. I must be fair, I also met teachers who sent their students to other places, hoping they would get a more adequate training.

 

The importance of desire, discipline and willingness to work has an enormous importance on the ability of the student. Not many teachers are willing to force these issues. For parents to recognize the reason for their child’s stagnation is sometimes more than they can handle. Recognizing if it is the lack of talent or mediocre teaching is necessary to be able to make the right decision concerning the child’s training and future. Do not forget, a child is very young and unable to recognize the quality of the training. Children decide emotionally . It is important for them to like the teacher and have fun which is the right way to approach the tennis training, but it does not mean that the technical aspect of the teaching program should not remain the most important part of the teaching.

 

So, talent is not the only criteria for success in tennis, as the tennis game has so many features which influence the progress of the student. Talent is needed. At least some of the different requirements should be there. The other ones have to be developed.

 

We must be more and more concerned of the constant progress of the tennis game if you consider the advancement made in the last 10 years. We know that in the years to come the tennis game will be more athletic, more powerful with faster balls to be handled. Parents again carry great responsibility if the child loves tennis, enjoys hard work and shows some talent. This is why I always remind the parents of the importance to
demand from the teacher the teaching quality necessary to ensure the positive development for the talented players of the future.

In tennis, balance is mentioned in describing a good tennis player’s movement. In watching the development of young junior players I never have seen exercises made especially to develop the balance in the player’s footwork, body movement and stroke.

 

Let me first explain what balance is all about. It is a sensation. Balance has no muscle. Balance has no mass, balance is a “happening”, created by many body muscles which function well organized and used only when needed. It ensures that the needed muscles become active without interference of the unnecessary muscles . A body which has perfect balance control moves effortless with the impression of using very little energy. It is only an impression as energy is always needed. In a dynamic jump in perfect balance, the jump looks like flying effortless through the air as all energy is in the jump.

 

 

To achieve that kind of body control, exercises must be executed where at first body muscles must be felt and controlled. This means moving arms and legs under different tensions. They are moving separately. Energy must be able to travel through the body and used where needed without the interference of unnecessary physical action. Explosive running requires strong legs and only arm support which in tennis should be used to prepare a smooth stroke execution. A sudden stop does not need bending of the torso if the run is executed in balance. Stroke execution in balance can maintain a high level of technical skill and fast execution.

 

I suggest to students to be concerned about their warm up time as it is the right moment to include the development of balance in all their movements. Balance training will develop their feeling of the body, single movements and overall body control.

 

In the effort to execute perfect stroke executions tennis players use too many muscles.
Some players with a more natural sensation of balance will have an easier time to achieve technical abilities. Players like Martina Hingis with great balance moved effortlessly and reached the most difficult balls in good hitting position. Roger Federer as well as Nicolai Davidenko have an excellent balance sensation and as a result they have excellent footwork and stroke executions under the most difficult conditions. They change directions and have no problem in preparing a perfect stroke in a difficult run. Players with poor body balance are very physical and are forced to make constant adjustments in the execution of strokes under pressure.

 

How can a young player ensure that he moves in balance or learn how to do so, which is very important for his future success. I may repeat myself when I say : to develop balance sensation exercises must be incorporated in the daily training which create the ability to separate arms and legs movements from each other. A hard run to a wide ball should not influence the stroke execution.

 

TV commentators like to mention the balance of a player as soon as they recognize that difficult balls are reached with ease. Tennis teachers should give more consideration concerning the need to develop the balance in young players. In very young players (age 8 to 11) it is very easy to have balance included in their muscle and movement development. In the future there is no reason why a player should have problems with the balance if their teacher would have given to this requirement the deserving attention, as balance can be trained. It is a body sensation that makes the running, the hitting, the changing of directions much much easier and will save a lot of energy for the 3rd or 5th set.

Realistically, this question can only be answered by a teacher who had the luxury of having two hitters available during his teaching. For some teachers /coaches it was a must to have two hitters to be able to teach at the expected high standard. When I joined WCT in Dallas/Texas some 40 years ago, Lamar Hunt suggested to develop an optimal tennis teaching method to bring as many juniors and adults to the game, as people who play tennis will be more interested to go to tennis tournaments. During the tennis boom, four students and one teacher per court was the way to teach. When I prepared a program intended to be used in all the WCT tennis schools, I planned from the first day on using 2 ballmachines on every court. I added 4 rebound nets to get during the available time as much hitting as possible. All my teachers were trained to include two ballmachines and the rebound nets into the program. For over 10 years I used for my 80 tennis teachers in 7 European countries 2 simple ballmachines helping them creating valuable hitting during their teaching. The 4 rebound nets on each court made it possible that as a warm up all students had to hit at least 50 forehands ,50 backhands with the right footwork as well as 25 serves. It worked well as there was plenty of hitting on all courts.

 

The experience I made during these years and my ambition to improve the quality of teaching tennis, I knew that only by giving the teacher more time to actually teach, the quality of teaching could be improved. So I embarked into a new adventure by buying a small metal plant and tried through developing a more sophisticated ballmachine to give myself and other teachers the possibility to improve the teaching. The electronic in the 80s could not meet my expectations, although the created product was quite good by the standards of those days.I sold the small plant which today produces the best ballmachine in Europe.

 

The following years in the US proved to me again the importance of having top hitters available when developing top tennis players. Stefano Capriati used from an early time hitters in the development of his daughter Jennifer, who already at 14 years became a pretty good pro player. I helped Jim Pierce to find top hitters for his work with his daughter Mary. At some time he had to import hitters from Italy, as no good hitters were availabe and willing to work very hard day after day. When I met Richard Williams in 1991 and intended to come to Delray Beach the following year, he told me that he needed good hitters for his two girls. I remember that from the first day Venus and Serena started working on my courts in Delray Beach there were two hitters working for Richard. He planned all the activities with them and for years I was fascinated by seeing the two girls working hard and running for every ball the two hitters were playing across the net. Gerard Gbdey and others, spent over 10 years hitting, making sure that the two girls have to hit top balls all the time. All these top tennis activities proved to me that top hitters are needed at an early stage of the game, and in developing a top player, quality hitters are a must!

 

As having two hitters on the court is a costly activity, do we have another solution? Not if your goals are high.Top teaching requires concentration and quality balls to teach as close to match conditions as possible. Coaches of top players need top hitters all the time. Do you tink that uncle Tony changed Raffael Nadal’s exaggerated topspin strokes by hitting himself? Hitting could become the next profession on the tennis court, which would unfortunately make working with top junior players more expensive.

 

As my original thought never died, and hoping that the computer revolution could help me make my dream possible, I started again developing the ultimate replacement of a top hitter. This happened 8 years ago when I met Freddy a young computer fanatic , who too was not willing to give up. How many nights saw the morning without having solved the never expected problems. The tennis game is so demanding, as the most different balls must be available at different speed, spin, height and place on the tennis court. No ball is the same and all these changes must happen in less than a second. That all balls had to come from each side of the court was simple to solve with two machines. This created another problem: which machine should react to the ball hit by the student can only be decided after the player hit the ball to one side of the court of his choice. There is very little time for this decision by the teacher as it must happen at the time the ball crosses the net. Should I tell you about the problems we had to bring motors turning at 2450RPM to exactly 1730 RPM in less than a half second? Or from over 2000 RPM to 870 RPM just to play a drop-shot? Had I known all this before I would have never had the courage to start with this adventure.

 

About 4 years later and over $ 700.000.- spent, the first two prototypes were hitting balls close to my expectation, but it took another two years for the final perfect product to satisfy my always higher demand. They were tested in 7 European countries with great success. I called them my TWINS who thanks to 9 different computer boxes and wireless communication are delivering every day without getting tired all the balls wanted. I love and enjoy to work with them! All the teachers of the Global Tennis Institute are now able to train and teach their students under match conditions.

 

As the professional game, will be faster and more athletic in the future there will be no way around in working with good hitters. If the tennis teaching profession does not embrace the computer technology in its teaching, it will lose the contact to the constantly improving professional tennis world, and one day there will be only a few special tennis institutions able to work with students who choose to become professional tennis players. Unfortunately, reality shows that only very few tennis teachers with vision and courage will embrace the technology of the future, to be able to satisfy the demand made by the future competitive junior players.

It should be well known that the tennis industry has excellent and interesting advertisements. We are told about the “ thinking racket”, the “speed producing racket” and other useful help to entice into buying their product and some of us do it without questioning their statements. Understandable, competition is challenging and tough. But when again and again TV commentators tell about a new string which produces a better top spin,I don’t like this, as their statements are just not true. Are they paid to make such statements? I don’t think so. But if you are in such a postion, where you can address millions of tennis players, you can express an opinion, but don’t make statements, witch are not true. Most pro players and tennis teachers do not know what happens when the ball is hit by the racket. Why? Because nobody told them and they really don’t care, as they think that what they feel when hitting, is more important than to know about the ball on the strings. I do not agree with them, but let me address this issue at a later time.

 

When, in 1975, after having spent some time with Prof. Dr. Kopf at the Technical University in Dortmund, Germany, finding out about what is happening during ball contact in a stroke and announced that the tennis ball touches the string only 3,6 to 4,0 thousandth of a second, it meant very little to the tennis world. Would they have known that our nervous system is 1o times slower, some would have reacted. This is also why a tennis player does not see the ball on the strings. During this research and testing, it became evident, that as much top spin you hit, the ball does not move (rotate) during the time it touches the strings. A rolling of the ball on the strings just does not happen. What causes the topspin? It is very simple to recognize, when you have the possibility to use cameras able to take 8000 pictures in a second. Lamar Hunt , founder of WCT, Dallas TX made it possible. This high speed camera shows that when the ball touches the strings at first, only the small part of the strings on the contact spot reacts, before the string-bed stretches to the back. This second movement of the strings is influenced by the string tension on the racket. During the same time, the ball compresses and looses its shape and flattens quite a bit. The string bed begins to move back, and the ball begins getting its shape back. The string bed moves slightly in front of its original flat position. But as the rubber of the ball does not react as quickly as the strings do, the ball remains on the outside still partly flat but on the string side it shapes slightly like a pear. During the last instant the ball has contact with the strings, the strings touch the pointed side of the ball. This is the only moment when the racket influences the ball rotation during the stroke. Flat stroke: the ball will start pulsating straight out by changing from oval to round for a few times until it remains round. Topspin: The moment of separation the racket is moving front and upwards. Consider, the ball is almost round in the front and pear shaped in the back when it leaves the strings . At this moment , the up motion of the racket strings ( top spin) gives to the totally stagnant ball the intended rotation. The ball rotates and pulsates at the same time. In doing so it creates a negative suction under the ball which the ball overcomes and suddenly it is pulled down in to a down curve, witch changes the flight of the ball into the so called “ top-spin “ curve.

 

Mr. Fischer, a German tennis club player and engineer was influenced by this study and used it to add in a clever way some additional very fine lose string and plastic pellets to the existing string pattern which in the up movement are propelled against the ball and triple the rotation . He created a monster racket with which every beginner could hit a brutal top spin. Illje Nastase won a tournament the first time he used it. Mr.Fischer asked me to help getting approval for his stringing. I refused, as his strings were destroying the tennis game. Shortly after the ITF committee banned the Fischer-String.

 

Years ago most string manufacturers tried to make strings with different structure, for a better top spin grip. Some strings were square, others rough and looking like stretched roots. Nothing made hitting top spin any easier. The top spin stroke will depend on the way the ball is hit and will continue to need the technical execution to create the ball rotation.

 

All this is difficult to understand but as nothing is really easy in tennis we can only through knowing about it, improve how to address the tennis technique and game. At the Global Tennis Institute the teaching is based, for the strokes, on the laws of physics, for the movements on the best use of the body structure, muscle and reactions. All our students know that the moment they feel hitting the ball, or hearing the hitting bang, the ball is gone. This means to them that everything they do before touching the ball is the stroke, so they act accordingly. I can assure you, they will not go and buy the new top spin strings!!!

In today’s athletic competitive tennis most balls are hit wide deep into the court or very wide with the bounce reaching far outside the side lines. During the last month tournament in Rome Italy, for many points 20 to 30 strokes were needed to win the point and most of the 20 or 30 strokes would have been winners 15 years ago. The running for the balls was fantastic and demanded great energy from legs and arms as all balls were hit with tremendous topspin power. Analyzing the players’ game, it was easy to recognize, that most of them hit with little difference, mostly with the same powerful topspin except for a sudden winner which had little top spin coming low over the net. The advantage each player was looking for, was not only through power or speed of the ball, but in moving the opponent as much as possible and waiting for the opportunity. Running , running and running again was demanded as much as hitting a fast ball. The only chance for a player to stay in the point was to be able to reach the ball which most did very well. Considering the speed and the spin of the ball to be reached, the player had not only to get there, but get there in a position to be able to execute a powerful stroke. I remember the times when power was the most successful tool to win a game. Do not understand me wrong, it is still very important to have powerful strokes, but not alone, as in today’s game two additional demanding factors must be part of the player’s ability before the player is able to hit the ball.

 

First: you have to get there, ( agility, foot-work, dynamic). Second: you have to be in a position to execute your best stroke ( balance, technique ). An off balance or streched out body just can not do it. A player who intends to be successful in today’s fast game must have great athletic ability before his racket technique can take over. Have we the teacher in the US recognized the needs to make real changes in our teaching structure to keep up with the athletic demand needed for the future pro tennis? We should consider, that the ability to get there in a good hitting postion is 50% of the game.

 

Teaching tennis students how to move is tough, as they come to the court to hit balls and do not understand the importance of perfect movements. I eliminated this problem by informing my students in detail about the importance to develop the sensation of balance and learning how to move quickly through foot patterns. I have established a very demanding routine of movements and exercises which are technical demanding and must be executed every day with the same discipline as expected when hitting balls, to develop habits in their movements. It is almost imposssible to do this warm-up exercises and routines in less than 45 minutes. The good old way of running a few laps around the court with some skips and jumps do not meet anymore the demands made by today’s and tomorrow’s tennis.

 

With the mentioned starting exercises only a part of the physical development of the student can be met. During the teaching of the tennis technique students must be constantly reminded of the correct footwork by having all hitting drills executed in the run all over the court to train as close as possible to reality. It may be difficult at the beginning but young students form moving habits very quickly, as long as they do not get away with their so called personal style. My studends are made aware, that the racket head has to execute a technical movement if the ball is intended to go from point A to point B and that there is no time for personal approach.

 

The daily fitnesss program should be a continuation of the earlier warm up. Tennis-fitness does not mean only developing strength and power, it must be executed in balance and must include movements to improve agility, develop dynamic and rhythm. Attention should be given to the ability to separate upper body movements from leg dynamics as well as arm movements from body movements. Balance will improve dramatically, through which the body will move easier and will not have to work as hard and not get tired to quickly.

 

As I strongly believe that tennis requires a very special athletic body and movements, I insist,that in all daily teaching programs enough time is spent on warm-up at the beginning and fitness to end the day.

Why am I addressing this topic of having a second opinion?
Because I hope it becomes a common practice for parents whose children are putting some serious thought into their tennis development.

 

It is a thought which developed over the many years spent at junior tennis tournaments where again and again I was asked from active tennis parents why their child after receiving many years of good training developed the habit of losing in the first rounds at most tournaments. I felt that the question was asked much too late, as many years were wasted on mediocre tennis teaching. This can be avoided! A second opinion at an early time may help avoiding frustration.

 

How much value can a second opinion have about the quality of the children’s tennis program without having a standard to measure what should be expected from a child of a certain age which will change as time goes on as the tennis game has its dynamic progression.

 

I’m aware that the idea of having a second opinion can be a little complicated as children mostly have an attachment to their teacher and it may create an atmosphere of mistrust or insecurity. This is not necessary as in any important decision a second opinion is recognized as a valuable tool to avoid mistakes. The tennis profession does not have teaching standards which other teaching professions are based on due to years of academic studying.The tennis teaching is still based on personal approach.

 

Knowing how difficult it is to become a top junior tennis player and for top tennis teachers to handle this responsibility I ask myself why academic institutions don’t offer a athletic programs with majoring in tennis to establish an academic tennis profession, so that teaching standards can be defined on which tennis parents can depend on. I mention this as teaching the tennis technique is the easiest part of teaching tennis. All the “rest” of the requirements is the most difficult part of the tennis curriculum and needs more than a tennis racket and experience as experience cannot be taught. Teaching requires knowledge where experience can be wisely used.

 

Does this mean that there are no good teachers in the US? Definitely not! There are many excellent dedicated teachers, but not as many as I wish we had. This is where a second opinion could be of great value. Considering all this, a second opinion does not have to be a one time thing. I remember when John and Andy Roddick were in their early years of development, their mother, Mrs. Blanche Roddick was constantly checking and changing their teachers until she was satisfied.

 

It is easier for parents with own tennis experience to guide their children’s development if they recognize that today’s game is highly advanced compared to their time and that the body of their children may have their genes but the influence and quality they receive in their training will decide their future success. It is a fact that these parents do look for second opinions until they are satisfied .

 

In approaching a second opinion, I advise to have questions prepared for which answers are expected. The better the questions the more information you can expect. Ask about footwork, movement ability, rhythm, technical respond in different strokes and the most important, which plan is suggested for improvement and further development of your child. Don’t be impressed by the attention your child is receiving , be more concerned of the answer you are getting to the questions you ask. Without them you will receive
“generality” which is meaningless.

 

Please keep in mind, that a good teacher knows what a racquet has to do to accelerate a ball with spin, speed and height from point A to point B on the court in the process of making a successful tennis player. These basics are the easiest part of the game, as the real action lies in the dynamic movement of the player and the ability to cover the court.

 

In getting a second opinion, parents should focus on receiving the most important answers to your child’s ability to move , to react to the ball, to change directions and try to execute a stroke in a balanced position. A good teacher will let you know in a second opinion where the qualities and the weaknesses are apparent. Don’t be afraid to inform the teacher of your child that you intend to have a second opinion which may help him to evaluate his own approach. Should he not be receptive to the idea and received information and the expected results are not reached , don’t be afraid to change. After all it is your child’s time and your money.