Dear Mr. Mencinger: Great blog and website. I need your help, please. I am an active club player. 31 yrs old playing my best overall game (good groundstrokes and volleys).

But for the last 2 years, my serve toss has been a struggle. I thought it was technique, but I have served well in the past. I tend to start serving well and then the moment I miss one toss, doubts kick in.

My tossing arm feels paralyzed and I forget what my toss motion (and overall serve motion) looked like. I start changing things out of nervousness. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the best advice you can give me on how to improve my game most efficiently?

I’m an educator in passion and mathematician by training, so I’m always interested in the most efficient method.

Feenix Y. Pan, Ph.D.
Learning Consultant in Mathematics
www.door2math.com

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Hmm, tough question.

Let’s look at your question from this perspective: you need to play a lot in con-competitive situations and complement that with competitive play.

Fast improvement in technique and coordination and feel comes from NOT playing for points. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been playing tennis for about two years. I’ve always liked it  but I’ve never liked the competition aspect of it.

I just don’t understand the need for competition. All is see in it is to see who is the winner and who is the loser.

I find happiness in hitting the ball over the net not winning a match and then hurting the other person’s feelings because they lost. I love drills, practices, fake matches (when you don’t score) but I don’t like tournaments.

This past tournament I was favored to win. My first match was last night and I knew that I could beat the other girl 6,0-6,0. But I didn’t. Instead I got onto the tennis court and barely moved my feet farther than three steps. I hit balls I knew were far out.

I can hit well, I have good technique and am actually quite good but I don’t like the competition part. I try very hard in practices, lessons, and drills. Maybe i don’t like competitions because I already know I can beat the people so I find no use in proving it.

I really want to play more tennis but the only way I can is if i compete. But I hate competing and never want to. Is there something you recommend that I do?

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Roger Federer and Andy Murray started the final of the Australian Open 2010 in a very controlled manner. There was of course a lot on stake for both players.

Roger Federer volleys at the Australian Open 2010 (Photo by PAUL CROCK/AFP/Getty Images)

Andy Murray was looking for his first Grand Slam title while Roger was looking to extend his record of Grand Slams to 16 and slowly but surely create a record that most likely won’t be broken for many years to come.

Here’s what happened in the match…

First set

Andy’s tactics was immediately obvious – play to Roger’s backhand over and over again and hope that Roger becomes frustrated with his inability to finish the point and get out of backhand-to-backhand exchanges. Read the rest of this entry »

Kim Clijsters has had a good run at the Australian Open 2010 until her third match with Nadya Petrova when she unexpectedly lost 6:0, 6:1.

Many players can start to doubt their abilities and lose confidence and don’t know how to approach such a match with the correct mindset. But that’s the wrong way of thinking and it can start a downward spiral of confidence.

Kim Clijsters not playing well at Australian Open 2010 (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

Here’s what Kim said about the match:

Q. Is it hurting you more the fact that you lost the game or the fact that you lost the game 6‑0, 6‑1?

I think I haven’t changed anything in my whole preparations before every match. Everything was the same, same routine, then something like this happens. That’s probably the most frustrating thing about it, is not knowing. That’s sports. You know, it can happen.

There are two important things Kim mentions: Read the rest of this entry »

One of the main reasons why you lose games and eventually matches is because you don’t give 100% of effort all the time.

You may feel down, frustrated or disappointed (you’re in a low activation state) or you may feel angry, upset or nervous (you’re in a high activation state). In either case, you’re not giving 100% of effort at that moment.

You may also feel somewhat tired and your body’s natural response is to save energy. If you’re not mentally strong enough to overcome those impulses, you’re again not giving 100% of effort. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve recently had the chance to read Andre Agassi’s autobiography, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Open is definitely the right title since Andre really opens up about every aspect of his life.

He openly shares his thoughts about tennis, his relationship with his father, his relationships with his girlfriends, media, and other tennis players.

So what does Andre tell us that we didn’t already know?

Well, one of the reasons Andre decided to publish this book is to tell the truth about his life, because the media has shown us a totally different man – and that’s NOT who Andre really is.

Andre felt that if he didn’t set the record straight, we would always be misled by all the yellow press stories published by those whose only interest is to get more readers so as to earn more money, not to share the truth. Read the rest of this entry »

Nikolay Davydenko won his first ATP Finals Championship by beating Juan Martin Del Potro 6-3, 6-4. Davydenko was clearly the more aggressive player and possibly even fresher than Del Potro.

Nikolay Davydenko wins his first ATP Finals Championship (Photo by Christopher Lee/Getty Images for Barclays ATP Finals)

I’ve analyzed the match with my usual modified aggressive margin system and the system clearly shows what was going on during the match. Read the rest of this entry »

Novak Djokovic lost his second Round Robin match to Robin Soderling 6-7, 1-6.

Novak was very frustrated and angry because Robin played fantastic tennis – hitting the lines with his groundstrokes and sending serves with over 200 km /h with regularity.

The thinking that went through Novak’s mind was something like this: Read the rest of this entry »

Roger Federer lost his 2nd round match at the Paris Bercy Masters 1000 to Julien Benneteau 3-6, 7-6, 6-4. I watched the whole match and here are some tennis thoughts on it:

Roger Federer’s backhand (Photo by AP)

1.    Roger Federer played many more drive and top spin backhands than he did last week in Basel.

Some possible reasons can be:

a.    The court in Paris is slower and Roger had more time to set up for his backhand

b.    Roger saw that his slice backhand didn’t do much damage to Djokovic in the final and wanted to start working on the backhand to get it in form for the Masters Championship in London where he has to be in top form to win.

2.    Roger still isn’t in his top form but it seems to be improving. He missed some very important shots (forehand approach shots) and was unwilling (afraid?) to play winners down-the-line with his backhand when he had a chance. Read the rest of this entry »