Do You Need To Think About Tennis Technique In A Match?
Hi, my coach keeps telling me to spin the ball, roll it. He basically tells me to focus on TECHNICAL PART OF TENNIS.
Do i have to do the same in match? To concentrate on swing, low to high, knees bend (technical part). Please just tell me what do pro tennis players think, focus on when they are in a match???
And what do i have got to do to get my swing, footwork during rally, drill time, in match?? E.i. what should i work on more?? More drills? More rally?? More matches???
There a many goals or purposes of tennis practice. At the beginning it could be to learn new movements, to understand how the game is played, to learn scoring and so on.
Later, when you are a little more advanced player, the main goal is automatisation and improvement of your strokes, footwork, playing patterns (strategy and tactics) and mental skills.
What you are asking has to do with automatisation and improvement – getting more power, speed, spin and control to your shots.
The principle is simple – repeat a certain movement many times and it becomes automatic. Which means that you don’t have to think about it; it happens naturally, automatically.
What a tennis coach does is that he observes the player if he performs the important parts of the stroke when there are no reminders.
So a coach has you a play a practice set with someone and then he observes how you play. If he sees that you don’t bend your knees enough, he will tell you to do so in the next practice session to make this movement automatic.
And then he might do this drill a couple of times and then check again whether you are now bending your knees in a match when you are NOT thinking about it.
So if your coach is happy with your knees, then next time you’ll work on something else. If he is not happy, you’ll hear the same “bend your knees” phrase again. 
So to answer your question directly: you only need to think about technical parts of the game when you are practicing – and only if that is the goal of the drill.
But when you are playing you must think how to play: left – right, to the weaker side, try to hit more forehands and so on. Just ideas on how you want the ball to fly (tactical) and not how you are going to achieve that (technical).
And what to do to get your stroke right in a match?
You do both: drills and matches and the coach’s role and responsibility is to combine them in a way that will enable you improve in the fastest way.
Remember that the laws of physics are on your side.
Which means that it’s very difficult to hit the ball in the wrong technical way and at the same time achieve a right tactical shot – fast, deep, with good height over the net and with top spin.
If you just focus on “how you want the ball to fly” (imagine the ball flight in your mind before you hit), your technique will develop automatically and naturally.
Of course you don’t always naturally find the best way to do that and that’s why the coach helps you with some guidelines.
But eventually technique doesn’t count in tennis.
You don’t get 15:0 because you bent your knees. You get 15:0 if you outplayed your opponent.
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