I've gone from a below average club player to a doubles winner of my club. Granted I have been playing a lot but taking in Tomaz's advice, remembering and applying it has been 70% the reason I've improved so much. This man puts things better than anyone I've ever met, incredible explanation of such a complicated sport.
All your instructional videos carry a gem of psychological insight. I teach badminton (a racket, running, and jumping sport) requiring similar decisions to play better. Yes, the technical stuff is important but students of racket sports usually try too hard, try to be too "clever", and often go for risky shots when excited. Consistency in the rally is much more likely to score. Often the opponent gets more and more out of position, making the court open for attack. Even good players make more mistakes when under movement demands. Thanks for your great explanations and video demonstrations.
The concept of preloading is a terrific idea. I play doubles mostly so making the opponents move is reduced but it still works👍. It’s not as simple. There are many patterns that I’m learning that I don’t have time to practice. I don’t do many of them during matches. Do you think I could take this idea of preloading to rehearse these patterns at home with a tennis diagram on a magnetic white board with magnets representing plays?
Yes, Dawn, you can practice them at home on the board but also visualizing them. Every high level athlete visualizes their performance in their mind over and over again. That's how we make decisions and executions subconscious and much faster. Pick a situation that troubles you, decide how would be best to play it and then mentally rehearse it often. Give it at least 2 weeks of mental rehearsal before expecting any results...
@@feeltennis Thanks Tomaz!! I have heard of visualization but I haven’t used it. I am very excited about this plan! I know it will bring results as I respect your expertise so much🤗🫶👍
I like the concept. i thought going down the line is more risky so if you get a cross court shot you just repeat the cross court shot back. and if shots are more in the middle of the court you can decide to change directions.
If you've stretched your opponent wide then down the line is not more risky. You actually need to hit it in order to gain some advantage in the rally. It's theoretically more risky only if both players are positioned in their ideal recovery positions and are covering the court well. But this video is not discussing the risk level of where to play, it's only discussing how to learn to make quicker decisions.
Interesting concept. In your opinion, what is the correct preload in the playing example in the video (feeding the ball from the deuce side, with both players being right-handed) if you feed CC and the ball is difficult to redirect DTL, f.inst. if it's deep, high and/or with pace and penetration? I would guess it's sending it CC for better margins? A similar question goes if you're feeding CC from the ad-side, because the concept of "preloading" a backhand return DTL from a CC FH is a very risky choice if executed poorly.
Let me give a bit of an overview before I reply to your question - as this can help other subscribers too... So "pre-loading" the response in the mind is basically an advanced level of anticipation. Anticipation on it's own simply means that you "think" it's very likely the opponent will play a certain shot from a situation. Anticipation by itself does not include a response. So a more advanced level of anticipation has two steps: what will opponent likely play and what should I play if they play X and what should I play if they play Y. Now the tricky thing that I encountered as I was developing this skill is that I COMMITTED too much to the obvious shots that opponent can play. I anticipated already like 90% of the most likely shots and I had responses to them already planned in my mind, but when opponent hit the 10% low probability shot (which in most cases was stupid or tactically wrong), I did not react quickly enough because I had to load the response from the hard drive. So it took me a while (maybe one tennis season, like 7-8 months) for me to have an ABORT option in my mind and react immediately to whatever is happening even when it was something I had not anticipated. An example would be that an opponent at full stretch decides to play a drop shot - which is stupid but it can work in some cases and obviously I don't want to throw away that point. Or that I fully stretch them wide and they attempt a winner down the line while running... So to answer your question: If I receive a medium difficult ball off that cross court, I will still play down the line, just much safer. Higher, slower ball aimed deep and away from the side line as that will still make opponent move a lot which is my primary objective in tennis. If he hits a stupid counter attack shot fast and deep with high risk cross court but the ball happens to go in, then I ABORT my planned actions and simply respond with a deep neutralizing shot likely down the middle or even back cross court.
Ok thinking one stroke ahead as you return a shot, I've been taught to always return to the middle of the court. Is that too predictable and does it just set up your opponent to anticipate that and always hit to the corners?
Yes, for returning first serve that's a good guideline. Or you can go in the direction of the follow-through. For for right-hander on deuce side, you natural forehand follow-through will pull the ball cross court and your natural follow-through direction of the backhand will hit it down the line, meaning to the opponent's (righty) backhand side. For second serve returns you can stick to the follow-through direction, just aim into smaller areas so that you stretch opponent more. Or if it's a really weak second serve, treat it like a short ball and then you can play wherever you want.
The concept is sound but the execution may not be. You have to good control of your strokes to send them crosscourt or down the line. Most beginners do not have this control and even intermediate players can have a lot of difficulty. If the ball is coming at you with pace, you basically will go to the biggest target. Not much you can do about it until you become an advanced player.
95% of viewers of this channel are not beginners so that point is moot. Intermediate players are perfectly fine hitting one half of the court which is what defines down the line from cross court. No one talks about precision here, only how to make decisions quicker. And finally, the situations I am demonstrating is when you stretch someone to the side so not very likely you will receive a fast ball at you. I am happy to help players with my comments and replies but I have no idea where you got your ideas that you argue against. Definitely not in this video...
@@feeltennis Agree, if you're not ready to take on the concept of making your oponnent move then you need to step back and continue with the already covered topics on starting from scratch.
And I should tell you that I'm genuinely curious. I'm a big fan. I have bought your eBook already, and within a week of finishing it, beat a challenging opponent for the very first time!
