Austrian kids Masters

Congrats Ayana and Stefan.

http://www.tennistirol.at/1053,1563,,2.html

Golden Tennis Rule

Never get into stupid arguments with people on the internet.
There are 435,865 - of course, all numbers approximate - trainspotters out there sitting around in dressing gowns with nothing better to do than sit around having arguments over tennis technique via a computer. Avoid these people at all costs. Often, the best part of their day is to hear a little 'ding' on their computer which lets them know someone has posted something new on their internet thread. More often than not, it's more pleasureable if the new post disagrees with their theory. This then allows faceless robe wearing trouble maker to rant on about theory Y v theory X for 456 words. Let these people have their fun but, if you never want to feel like hanging yourself or see the inside of a jail cell as a result of beating internet troublemaker to death with a rock hammer, avoid this nonsense. 

At gunpoint

If Omar from 'The Wire' was holding a gun to my head and demanding I tell him the best drill for improving your tennis, before I peed myself and asked him if he wanted any Honey Nut Cheerios, I'd have to go with the following:

Go out on the court and rhythm hit with one tennis ball.

That's it.

Play from the baseline from the net; have one volleying and one hitting groundies but you can only use one ball. If you shank it over the fence into the parking lot, go get the ball. You lose the ball in the bushes, go over the fence and find it.

You'll pretty soon figure out what speed you can comfortably keep the ball in play at as well as move your opponent around the court at. You'll learn the importance of what I call, 'your low game'. Tennis is a game of mistakes. The less you make, the more successful you are. The faster you can play and not miss while making your opponent move, the better player you are. If you have a great low game like Rafa, even when you're not playing your best, you can still go into survival mode and have confidence your opponent will have to work like crazy to beat you.

If you have 19 balls to practise with and miss one, it's not such a big deal. But in a match, if you miss you lose the point. If you do this drill I guarantee it'll drive you nuts for the first 10 or so minutes. You'll play too fast and too low over the net and will be going and fetching the ball time and time again. But the more you do it, the better your concentration becomes and the better you'll understand the value of Bjorn Borg's timeless advice, "just hit the ball over the net one more time than the other guy".

As a tennis player, if you only did one drill for the rest of your life, I'd dedicate 30 minutes each week to this one.

Competing and chilling out

One of the biggest problems I see with kids when they play matches is trying to start off going full gas. Winners will be mixed in with way too many errors and after a few games they still feel like they have no rhythm and feel. This is no doubt also caused by the anxiety and stress that comes along with competition. One method I have used with players with great success is to bribe them for the first 4-5 games of the match. Once you have good feel and rhythm, it's very hard to lose it so what I try and get my players to do is for the first few games, get involved in a lot of long rallies. Establish your rhythm, feel comfortable with the conditions and once you have accomplished this, then put your foot on your opponents throat. So, back to my system of bribery which is especially useful if you have a kid who over-hits. For the first four games of the match, tell your player that each time they play a rally with more than 10 shots, they get 50 cents or $1 depending on how flush you're feeling. This also gets kids minds of panicking about their opponent and really gets them to calm down. Plus, they love playing long points and then looking over at the coach and saying things like, "that's $5 you now owe me."

Greatest Tip Ever « Oscar Wegner

Greatest Tip Ever « Oscar Wegner

The CNS and athletic development

What does the Central Nervous System have to do with you becoming a better athlete?

... Glad you asked.

The CNS consists of the brain and the spinal chord - two mildly important elements - and not only controls muscles but also recieves information from the body. This information - which we get from doing things provides us with information which we can regulate. Over the course of our lives we collect, store and learn to use this information.

Now, when it comes to athletics, having great genetics helps, but our individual genetic plan alone, isn't sufficent to create movement. Our CNS develops as a result of two things:

1. Activity Dependant Development and ...

2. Spontaneous CNS Development

Since I've never been one for techno gibberish, activity dependant development is basically new connections we make as a result of activity. Here, the quality of the activity is crucial. Spontaneous development is just stuff that happens anyway. It's basically what you got from nature - your genetics.

As I said, your genes are important but they are not enough. To really stimulate the development of your nervous system you absolutely need to focus on good quality activities. If what you are doing in training is poor quality activity - not movement based and you spend your time sitting on some stupid weight machine for example - then your nervous system will not fully develop.

Lets take Rafael Nadal as an example. Rafa had great sporting genes as his uncle was a top soccer player in Spain. This would have been enough to take young Rafa to a certain level but it's highly unlikely young Rafa would have turned into the monster Rafa of today without sage like Uncle Toni steering him in the right direction - guidance is critical - activity wise.

So, to fully develop as an athlete and even as a functional adult, focus on quality activities. Things such as inchworms, spiderman climbs and crab walks might not be what your friends or competitiors are doing exercise wise, but kiddies, it's the kind of stuff you need to be doing.

(References: IYCA YFS1)

Indian Wells - The Men

New Zealand's Marina Erakovic may have already lost in the women's event, but that doesn't mean I still can't take an interest in the first masters series event of the year.
Alright, my arm has been twisted and I'm all in on the men's event and the bottom half of the draw in particular. Now there is no point previewing interesting fourth round and quarter final clashes because this means I'd be relying on guys such as Dolgopolov to maintain a certain degree of focus for a minimum of two matches. Yes it can be done and he has done it, but I'm still not laying cash on him being there to face Rafa in the last 16. If on the other hand he was David Ferrer, then I'd go find myself a loan shark and take my chances.
Dolgopolov v Rambo would be interesting but so would Federer v Milos Raonic. They've never met and a slow hardcourt doesn't seem like Raonic's cup of tea but still, he's potentially Del Potro's tag team partner in the 'we serve big and hit even bigger off the ground and scare the s*%t out of you even more' wrestling team for the next five or so years if both can stay healthy so me and everyone else would like to see him face one of the big big boys.
Delusional comment of the week goes to Andy Roddick. The former world number one is seeded 30th in Indian Wells and said something along the lines of, if I was a young kid with this ranking then everyone would be talking about me as an up and comer. I don't know why everyone wants to get rid of me but why should that really bother me because my wife is named Brooklyn Decker and I once got to see her make out with Jennifer Aniston. You figure out what parts of that are true but Andy, c'mon, you're not a young kid and your ranking has been on the slide ever since the 2009 Wimbledon final. You haven't added anything new to your game since then and the vultures are rightly circling your, 'I'm still a threat in the big events' carcass.
Whatever happens, I'm just hoping the weather gets hot enough so that it forces Andy Murray to adopt Ivan Lendl's legionairre cap look.