An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
The “Cone Game” is one of my favorite tennis practice drills. It is a great development tool because it gets the players into an Zen-like focus that is still layered with the pressure of competition. I recently used the SwingVision during a practice session that included the Cone Game and was very happy with the results. I continue to be completely enamored with the SwingVision application and service.
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I am still completely enamored with the SwingVision application. I have always been a big proponent of video review, but until SwingVision came into my life, my primary usage was pretty much confined to examination of individual stroke mechanics. My recent session using SwingVision with a ball machine illustrates how the heat map generated by the application opens a much wider perspective.
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I finally got around to trying out SwingVision and was very impressed with the results. In fact, I immediately applied to be a brand ambassador for the product. I am absolutely kicking myself for not trying it out much sooner. As a strong proponent of video analysis, any technology that reduces the workload required for meaningful review is transformational.
In 2019 I developed pain in my racquet arm that got so bad I couldn’t extend it across my body to hit a backhand. I went to my local Airrosti clinic for diagnosis and treatment. The source of the arm pain was traced to tightness in my shoulder. Part of the rehabilitation that was prescribed was use of a lacrosse ball for myofascial release of adhesions in the shoulder. It worked.
Sometimes the best tennis training techniques are also the most simple. I am a big believer that every player should spend some amount of time in their practice sessions hitting shots to targets. That includes serves, groundstrokes, volleys, overheads, drop shots, etc. When I go a week without performing target drills, it shows up in my matches. It’s ugly.
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My friend Will Boucek produces a terrific tennis podcast “Doubles Only,” which — follow me closely here — focuses exclusively on tennis doubles tactics and strategy. In a recent episode, he shared a doubles practice drill that he observed on the practice courts at Indian Wells this year while watching Elise Mertens and Hsieh Su-Wei work out. This post shares my own diagram of the drill he verbally described.
In early 2020, I hastily purchased a Perfect Pitch Rebounder for tennis when it became apparent that shut down of my city park courts was imminent due to Covid mandates. Apparently other tennis players simultaneously did the same thing, as the device went on long term back-order shortly after mine was shipped. It didn’t seem sportsmanlike to write about a tennis training device that players couldn’t have, so I didn’t at the time. As we head into the tennis “off-season” this year, the device is once again widely available. It is the perfect time to write about my own Perfect Pitch Rebounder.
One of the most unusual items from a Tennis Channel “Bag Check” video emerged without comment during last week’s post. The jump rope was originally highlighted from the video featuring Edina Gallovits. On subsequent consideration, I should have focused on the bag of oatmeal she whipped out with the description “best thing ever.” That is… not typically how I personally describe oatmeal.
I… couldn’t have picked Edina Gallovits out of a lineup before recently reviewing her Tennis Channel “Bag Check” video from 2010. I knew even less about her. She is a former WTA professional player who achieved a career high ranking #54 in 2008. She represented both Romania and the United States in international play. Her most important distinction is that she was the first player to whip out a jump rope on a “Bag Check” video.
The tennis ball machine is a powerful tool for fine tuning stroke mechanics and building consistency. Effective ball machine use starts with the identification of the purpose for each drill. In the absence of that, machine sessions can regress into simply standing flat-footed while playing easy balls from the center of the court. There is an art to getting the machine settings “just right.” However, the real skill is identifying an objective and coming up with an appropriate pattern to work on it.