I'm going to make this short and sweet.  And I'd love to hear your opinion.

I watched Federer on the Tennis Channel go down yesterday at the Rogers Cup in Toronto.

I can only imagine how emotionally down Fed must still be after his loss to Rafa at Wimbledon.

But yesterday's performance was pathetic, especially at the end of the 3rd set.

I believe Roger has only one chance to get back on track and win another Slam or two.

It's time for PS...

Fed needs a specific style of coach, someone who understands exactly what the tools are the Roger has that no one out there on the tour has right now.

Pete Sampras...

How ironic would that be?  Fed is chasing Pete's record, and I believe the only guy who can help him get there is Pete himself.

Pete understood the value of court position pressure.  Don't give me this crap that because the rackets and string technology is so wildly different today that Pete and his style of play couldn't have dominated in today's game.

No one out there on the tour right now is doing what Pete did.  Serve and volley, chip and charge behind 2nd serve returns, and always looking for a short ball in a rally to approach on.

And one of the main reasons that no one is doing that now is because they're not taught as kids and coached to do so anymore.

Very few of the guys on the tour can hit a decent volley.  And it's less about the quality of the stroke itself and much more about the quantity of how often does a player put themselves in a court position that says to their opponent, "go ahead and try to pass me again".

Roger knows how to do what Pete did.  He used to be an extremely gifted serve and volley player.

He's just got himself away from it for such a long time that his confidence to get passed a few times and to have to scrape his knuckles now and then and basically get into the guy's face is in need of a strong dose of Pete's help.

My vote is for Fed to contact Pete and beg the guy to help him.   Fed would have to suck up his pride and lose a few matches as he regained that mojo as a big time serve and volley, chip and charge guy.

Do you see how every approach shot Fed hits these days is topped and sits up all pretty like on a platter for the boys to just tee off on?

If you just happen to know Fed or Pete, please, let 'em both know that Fed is in dire need of Pete's help.

Guess the next question would be if Pete really wants someone to break his Slam record.

Oh well, I think Fed is done unless he gets some serious help from someone like Pete.

Your thoughts...?

Brent

One of the biggest mistakes I see players make with their serve when they are either warming up, practicing, and even during matches is the lack of footwork after contact during their service motion.

You always want to insure that your service toss is consistently placed in a spot that naturally allows you to move forward after contact.

Even if you're just warming-up for a match...



Brent

Claim your copy of Brent's "The 3 Magic Moves of the Serve"

Continuing our discussion from the last post regarding as to why we want to move up to net either behind serve and volley, chip and charge return of serve, approach shots, approach volleys, etc., I want to discuss the real strategy behind "court position".

In many of my responses to your comments regarding this topic, my main focus has been to try to convince you that it's not always about the quality of the approach, the quality of the volley, or the quality of the overhead.

It's about quantity, not quality...

The biggest challenge I have in teaching tennis strategy is getting players (especially juniors) to NOT measure the effectiveness of their net approaching attempts by each and every point.

I see it way too often (and I know we saw an example of this by Federer in this year's 2008 French final), and that is a player coming into net and then deciding after getting passed a couple of times that this net approach thing isn't working, so let's forget it.

And the big mistake we make is to evaluate that strategy after only a couple of times of coming into net.

Here's my philosophy on approaching the net, and I've got to give all of the credit to my former coach Tom Stow, and that is, not only is it a helluva lot more fun, but you don't have to hit perfect approach shots, volleys, etc. each and every time to be successful.

What you do have to do is to realize that you're going to get passed from time to time, but in the end, there really is a limited number of passing shot winners available to your opponent in any given match.

Your opponent's available passing shots are a finite number, not an unlimited well of wealth...

And if you can't handle getting passed, then you need to get over that and understand that this really is simply a numbers game. 

Don't measure / evaluate success point by point, but instead, be faithful to the big picture which is measured by the entire match.

I figure that whomever I play has a certain number of passing shots available in their "bag" on that day, and my job is simply to empty that bag asap.

And I'll be honest with you, there are some days when it takes me to have to get to something like 4 all in the 3rd before that "bag" gets emptied.  On those days you just have to believe that you'll eventually get there and just hold on for the ride.

And other days it seems my opponent's passing shot bag is emptied really early in the match.  And the residual of that is lots of unforced errors from them in their attempt to not give me approachable shots / opportunities.

And of course, some days it also just doesn't work out.  You lose a match now and then...

Which gets me to another one of my favorite says, "If you lose this point, where do you want to be on the court"?

I always want to up at net and forcing my opponent to hit a perfect passing shot.  And when they do I never feel that they've now added another passing shot for that day to their bag.  I know how hard it is to hit one clean passing shot, let alone a bunch of them over the course of a match.

OK, so blah, blah, blah, what's the point here?

It's not a negative to approach the net and get passed...

And if you get either get passed and then stay back for fear of getting passed again OR you get to what you perceive as an important point and also stay back, then you're missing the point.

And to get back to what Mr. Stow continued to tell me, ending up at net is just a helluva lot more fun. 

The different movements, the different shots, watching your opponent's passing attempt fail, and just the overall dynamic of applying relentless never ending pressure on your opponent with court position (not necessarily perfect stroke production) is just plain more fun that staying back on the baseline gripped with fear...

Brent

The recent 2008 French Open final has really hit a sore spot with a lot of us where Federer appeared to not really give much of an extended effort to try to "change a losing game".

My post the other day stirred up lots of debate, and one of your fellow WebTennis.net subscribers, Roger Underwood from Australia, was kind enough to pass along an article he wrote which ironically focuses on the exact same subject of not changing a losing game when Federer lost to Djokavic at the Australian earlier this year.

With Roger's permission, here is his article...

I also have some comments at the end.

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Roger Federer and the Reign of Technology
By Peter Underwood and Roger Underwood

To many tennis fans, Roger Federer’s defeat by Novak Djokavic in the Australian Open was painful. For the World Champion not only comprehensively lost, but appeared out of form, out of sorts, and out of ideas. Why?

One obvious reason might be that Federer was having a bad day – something that happens to everybody – even Federer. However to those who love tennis history, this can only be a part of the explanation: why did he appear incapable of devising any sort of response to his young opponent’s barrage? Why, the match slipping away, bash it out from the baseline against an opponent whose martial strategy was precisely that?

Now greybeards are notoriously inclined to sentimentalise the past – to them yesterday’s heroes are incomparably more heroic than today’s. Greybeards also have a galling tendency of locating the defects of the upstart heroes, then offering foolproof prescriptions for these defects. Nevertheless, sometimes the past can help explain the present, and even offer a way forward.

We have just completed a book on ‘The Pros’ – the little band of ‘professional’ tennis players who, before 1967 and ‘Open Tennis’, played for money before the public. Only after that were they allowed to compete against the so-called ‘amateurs’ in the great fiestas like Wimbledon and today’s Australian Open.

In our book we analyse the style and the strategy of the eight pro champions from 1930 to 1967. One of them, Ken Rosewall, was in the gallery watching the Federer match. Another, Rod Laver, had given his name to the arena in which it was played. What can the old masters tell us?

First, both were in the direct line of the first pro champion ‘Big Bill’ Tilden, guru to several generations of tennis players. Two Tilden maxims are central here.

The first was ‘always change a losing game’. The second involved what Tilden called exaltedly, ‘the tennis player’. To Tilden, the maestro tennis player possessed facility at net and the baseline, powers of defence as well as attack, and a capacity to change pace or spin. Moreover they had the ability to draw on these manifold resources when occasion and opponent demanded.

So, if in trouble, Rosewall and Laver were exemplary with the unexpected. Indeed the Laver genius of invention was such that he appeared to relish being put in a position to test it. John Newcombe once said that he never knew when he was in bigger trouble, being two sets to love up on ‘The Rocket’, or two sets down - and he wasn’t entirely joking. What Newcombe meant was this: being behind seemed to fire up Laver’s wondrous best, both technically and strategically.

As for the almost tiny Rosewall, his forte was taking on the goliaths: by his quickness, and his mastery of the net, he could ‘turn back his opponent’s pace’, making them flounder, and incapable of setting up their power strokes. In a rare flight of poetry, the American Marty Riessen said of Rosewall’s capacity to surprise, ‘you never see him coming, and you never hear him coming’.

So, most respectfully, we might ask why Federer didn’t take a leaf from the book of these earlier masters – and sometimes follow in his serve, or break up his opponent’s rhythm by changes of pace, placement, or spin.

However for Federer to do so involves something more than questioning his game plan –which has, admittedly been monumentally successful. He must also challenge a belief central to modern tennis, and which explains much of the modern game’s rigidity.

This belief is that improved technology means that the only way to win is by pulverising the ball with huge topspin, and slugging it out from the baseline. Rather than a goal, the net is regarded as a danger zone. Thus when they do find themselves at net many modern players resemble the clergyman who discovers himself not at a choir meeting but in a bordello.

A good part of the reason for this is that they all seem party to one of the modern age’s most insidious and often ludicrous beliefs: that technology is invested with magical power.

Federer hits the ball much harder than did that legendary pair of little blokes, Rosewall and Laver. Yet he seems governed by the ‘technological imperative’ – everything, today, is different: the new apparatus allows only baseline slug-feasts. So strategy is emasculated.

In elite sport, as in warfare, the victor’s most important weapon remains the same - a flexible mind. Roger Federer, as he looks back on the Australian debacle, might do well to take out some old tennis videos, and perhaps reflect on John McEnroe’s famous remark: ‘Tennis is 75% mental: and the rest is mental’.

Reference: “The Pros - Forgotten Heroes” by Peter Underwood, with Roger Underwood, 2007. Unpublished MS

Contact by email: yorkgum@westnet.com.au

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Thanks Roger for your thoughts and I couldn't agree more.

As a teaching professional, my biggest concern is that young players to our game are being taught this stuff that is so well described in Mr. Underwood's article. 

We're talking baseline only strategies that are simply based on ball bashing with extreme forehand grips. 

Hey, I wish Fed would use all of the different grips I know he has available to him.  I've always said that he's the best guy on the planet because he has so many grips available to him.  Unfortunately, we're not seeing him use them when it's appropriate to try and "change a losing game".

I'm telling you, if we continue to teach and promote a Nadal style of play, we're going to kill off this game somewhere down the road.

I've seen way too many young adults who were taught baseline only strategies give up tennis in their mid 20s and early 30s because that style just isn't any fun or because of the injuries suffered from that style.  As juniors, tennis was less about "fun" and more about pure winning.

And as they got older, the young adults' perception of trying to convert to an "all-court" style of play using lots of different grips was just to big of an ordeal to have to face.

I'm not promoting total doom and gloom, but I am saying that we have to demand something different from our teaching pros at least.

I worked out on the court with my good friend Michael Wayman yesterday and we had this same conversation. 

And you know, Michael said what Mr. Underwood's article was really all about, let's give Nadal and Fed wood rackets and let the boys have a bit of a bash and let's see what happens.

The racket technology has allowed the tournament pros to do things we've never ever seen before in tennis.  But that doesn't mean we should be teaching it.

Don't give in to the glitzy hype of the Roddick forehand and service motion that doesn't naturally move him forward into the court.

If you're reading this post and you're a young teaching pro, please, teach your juniors how to volley FIRST.

Teach them how to play doubles before you teach them how to play singles.

Yeah I know, sort of radical.  But think about it for a minute.  As a teaching pro, what really is your job?

Your job is not to help kids become touring pros or even to play just like the pros we see on TV.

Your job is to help kids learn how to play tennis for the rest of their lives.  And that means teaching them everything about the game.  Don't limit them...

If they get good enough to play on the tour, then it's all gravy.

Baseline only ball bashing strategies and techniques will not get it done if you want to help people play tennis for their rest of their lives.

Brent

www.webtennis.net/Tennis-Lessons.htm