How to stop losing.

[GeoffWilliams]

Look at why you are losing. Most commonly, it's due to: #1: Weak serve. #2: Weak return. #3: Too many mistakes. All of the above creates a lack of confidence, and a lot of losses, not only to our matches, but to our feelings and our future.

What causes these issues? Watch Jy series on serving, http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...rve/index.html esp. the second serve. Second serving weakness is the greatest single reason why recreational and pro players alike lose!
Most don't: Load/coil enough. Most don't: RElax enough. Most don't: Leg drive and then drop to trophy, lagging and causing the vicious whip lash. Most don't: Drive the snap up the arm on a lagged line, so that the forearm pronation is forced to whip lash: see sampras increasing speed from 30-90 mph in the last 2/1000th of a second of the up drive. Most don't: toss well or value the importance of the toss well enough, and change toss position for first/second serves. Most don't: practice serving hardly at all, and go out for 1.5hrs, and hit down the middle all day, with maybe 20 warm up serves. What would your ground strokes look like if you hit 30 shots per practice? They would suck as badly as your serve does in match play.

Returning: Most don't: hit very many practice returns. Decide to hit to each line before the serve comes into play, or are able to hit each line from each side. Most don't: Practice against high ball kickers back hand side. Most don't: REady position wide enough, as all the top returners do. Most don't: use advanced split stepping, ie, landing on only one foot: the one away from the incoming ball, so they can place the other foot closest to the ball at a 90 degree angle to the planted foot, which turns the body faster sideways and coils the returner faster for a more coiled shot. Most don't: decide where to hit the return before the serve is hit. Do you ever hit a serve without deciding where it's going first? So why let the server dictate your decision at all?

Too many mistakes: Not enough practice: See craigslist, or usta team league play, or many other online sites for more partners, such as: letsplaytennis.com, usta find a partner, tennisoppolis, etc. The main reason we make too many errors is simply a lack of practice which causes a lack of winning. Even if you are practicing the wrong technique, more often, you will improve more than if you were not. Get sideways faster with faster feet and faster more energetic footwork. The top players are the best at this: getting sideways fast, attacking any incoming shot with the same intense foot speed, whether on defense running down a winner, or on attack on a weak slow short ball sitter! Most mistakes are made for two reasons: Most don't get sideways well enough. Most don't let low balls come into their body close enough, and most don't let high balls stay away from the body enough, and try to hit all shots at the same spot in front, regardless of the length of their own arms dictating the best arc to hit each different shot. Contact points depend on defending your space at arm's length, ie, the lower the shot, the more in the middle of the body it should be allowed to come in, and the higher the shot, the farther out in front it should be attacked. Hit the net, on a low shot? Too far out in front. Go long on a high shot? Too close to your body and you hit it late.

These are the greatest issues that separate open players from world class players as well as who wins the club battles. They create a lack of confidence. Being able to reach the zone depends on confidence, quieting the mind, releasing judgement of self, relaxing, believing in your ability to play well even if you are not. You can only do this if you have practiced it.
You will serve better if you decide to learn to and stop the bad technique. It's not your body causing the losses, it's your body's ability to obey your mind. It's not what you think you are doing, it's what you are actually doing. The sum total of your game is always more than you show in any one match! If the mind says, "Hit a good serve.", the body cannot if you don't practice the right technique and stop the bad habits. Same for returning and mistakes. Visualization, shadow swinging, video taping all will help, as does using the mind's more vulnerable moments. You can make the greatest gains when being beaten by a better player.

[GeoffWilliams]

We have to see ourselves for who we are: how many mistakes? What is your strength? What is your weakness? What can you do under pressure and what can't you do that you are continuing to try to do?

Most don't: incorporate their best shots/strengths into a game style that neutralizes individual opponents, or creates sequences that their opponents can't neutralize themselves.

[GeoffWilliams]

You have to find a bad weakness in your opponent, and know what your own are.

Most hate high balls on their back hand, but many also hate them on their forehands! Especially those with continental fh grips.

Most shot match tolerance don't go past three shots before an error.

[GeoffWilliams]

The single greatest common loss is nervous consistency under match pressure, applied to #1, 2, 3, serving, returning, and shot tolerance during rallies. People get finicky in match play. Even if you don't acknowledge it, the body gets nervous and locks up when pride is at stake. A good trick during matches is bellows breathing, a hatha yoga technique, very deep and fast through the nose for at least 15 seconds, which relaxes your nerves. Another trick is to dial down and be more conservative, clear the net more, hit second serves only, and so on, take fewer chances with your net play, come in less, until you are relaxed or warmed up. That is why so many people relax once they know they cannot win, and begin to play better, with fewer nerves. There is no longer any doubt of winning, and fear disappears out of the body.

Match tough people relax immediately and don't suffer from the locked up nerves as much. They are confident out of the gate: due to practicing a lot, playing a lot, and knowing what they can do and cannot do.

[GeoffWilliams]

What equipment is right for your game?

Spin hitters: open patterns, higher ra stiffer frames, spin edged strings like rpm blast, msv hex, dyreex black edge, yonex tour spin, big hitter blue rough, bhb7, vokl cyclone.

Control or flat hitters: closed patterns, mid range power strings like luxilon 4s, alu power, ltex os/4s hybrid, or a lux/gut hybrid, or multis like nrg2, with lower ra ratings.

Not enough wear ankle braces, which allow you to cut with more confidence and faster footwork.

[arturohernandez]

A little more context

Can you give me a little more context? I feel like I walked into the middle of a conversation. I like the answers just wanted to know how the question was phrased exactly.

[GeoffWilliams]

The context is how to stop losing during match play. The answers are how I've experienced losing and changing the result to a win.


How to prepare better, serve, return, practice, stop making errors so often, partners, confidence, psychological effects, foot work, racquet pathways, equipment use, etc.

ONe of the most important issues is how we feel after a loss. Like we don't want to play anymore, badly, how we let ourselves down, distress, emotionally damaged, etc. Sampras lost 19 times in a row when he switched to a one hander. We can limit loss emotions only if we decide to do so. Any loss teaches us our weaknesses. Often you can make great gains by being honest about why you made errors, or missed your shots, and quickly deciding to improve those areas and then going out immediately and working with a partner to turn those areas around!

I'm talking the same day. Go out and work on the weak points as well as your strong points. It's important to remember that you did make some great shots and did employ some tactics that worked well and allowed you to enjoy the game.

It's also important to realize you play for other reasons other than beating up on someone. Fun, brotherhood, exercise, getting out in the sun, hitting good shots. Some just cannot play matches and get anything positive out of it.

[arturohernandez]

finding positivity

Okay, now I understand. Yes, the mind and one's mentality is a very tricky thing. On the one hand one has to be critical enough to work on weaknesses and at least manage them enough. On the other hand, one has to be absolutely positive even when losing. I have found it very hard to learn to use these two different mindsets in different situations. In a match, I simply try to stay as positive as possible. It is so very hard to let go of the outcome. But it helps to produce better match play. In practice, I nit pick more. I suppose it is to be a kind of supportive mentor for yourself. Trying to guide yourself to being a better player rather than beating yourself up about winning and losing. Have you read Sacred Hoops or 11 rings by Phil Jackson? I find it best if I try to play for some higher purpose. I think Malcolm Gladwell writes about this in his new book David vs. Goliath.

[GeoffWilliams]

We are our own mentors, our own coaches, and no one else takes it as seriously or suffers as much when failing as we do. No one cares about your matches or whether you improve or not, only you do.

[GeoffWilliams]

How to move better, lose weight, shadow swinging practice, video tape edit/camera buy and use, emotional content during practices, partner use and cooperation, more on equipment, use of spin and tactical sequences that work against a given type, best ankle braces, diets, psych use, all of these can have an effect on winning.

[arturohernandez]

It's funny how many little things can make a difference. Recently, people have been starting to find that scents make a difference. They can change your mood. There is published research on this so I would not take as pop science. I agree it all has to come together but it requires focusing on a particular goal which can be tough as one gets older and has more demands on one's time.

[GeoffWilliams]

For me the smell of an underground spring/creek is a happines, childhood linking thing. Cool fresh air. Bubblegum. Lemon. Port. Creek air happiness. If I could bottle that, underground spring smell, I'd be rich. Happiness does affect our play. You don't lose as much when you are happy, and when you do, it doesn't matter as much as when you are unhappy with yourself. The trick is, how to corral and control our feelings after a loss, so it's not damaging to our selves and our future.

[GeoffWilliams]

If you are losing due to nerves: make a habit of running a mile-half mile or so just before your matches, around the courts. There are two methods of mental association most common to runners: associative, and disassociative. Associative method involves associating your mind to the nerves/pain you feel rather than the other side, rather, see into the nerves/pain, and give it a number, 1-10, or a color, red or green, or a weight in ounces, or an amount of water the pain is holding, such as a glass, a bottle, a thimbleful. This concentrated focus can then melt the nerves/pain down, if you have a side ache, or nerves, it will vanish for those who are vulnerable.


Disassociative methods, involve the opposite: rather distracting your mind away from the nerves/pain: counting in your mind each time you swing your arms/hands forwards, and keeping track of how many breaths you use for a given tempo: 1-1-3-4 forward arm swings for each breath in, and each breath out, so four strides for each breath. Also looking inside the body for tension in your wrists, so that your hands flex at the wrist with each swing, or are they stiff and locked? Many different approaches to pain/nerves. Sometimes one works better than the other, and people vary in their susceptibility to each method over time.

So that before each match, you have done this ritual, and with the intention of dissolving nervous energy. Would recommend you do this in running shoes, not tennis shoes. If you do this it will relax you and allow you to enter the zone more easily. All top players warm up with hitting or bike, or something like this before their matches, as physios and psych experts alike agree on thier usefulness in relaxing the mind and body.

Each of these methods involves the considerable power of your mind to affect your body and your play, in a creative way outside the norm that most people are even aware of. YOur mind always tints the zone, and is the doorway frame of the portal to the zone.

[GeoffWilliams]

Match play is all about feel. The frame given its own consistent feel, mostly changes due to string jobs, which account for 70% of feel during match play. Most don't mess with varying cross string tensions, except for those who are experienced stringers in their own right. I've found that if your string is varied you can increase the pocketed feel and power as well.

Most frames are strung from the top down, 99%, with crosses that most just string the same tension all the way down.

I don't. I change the cross tensions going down. I call this method: low/bump/low. The first three crosses are lower in tension, depending on frame stiffness, and desired main string tension normally used, this varies a bit. Then, the next 10 strings are bumped up to normal tension, and the last crosses down are lowered in tension, so that the feel increases in the main area where you hit the ball. I also ping out the mains and vary their tensions a bit so that they sound the same, except for harsher strings like yonex tour spin or blue gear twisted. The softer the string the more nec. it is to do this. These string jobs also keep the feel only as long as you hit hard or play a lot. Softer strings lose tension faster other than gut, which holds tension better than any other string, and that's why many top pros use gut mains, alu crosses. Good crosses with gut are also: l-tec 4s, blackcode, alu, lux. ace, etc, 4s, vokl cyclone, nrg2. A little experimentation with your own preferred strings and tension will increase feel and power.

For those who love poly, poly star energy makes a good cross for power increase and loud pop when striking the ball! Good with yonex tour spin, dyreex black edge, bhb7, cyclone, l-tec os, etc. are all good crossed with star energy.

[GeoffWilliams]

For the feet, two pairs of thor lo socks, full spenco inserts, ankle braces, and foot pad protectors. You would need a shoe size bigger to fit these but if you do it, your feet won't get hurt anymore.