To: Scott Murphy and Kerry Mitchell

[lukman41985]

Guys,

Could you write more article about rhythm and rally speed, please. As my game has improved, I've found myself getting the positions down on my strokes but losing fluidity and/or having a tempo that's too quick. I know you guys are busy but I feel that developing rally rhythm/tempo is crucial in becoming a consistent and proficient tennis player.

If you guys are too busy to write articles, perhaps some tidbits here in the forum?

What do you say?

[jhm36]

That's funny you should mention this because I've had the same thing happen to me. I often play with three guys much better than me, one in fact going into the Army Sports Hall of Fame in a few months, and if I try to stay in the point with steady, deep, topspin storkes, they quickly fire off a winner or one heck of a shot that forces an error from me. But if I throw in a lot of slices, some dropshots, moonballs, a surprise approach to the net, or going for a low percentage winner, things to disrupt the steady tempo of the rally, I have a much better chance of winning the point.

But yeah, if I start to feel comfortable in the rally, feeling good about my strokes, I know those guys are about to pick up the pace and blow something by me. That the sort of thing you mean?

[lukman41985]

Not really, however your post also has to do with rhythm and rally speed. Your more concerned with breaking up the rhythm and rally speed of your opponents. I'm more concerned with establishing a proper rhythm and rally speed for myself. But as I stated, we're both concerned with rhythm and rally speed. Hopefully we'll get some insight!

[kerrymitchell]

rythym and rally speed

Guys,
I am away right now so I can´t answer you questions in a lot of depth now, but I can give you a little tidbit now and go into more depth later.

Part of rhythm and rally speed is to find your own speed, whatever that speed may be. The first key is to use full strokes even when you are returning serve and on the run. Try to feel and see youself follow through when you´re practicing.
There is nothing wrong with slicing the ball as long as you´re using a full correct stroke to acheive it. Slicing low and slow is very effective against big hitters as long as you can run down the reply enough to make them rush a bit and make mistakes.

Give me a few details about your games and I can give more details.
Thanks,
Kerry Mitchell.

[jhm36]

Thanks for the replies. My usual partners are either better than or worse than me, and against those two types it's always hard for me to really get into a what feels like a good rhythm. If I'm grooving against the people who are worse than me, in a shot or two I've put too much pressure on themand the points end pretty quickly with forced errors. But when I play against the people who are better than me, when I start to feel like I'm really into the point, swinging well, in the flow, good form, etc, it seems to fire up those guys to really bring out their A-game and they start either driving the ball through me or going for great angles, putting me into heavy defensive/scramble mood and out of my rhythm and very much on the run.

So a it seems like for me things have turned out pretty much how Kerry would have predicted. Without a partner of about equal skill, it's hard to develop rally speed.

So, Lukman, have you found this to be like your situation? You playing against people at your level? What things start getting too quick, what happens to your game?

[lukman41985]

At college I usually hit with 3 kids. 2 of them I'm better than, and Jim, as you stated, with these guys, I can just get in a groove and after a couple of balls I am confident enough to just rip one and it's not that hard because the balls from these guys aren't particularly fast or heavily spun. The other guy I hit with is extemely crafty and makes it very difficult for me to set up and put a good swing on the ball. He's always hitting angles, up/back, heavy spin and then flat--he changes it up so well and doesn't let me get in any rhythm at all. That makes me nervous. Even while serving I'm nervous and as a result can't get into a good rhythm!

Lately, I've been taking some prviate lessons. The guy who's giving me the lessons is around 40 year old, a 5.0, with flatter Eastern strokes, and a great slice backhand. I can hit him off the court and technically, he says my strokes are great (we're going to video tape to make sure and I'll be sure to send them in!). He wants me to play on what he considers to be the club's best 4.0 men's team. Anyways, when he moves me around, I'm often swinging out of my shoes or when I get slices I'm hitting late. However, when he shouts to me to "swing in tempo" I can keep it deep, hard, and often hit winners. I'm pretty sure that swinging in tempo ties into rhythm and rally speed and that is the reason why I started this topic. Speaking of rhythm--the guy also says to swing 'in tempo" on my serve and doing so has caused my first serve to become much bigger. I'm hitting it fast (don't know about the spin), deep, and it's bouncing half way up the back apron (maybe that says something about the spin). I can also feel myself getting more bite on the second serve.

Maybe what I really need to do is to videotape a lesson and watch it carefully. What I'll look for is my technique/footwork on my poor, out of rhythm shots, and my technique/footowork right after he has said "swing in tempo".

That's about it though Jim and Kerry. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for your input.

[jhm36]

Lukman, your experience sounds so similiar to mine. I've been living in this weird tennis zone for the past few months, where I feel great about my game and worry free when going up against and just hitting around my buddies who aren't as good as me, keeping in mind, though, that I am slumming a bit by playing against people I know I'm better than. (I'm a 4.0 by the way, working on making it soon to 4.5.) But then I feel nervous and lousy about my game when I'm playing against the dudes better than me. I'm just cannot relax against them, ever! It's an hour or two of anxiety and constant, never-ending, brain chatter of what I'm doing wrong, how I need to relax, how to relax, what I need to do to stay in the point, footwork, loose wrist, follow through, take back, focus on the ball, hit through the ball, take the ball early, etc. All the time this chatter is going on, I'm being run around the court like a toy. No rhythm in other words, though my slice and dropshots have vastly improved playing against those guys, weapons that didn't need to be that strong against the lesser people I play with. So has my net game and I'm really driving my vollyes through the court better than ever because I learned if I didn't those guys can pass me or lob me given only a slight opening. Drop volley as well better than ever. What I don't like to do is a heavily angled volley. Opens up too much of the court for the pass if I can't put the ball away.

I'm positive one of the big reasons the better guys like to play me is that I'm a couple of decades younger than them and I ultimately cover more court (though I have less court awareness and positioning skills) than they do and it's fun for them to go for more challenging winners against me than each other.

Sounds like your serve is coming along well. I'm sure a serve that bounces as high as that will set up a lot of easy put aways for you. I can see it now: ad serve, kicker to the backhand, step into the court and a crosscourt forehand winner or enough pressure to cause a forced error.

[lukman41985]

Yeah Jim, our situations do sound similar. My instructor, when pulled out of position, really loves ripping the down the line. It's hit so hard, but with such a compact swing--he's so under control and it amazes me.

He's really getting me to focus more on not just tempro, but imagery as well. I tend flail on some of my groundies or serves and he's given me this image of "swinging in a phone booth" that's done wonders especially on my serve--it really helped my wide slice serve in the deuce. Previously, I'd come around it too much and slice it wide. On my kick serve, he's given me this image of turning my body to the side fence and keeping it there that's got me moving my ball toss back a little more and to the left and staying behind to really hit up and across the ball.

It reminds me of a Golf Channel Academy Live episode I saw with Tiger Woods and his former instructor Butch Harmon. Tiger said, "feel and real are two different things." Imagery is essential in sports. That's one makes this website the best instructional website out there--it emphasizes imagery in learning and succeding in this great game. It's nice for me to have an instructor who takes the same approach.

[jhm36]

Swinging in a phone booth? Please tell us more. I can use all sorts of help with my serve. So much room left for improvement there.

Feel and real are two different things. That's a good line.

And to get back to Kerry's article, I'd like to confirm what he said in it, how skill level can jump up dramatically once people find out what their rally speed/tempo is, and to hit a large number of balls in that rhythm. My usual partner, who's learning to play along with me, and I both frequently talk about that one month last summer when we stumbled upon just that fact before I'd even joined tennisplayer.net. Once we dedicated a large portion of our time on the court to those rally zone practices our skill level jumped such a significant level that people who had seen us play were shocked to hear just what a short time we'd been playing tennis. It's one of the tips I'm constantly passing onto people: explore and develop your rally rhythm and speed. So much follows from that.

[lukman41985]

Swinging in a Phone Booth: What does it mean?

Swinging in a phone booth is a good image. Think about a phone booth--forget about it's depth. It's not wide, but tall. I use the image of a phone booth to hit wide slice serves from the deuce court. My tendency is to serve too wide and fault. That happens because I'm coming from too far outside of the ball--from too wide.

The image of the phone booth helps because it gives me the feeling of not coming from too far out wide. I use the image of the phone booth a lot know.

I used the same sort of imagery, specifically the image of a clock, to learn how to hit a kick serve.

Imagery is a great thing!

[lukman41985]

Jim, check out these clips...

I'm going to be watching these clips of Lendl everytime I want to key in on swinging smooth and in tempo on my groundstrokes. It's beautiful footage from John's great work "The Winning Edge"--it's amazing and a testament to the work how that came out before I was even born but that it's pertinent to my game today!

[shootermcmarc0]

those are really nice clips man

[jhm36]

Lendl! Ha, we're so on the same page. Just a couple of days ago I was hitting with one of the older better guys, and we were talking about the Wilander-Lendl US Open final of 1988. (Great match.) I only saw it for the first time a few weeks ago and I was amazed at Lendl's ability to so smoothly generate a lot of power on his forehand and by just how relaxed and easy that down the line backhand was. I even told my friend that I was going to study Lendl a bit and see if I could incorporate some of that style into my own game.

[lukman41985]

Jim,

Our similarities make me feel like I'm in bizarro world. Anyways, I hadn't seen any footage of Lendl until coming here on tennisplayer.net and seeing John's "Winning Edge" footage and when Marius Hancu posted some links to match clips of him over at tt.tennis-warehouse.com. Previously, I thought he was a player not worth seeing because people described him as "robotic". I thought they were trying to say he had robotic, stiff like strokes. That was so far from the truth it's not even funny.

Lendl is very fluid. He is also a great model with his mild, eastern grips and compact swings. Look at the unit turn, small adjustment steps, and extension on both strokes. A much better model for me than Federer (on most clips he uses extreme hand and arm rotation that I do not need yet), Nadal, or even Agassi (Agassi uses a two-hander whereas I'm a one-hander and I think Agassi hits his forehand too flat).

My favorite models now are Lendl and Henman. You should check out those Henman clips. I'm not much of a serve-and-volleyer, but I do approach on anything short as I play right up on the baseline--the approach and volley videos in the Henman archive are a great resource for me.

What's your game like Jim? What kind of grips do you use, what type of backhand do you have, what style do you play, what's your NTRP rating, etc?

[lukman41985]

Today's Session With My Pro

So I had another hit today with my pro. I struggled to keep the ball deep. Part of it had to do with the fact that I usually play with a Babolat Pure Drive and that today I hit with a Fischer M-Speed Pro 105. Even though it's oversize, it's got a lot less juice than my Babolat. I'm making some progress on the rhythm front but need to do a lot of work moving out to the wide backhand. I'm not turning enough, not making enough adjustment steps, and not stepping out and into the ball enough.

After the lesson, my pro and I talked about how I have flat feet and get really bad cramps in my arch area--I have plantar fasciaitis--Federer has struggled with it as well. The pro took me to his closet, gave me a stretchy band to stretch it out in the morning, and also gave me an Estusa Power Beam Pro Braided--for free! I was so thankful!

What a lesson it was!