First Strike Tennis At All Levels

[klacr]

love-40...



Case in point. Yesterday your favorite player Tomas Berdych playing against Alexander Zverev in theand trailing 4-6, 3-5 worked the Zverev serve game to 0-40 and managed to lose the game and the match. Tough game...after Zverev evened it at deuce they went back and forth with the advantage before Zverev sealed it.

The confidence factor is big as faultsnaces mentioned...or was it klacr? If you can make your opponent struggle on his serve a couple of times. If you make him struggle all of the time you cause him to think...perhaps to doubt a bit.

It is amazing though what confidence in one's serve can do for the return game. It opens the door somewhat on the opponents serve game Berdych really made Zverev work to serve out the match. I didn't see the rest of the match and I wonder how hard he made him work on the other games and how much he struggled on his own serve.

Was hoping no one mentioned Berdych after yesterday's loss.

First tourney back from his Appendicitis episode. He'll be back in full force very shortly. And he needs to be. He is currently on the outside looking in for the race to London.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[teachestennis]

. But his data base goes exponentially beyond that. It sitll works because you are able to see percentages that are meaningful.

We often see comments like this about First Strike data, but where are these meaningful nuggets? Have the best serve and return you can. Who isn't doing that? Try to get the point started to your advantage early. Did we need these stats for that? Did someone not realize that you can't break serve if you don't make returns? Help me out. What is meaningful here?

[johnyandell]

Not sure everyone understands this but Craig does.

[J011yroger]

Have the best serve and return you can. Who isn't doing that?

The people who spend 45 minutes of an hour lesson playing mini tennis and hitting groundstrokes, 5 minutes on volleys, the last 8 minutes on serve before they say pick up the balls and I'll see you next week.

J

[stotty]

In junior tennis you can get very long rallies, but you also get lots of early unforced errors, which brings the average down. There is certainly no tactical intent to make rallies 2 or 3 strokes long as a game plan. This is probably true of the pro game also. Once players get into rallies then the rallies can be fairly long. It's the big serving that surely brings the averages down.

I have never charted matches for their rally length. I watched a mini orange final last month, which was essentially just three tiebreaks. It lasted 45 minutes and the rallies were humungous.

I am not sure I believe the stats. I have seen some bloody long junior matches where one can't overpower the other, and there is no way the average rally is just 2 or 3 shots.

[teachestennis]

In junior tennis you can get very long rallies, but you also get lots of early unforced errors, which brings the average down. There is certainly no tactical intent to make rallies 2 or 3 strokes long as a game plan. This is probably true of the pro game also. Once players get into rallies then the rallies can be fairly long. It's the big serving that surely brings the averages down.

I have never charted matches for their rally length. I watched a mini orange final last month, which was essentially just three tiebreaks. It lasted 45 minutes and the rallies were humungous.

I am not sure I believe the stats. I have seen some bloody long junior matches where one can't overpower the other, and there is no way the average rally is just 2 or 3 shots.

well the stats are right about the avg, but the avg match is a mismatch and as you say, good serving really skews the avg. result.
Maybe to get a more realistic perspective on normal rally length, you should throw out any point where the returner doesn't hit a neutralizing ROS. This would have the effect of still pointing how the importance of a good serve, but give a more accurate look at how a point really goes once it isn't controlled by the serve. This is a way to say a point by mostly washing out "the serve effect".

[stotty]

well the stats are right about the avg, but the avg match is a mismatch and as you say, good serving really skews the avg. result.
Maybe to get a more realistic perspective on normal rally length, you should throw out any point where the returner doesn't hit a neutralizing ROS. This would have the effect of still pointing how the importance of a good serve, but give a more accurate look at how a point really goes once it isn't controlled by the serve. This is a way to say a point by mostly washing out "the serve effect".

My point would be not all players are looking for short points. It isn't necessarily a game plan per se. It's a consequence of things, such as powerful serving, as you pointed. Someone like Novak, against many opponents, would be looking to lengthen rallies as it works in his favour.

[arturohernandez]

well the stats are right about the avg, but the avg match is a mismatch and as you say, good serving really skews the avg. result.
Maybe to get a more realistic perspective on normal rally length, you should throw out any point where the returner doesn't hit a neutralizing ROS. This would have the effect of still pointing how the importance of a good serve, but give a more accurate look at how a point really goes once it isn't controlled by the serve. This is a way to say a point by mostly washing out "the serve effect".

Craig also breaks it down by age and by gender. Pretty much across all ages and both genders the average rally length is 0-4. Even for women and girls. There are some subtile differences with women and girls not being as dominant in the second serve. I think even Serena is barely above 50% for second serves. Whereas Nadal is much higher than that on average.

Craig's big idea is that everyone looks to practice lengthening rallies. But, in effect, practicing good percentage serving, returning and what he calls serve+1 and return+1 would help to improve how well people could compete.

I have tried this with my daughter where in some cases we work on serving and returning a lot before a tournament. In general, this tends to shorten points but my sense is that it improves the outcome in that she tends to put more pressure on her opponents.

She also neutralizes their serves and thus can be more aggressive on return+1.

He has a lot of data and they seem to point in the same direction. But it is against what we think practice should be. Specifically, people rally or play practice matches. Craig thinks this makes practices too long.

He thinks people should practice serve, return and the +1's a LOT more. This would have the effect of reducing practice time and maximizing results. Again, very antithetical to what people have been preaching in the tennis development world.