Your Strokes: Anthony Forehand

[johnyandell]

I agree on developing the athlete. Soccer and basketball!

[tenniscoach1]

Well if I paid a coach to help my son's forehand, I think I'd want my money back with that advice. Not exactly helping Anthony in the sport he has chosen to pursue. But I'm assuming your post was mostly humorous.

I think you need to think a lot more about what he is really saying ...

[tenniscoach1]

I would like to thank you for posting the video of your son. I just want to clarify my comments a bit. First of all, I think it is wonderful that a boy of his age has taken an interest in tennis. Unfortunately, I think it is too early to take tennis too seriously at his age. There are exceptions and I mentioned my experience with one of the most prodigious tennis juniors of all time. He was THE exception. There hasn't been another like him to my knowledge. Pancho Segura was saying that Aaron could be the next Björn Borg and that was back in 1980 when Borg was at the height of the game. Aaron had this unbelievable knack for anything athletic and what made it more incredible is he didn't really look like a great athlete.

The rest of us mortals acquire our skill sets from different activities. I played several sports with various degrees of seriousness and it was tennis that I chose to play competitively in the end. I never touched a racquet until I was fourteen but I had loads of game experience from other sports. So to put your son on a faster track in the arena of athletics I stand by what I wrote with regard to looking at a bigger picture in his development. "Develop the athlete...parallel to the tennis player." We have on the forum a man who is a professional hockey scout and he has a daughter who he started training to be a tennis player at a young age. He has done this by a somewhat "unconventional" route which I am a believer in. He has focused more on creating the athlete than the tennis player in her younger years, knowing he can install the "software" of tennis when the time comes appropriately.

If you take a child and train them to be a professional tennis player at an early age they are going to be stuck in the same thing that tennis is stuck in now. The "junior syndrome". When taught to play at such a young age with limited athletic skills, many times it creates a situation where there is limited potential for growth because of the learning curve of the game. It is a very complex game and it is much more complicated than the junior game. The professional game looks like the junior game. Aaron Krickstein actually never did progress much beyond the junior game himself. In my opinion, he did not reach the full potential of his tennis. He achieved tremendous success as a junior and he took a route that many of the players in his day. He actually enjoyed tremendous success as a professional but I will always wonder what he might have done. What if?

Basketball is a game that has great complimentary skill sets with tennis. The concepts of offence and defence for one thing. The movement is forwards and backwards as well as side to side. You learn to be a tough nosed competitor for another thing. Baseball is another game that has some transitional elements with the sport of tennis. Why not play sports on a seasonal basis for a couple, few years?

Thanks again for posting and I wish both you and your son the best of luck in the future.

I think everyone should read 10x what Don Budge has to say.

[doctorhl]

DB and tenniscoach1 are right. Development of the tennis player without development of body movement and strength through multi sport training can be a mistake. My personal perspective is different, but I suspect it may be the experience of others. Fifty years of tennis with emphasis on skill development at the expense of athletic training, especially post collegiate amateur tournament play through age 65 was plagued with injuries that diminished success and now are severely affecting my quality of life today.....never built or maintained a base!!

[antony]

I would like to thank you for posting the video of your son. I just want to clarify my comments a bit. First of all, I think it is wonderful that a boy of his age has taken an interest in tennis. Unfortunately, I think it is too early to take tennis too seriously at his age. There are exceptions and I mentioned my experience with one of the most prodigious tennis juniors of all time. He was THE exception. There hasn't been another like him to my knowledge. Pancho Segura was saying that Aaron could be the next Björn Borg and that was back in 1980 when Borg was at the height of the game. Aaron had this unbelievable knack for anything athletic and what made it more incredible is he didn't really look like a great athlete.

The rest of us mortals acquire our skill sets from different activities. I played several sports with various degrees of seriousness and it was tennis that I chose to play competitively in the end. I never touched a racquet until I was fourteen but I had loads of game experience from other sports. So to put your son on a faster track in the arena of athletics I stand by what I wrote with regard to looking at a bigger picture in his development. "Develop the athlete...parallel to the tennis player." We have on the forum a man who is a professional hockey scout and he has a daughter who he started training to be a tennis player at a young age. He has done this by a somewhat "unconventional" route which I am a believer in. He has focused more on creating the athlete than the tennis player in her younger years, knowing he can install the "software" of tennis when the time comes appropriately.

If you take a child and train them to be a professional tennis player at an early age they are going to be stuck in the same thing that tennis is stuck in now. The "junior syndrome". When taught to play at such a young age with limited athletic skills, many times it creates a situation where there is limited potential for growth because of the learning curve of the game. It is a very complex game and it is much more complicated than the junior game. The professional game looks like the junior game. Aaron Krickstein actually never did progress much beyond the junior game himself. In my opinion, he did not reach the full potential of his tennis. He achieved tremendous success as a junior and he took a route that many of the players in his day. He actually enjoyed tremendous success as a professional but I will always wonder what he might have done. What if?

Basketball is a game that has great complimentary skill sets with tennis. The concepts of offence and defence for one thing. The movement is forwards and backwards as well as side to side. You learn to be a tough nosed competitor for another thing. Baseball is another game that has some transitional elements with the sport of tennis. Why not play sports on a seasonal basis for a couple, few years?

Thanks again for posting and I wish both you and your son the best of luck in the future.

Thank you very much Don for your insightful and expert advice. It is much appreciated!

[arturohernandez]

Thank you very much Don for your insightful and expert advice. It is much appreciated!

Just to add my 2 cents. I think sometimes we as parents don't have the time or energy to invest in multiple sports. So we dedicate ourselves to teaching them tennis. If this is the case, I think there is good reason to take it slow and make sure that even if it just tennis, it be done with a lot of variety. What is commonly done is to drill students incessantly and get them to hit the same ball over and over again. Even if we train in tennis we can mix our training and teach them unconventionally even in a single sport.

Ideally, they would play lots of different sports. But if they cannot, have them do exercises as if they were playing sports. This could involve having them play ball games where they have to chase, throw and catch balls. You could have them hit all the different strokes in every practice.

The tennis court can become a place in which creativity and variety are cultivated.

It might not be as ideal but it should definitely let them learn things they will not learn with repetitive practice.

One example from another sport is Julian Edelman, a football player, that was overlooked for many years and then became a star for the New England Patriots.

His father trained him very unconventionally. And then he turned into a player that was never pampered and was able to play pro football.

His story is on Showtime and is an example of exactly what Don is talking about.

[don_budge]

Thank you very much Don for your insightful and expert advice. It is much appreciated!

You are most welcome Sir!

Just to add my 2 cents. I think sometimes we as parents don't have the time or energy to invest in multiple sports. So we dedicate ourselves to teaching them tennis. If this is the case, I think there is good reason to take it slow and make sure that even if it just tennis, it be done with a lot of variety. What is commonly done is to drill students incessantly and get them to hit the same ball over and over again. Even if we train in tennis we can mix our training and teach them unconventionally even in a single sport.

Interesting comment. Here is a memory from my past when I was coincidentally the same age as little Antony. Eight years old. I was in St. Louis, Missouri going to the second grade there. My father was working on his Master's Degree at Washington University there if my memory serves me correctly. We lived in an apartment complex called Audobon Park. We lived on Canary street. I remember that there was a local YMCA there and what a tremendous place that was for an eight year old. I remember in the nine months that I was there I learned how to swim, there was a class on the trampoline, I learned Greco-Roman wrestling and would you believe it...FENCING! Touche. Don't places like this exist anymore?

I was thinking that the schools provided opportunities for kids to pursue multiple sports. At my high school you could participate in a competitive sport in fall, winter and spring. Another idea I had for this young fellow was to have another sport to pursue in a somewhat serious/competitive manner. Perhaps make a goal of playing on the varsity basketball team when he is of that age. Start by going to a basketball camp. I was more serious about basketball when I was younger. When I started playing tennis it really improved my quickness and my stock went up very quickly as a basketball player. If I had a son I think that I would go to great lengths to enable him to participate in sports as well as other activities. Music being another. I would have wanted the most well rounded individual possible. If greatness just so happened to come along with the deal...so be it. But well rounded is a good way to go through life. Balance being the key to happiness.

[arturohernandez]

You are most welcome Sir!



Interesting comment. Here is a memory from my past when I was coincidentally the same age as little Antony. Eight years old. I was in St. Louis, Missouri going to the second grade there. My father was working on his Master's Degree at Washington University there if my memory serves me correctly. We lived in an apartment complex called Audobon Park. We lived on Canary street. I remember that there was a local YMCA there and what a tremendous place that was for an eight year old. I remember in the nine months that I was there I learned how to swim, there was a class on the trampoline, I learned Greco-Roman wrestling and would you believe it...FENCING! Touche. Don't places like this exist anymore?

I was thinking that the schools provided opportunities for kids to pursue multiple sports. At my high school you could participate in a competitive sport in fall, winter and spring. Another idea I had for this young fellow was to have another sport to pursue in a somewhat serious/competitive manner. Perhaps make a goal of playing on the varsity basketball team when he is of that age. Start by going to a basketball camp. I was more serious about basketball when I was younger. When I started playing tennis it really improved my quickness and my stock went up very quickly as a basketball player. If I had a son I think that I would go to great lengths to enable him to participate in sports as well as other activities. Music being another. I would have wanted the most well rounded individual possible. If greatness just so happened to come along with the deal...so be it. But well rounded is a good way to go through life. Balance being the key to happiness.

People are hyper focused on specialization at an early age. Many prodigies it turns out where doing a lot of different things until they decided to focus on one thing. Worst case scenario someone ends up being a balanced individual.