When you have a real passion for a particular sport or game, you’ll find a variety of unconventional ways to practice and improve. Take tennis, for example. It can be played with nothing more than a racquet, a tennis ball and a wall. The wall acts as the unforgiving competitor. Players work to hone their footwork,…
The game of tennis played by the pros of today is explosive and exciting to watch. Back when I played on the ATP Tour in the late 1980s and most of the 1990s, not many players could, what I call, "Turn a Point.” What I mean is to take a defensive situation like being put…
New York Tennis Magazine has the unique opportunity to pose questions from our readers to tennis coaching legend Nick Bollettieri. Nick has coached 10 world number ones, including Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, Jim Courier, Martina Hingis, Jelena Jankovic, Marcelo Rios, Monica Seles, Maria Sharapova, and Venus and Serena Williams, as well as a host of…
The serve is the most important and the most under-practiced shot in the game of tennis. We all want a blistering serve, but wanting and owning are two very different things. Personally, I think that most players don’t fully understand the importance of the serve, so don’t put the effort into fully developing it. Most…
I have written a variety of articles in the past and believe in the importance of playing tennis as the sport of a lifetime. Still, tennis players have to learn the skills of a team environment, not just because you might find yourself on a collegiate team or maybe playing on a USTA tennis team…
Sometimes, as a coach, you can run out of instruction. How many times can you give the same old lesson. Things can get a little boring, both for the tennis teaching pro and the student. When I run out of instruction, I have two back up plans. The first one is to physically demonstrate to…
What does throwing a great pitch, a touchdown pass, hitting a baseball, smacking a perfect drive in golf, scoring a hockey goal with a blazing slap shot or good tennis ground strokes all have in common? The answer for all these is a consistent shoulder rotation. When you have some time, watch some of these…
Most of us have been told countless times to keep our eye on the ball. That’s good advice, but often hard to follow. If you are not a professional athlete with a retinue of specialists in support of your development, you probably do not know that you can improve your visual skills with training. Even a…
BZZZZ, BZZZZZ. It’s usually a weekend in my world. I may have just stepped off a court after an enjoyable morning hitting session, or finished reading the New York Times over eggs and coffee. All is relaxed and status quo. Yet for the athlete on the other end of my buzzing cell phone, his or…
What is the most critical part of hitting a shot and playing a point? Technique? No. In my opinion, the most critical part is reading your opponent and recognizing your opponent’s ball. Other critical components are the movement and adjustment to the ball, the decision-making process (aka shot selection), the technique and finally the recovery….