006 – The Secret of How to Win the Match Every Time

Realtennis Network With Chris Michalowski, USPTA

In today’s episode, I am going to tell you the secret of how to win the match every time! I think it may get you thinking a bit differently out there on the practice and the play court.

I hope you enjoyed episode 005 with David Brouwer. I know I sure did and have put some of his wisdom to work in my own program. I have always been into not sweating the small stuff, but I like how he empowers and ignites his students, getting them to say, “That’s the type of player I am!” Great stuff.

I just finished interviewing Jorge Capestany and hope to get him on soon. He wrote the book The On-court Guide to “Tennis Strategy – How to Beat Every Style of Player” and we went over some singles and doubles styles that I know that drive me crazy, but his tips are great and I hope to get him on in the next couple of episodes. You will really like to hear what he has to say

Before we get into today’s topic, on how to win every match, I would like you to check out the quick tip page sometime at www.realtennisnetwork.com/quicktips.

I am hoping to get these out on a regular basis and would like to hear your input on what has worked for you, or what you would like me to discuss more when it comes to these quick tips. What I like to do is give you analogies on how you can perform certain tasks easier, because you can relate them to something that makes sense to YOU and not just a tennis teaching professional. This is partially how I came up with the name “Realtennis”

You will see what I mean when you go to this weeks quick tip. You can access it right here: www,.realtennisnetwork.com/qt001. My next quick-tip (qt002), will show you how you can hit 1000 more balls with your partner in one hour of practice and hit properly with good balance. Please let me know what works for you by commenting at the bottom of the posts. I would love to hear from you.

In this episode we are going to talk about performance and outcome and when is the right time to think about each or both.

As players, it is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT to think about your performance and not the outcome.

Let’s first define some Performance Goals:

• • Hitting with more topspin
  • Keeping the ball deeper
  • Getting my first two shots in when I serve and volley
  • Trying to hit three balls in play before I even think about going for it

In a match, performance goals, based on who you are playing, may get more specific (more tactical, like):

• • Hit high to the backhand
  • Bring my opponent to the net
  • Attack the second serve

OK, now let’s define some outcome goals

• • I want to be ranked top 50 sectionally by the end of the year
  • I want to be a 4.0 player within 2 years
  • I want to win the State Championship
  • I want my time in the spider drill to be 13.5 seconds within 6 months
  • I want to be able to beat John Smith

In a match, outcome goals my sound like this:

• • I need to win this point
  • I need to win this game
  • I need to win this set
  • I have to beat this player
  • All I have to do is win this last game and…….

OK, now you tell me what would make more sense in terms of how to think during a match. Focusing on performance will ultimately allow you to have better outcomes.

When you focus on the outcome, you tighten up, your stroke patterns change, you put much more pressure on yourself, You are trying to make adjustments for something you really can’t control anyway for the most part. And you go back to what is comfortable, which is usually what you have been training to get away from in the first place

One of the great examples, and I just witnessed this last week at a tournament, was one of my players was in the third set against another one of my players and was up 5-0 . She then went on to lose that set by the score of 7-5.

I asked her what she was thinking about before 5-0 and she told me that she was focusing on getting to every ball and hitting the ball crosscourt. This sounds like great focus to me.

I then asked her what she started thinking when she got up 5-0 in the set and her response was, “Just win one more game and I win.” “Just don’t miss and I can win this match”

Do you see the mistake here? At the most important time of the set, she changed a game-plan that was working flawlessly and completely started to think about the outcome, which made her change the way she was performing. She took a game-plan that was working and decided to stop doing what got her to 5 games in the first place and then went downhill from there. So remember: Keep doing what got you to 5 in the first place and forget about the score (easier said than done)

It is much wiser to concentrate on your performance rather than the outcome. In practice, and in matches.

In practice, focusing on outcome is just as detrimental if we are working on stroke production for example. In practice, performance is different than hitting with topspin……this is now an outcome of a desired stroke. The swing pattern, footwork pattern, position of the racquet face is the performance

How many times have you taken a lesson and the pro has asked you to try to do something, and being the student of the year, you listened, but to your amazement your shot was nothing close to what you expected and decided against making the change because of the OUTCOME?

I was working with a student once and had her switch to continental grip and I knew that she could handle it. She hit one serve and watched it almost take the clock off the wall, with great spin by the way and said “Nope, I wont ever do that again” my reaction was, what? It was a great serve, you just have to change the way you aim to compensate for the great spin that you just applied to the ball.

My own personal coach would make a change in my game and would say “Mick, how does that feel?” I would say , “I hate it” and he would say GREAT! “If it feels good, you are doing it wrong!” That made a TON of sense to me. If I said awesome, he would usually joke about how disappointed he was. I got the point

Here is another way to look at it for all you math geeks.

3×2 = 6. The 3 and the 2 are the ………..FACTORS by the way, for all you math wizards. And the six is the product or the ….OUTCOME. There’s a lot of different ways to get to six. But in this equation we want a three and we want a two. If we always have a three and a two, the six will take care of itself.

For example, in a volley racquet above the wrist is a 3 and your wrist back is a 2. If you always have a 3 and a 2, the volley will take care of itself

Another example I use a lot is when you’re 16 and backing the car out of the garage and you run over your brothers or sisters bike.

What do your parents do? They will first of all call you all sorts of names that will affect you for the rest of your life, and then their Instructions will be performance oriented.

“Will you look behind the car before you back out of the garage from now on! ”

In practice, performance is different than hitting with topspin……this is now an outcome of a desired stroke. The swing pattern, footwork pattern, position of the racquet face are the performance factors.

Lets skim over some key common denominators (performance factors in practice)

• • Balance
  • Hitting zones
  • Footwork (split steps and recovery)
  • Racquet face at contact
  • Stroke patterns

When we drill, focusing on stroke patterns is performance, not where the ball is going. If we are concerned with where it is going, we will resort back to our old ways. This is not good practice. We may have a goal of where we want to hit it, but remember focus on the factors and not the product

When we are playing a match, some key performance factors might include:

Singles

• • Keeping the Ball In play
  • Hitting to a particular area (weakness, crosscourt….etc)
  • Hitting the ball with topspin
  • Hitting the ball 5 feet over the net
  • Recovery after my shots
  • First Serve percentage
  • Mental Rituals

Doubles

• • First Serve %
  • Serving to proper area of box
  • Getting my first two shots in
  • Getting to the net first (serve and volley)
  • Back to Back/Front to Front
  • Hitting I the direction I am moving

For example, in doubles, if you think about serving and volleying for the whole set, Even if you lose the first set, if you’re concentrating on it deliberately all the time, you will improve during matchplay and improving during match play may be the only way you can improve if you are like 80% of most adults who go out and play their 2-3 days a week of doubles in a league or permanent court time.

How can you improve if this is all you do?

Well maybe one of the days you should be focusing on performance oriented goals, even though it is very difficult when you want to beat that person across the net from you really bad.

Examples of this might include

• • If you want to work on getting better at hitting a slice serve, do it on your FIRST SERVE, so if are not successful, you will have another serve coming to hit any way that you like

  • If you want to work on serve and volley, make it a rule that you will do it once or twice per service game

  • If you want to work on poaching, make it a rule to do it once per game ( and a little secret, do it on the very first point of the match). Works like a charm. They are not expecting it and now their eyes are on you and not the serve.

In the short term, you might lose the match, BUT…..Focusing on performance goals will make it a lot easier to beat them in the long run. And make you a much better player. And move out of their league and into the next. Leaving them in the dust.

So how does this help you win EVERY match?

Well, like we said earlier, if you are deliberately focused on a performance goal, then you will win when it comes to improvement. You are in control of this and it takes practice to STAY focused. AND……in the long run, this will help you accomplish your OUTCOME goal of beating a certain player or raising your player rating or ranking. You are not in total control of the OUTCOME and like we said earlier and if you focus on this, you will play a different game than what you tend to play in practice, because you have put pressure on yourself to win.

I hope this starts to sink in, because when it does, you will start to improve a lot faster because you are not focused on the short term, but the long term.

So what do you like to think about during your matches? Let me know by adding a comment at the bottom of the post at or tap that BIG RED BUTTON at the top of our webpage or leave your comment at the bottom of this post. I would really like to hear from you

Listener Questions

Our first question comes from Patrick and he has a strategy question. he asks, “Can you give me some tips on how to play against a pusher?”

Thank You Patrick, Great question. So let’s first define a pusher

A pusher is

• • A player that is patient and will wait forever for you to miss
  • They wait for us to get frustrated and make us try to go for shots that we do not own (usually ending in over-hitting out of ANGER and dislike of the player across the net from us)
  • They run every ball down that we can throw at them
  • Basically, they drive us crazy……..
• The key here is to stay patient against this player and wait for the shot you know that you can hurt them with. Don’t go for winners. This is what they want you to try to do.
• Most pushers like to push from the baseline, not the net, so try to get them into the net by dropping a short ball to them, but be prepared to move in after you hit it. (Jorge Capestany in his book says that if this player likes to retreat back to the baseline after getting your short ball, close in so you can catch him as he is retreating back) A lot of pushers will do this because they hate the net, so surprise them as they are running backwards.
• Since most of these players are usually fast, making them run won’t be an advantage for you. Hit the angles when you know that you can put them in a defensive position either when you get a short ball (Stinger shot), or when you are at the net and get a volley.
• Remember too, that you want to hit BEHIND fast players more often because they are already on their way to cover the “OPEN COURT” before you have even struck the ball.
• Plan on your points being LONG………… This will help you stay focused and not get discouraged too quickly

Our next question comes from Erin and she seems to have a bit of a problem with fluidness while hitting the ball. She asks, ” Can you help me smooth out my groundstrokes? They never feel fluid and I always feel like I have to muscle them over the net?”

Thank You Erin…..This will be my best guess without seeing you hit, but I am sure it’s pretty accurate. Remember too, I am assuming that you have good swing patterns, otherwise it could be a few other things that I will discuss at the end.

Ultimately this usually comes from poor dynamic balance (when you are moving) and even static balance when you are not.

Basically, You are lunging somehow and your center of gravity is not underneath you and this affects how you swing at the ball. Even more basically said, the more body parts you get involved properly in the stroke, the smoother or more fluid it will feel and when we use the body to hit the ball from the ground on up, it is a great feeling of smoothness or fluidity.

I did some archaic videos a few years back, when I was experimenting with video, on balance right below. They are a bit embarrassing, but this will definitely define what it means to stay in balance.

Balance defined: CLICK HERE FOR ARCHAIC VIDEO

Pro Bonus Video: CLICK HERE

Basically, when you are out of balance, you are not able to rotate properly and so you have to use your arms for two things:

• Bring the racquet through (or produce the power, since you broke the link in the kinetic chain)
• Control the racquet face

It is hard to do both and do it smoothly.

My coach when I was a junior would say, “It’s hard to hit easy, but easy to hit hard.” What he meant by this was that if you can’t hit slowly with control, then something is wrong. When I first started teaching beginning adults when I was 16, I had such a hard time rallying with them slowly from the backhand side, because my backhand was all arm. I dumped them all into the net. If I swung through really fast and hard, with spin, I could get it in, but my student hated this scenario. And in a match, when I was on the run, I was in major trouble of hitting balls short.

Once I understood to “twist first” and then let my arms “go along for the ride” it was much easier to hit slowly and in control.

Your arms should go last, after your shoulders. For example, think of yourself doing the helicopter stretch where you stand still and twist from the waist with your arms extended out to the side. Do you rotate from the waist first or do your arms go first and then your waist?

Now try lunging over and doing it, but focus on your arms staying level all the way through…………

Not smooth at all either.

Do you notice that you are also rotating on an AXIS when you do this properly? Like an axis on a globe.

Imagine a pole going through your head and out your bottom and you need to be able to rotate on this axis (while balancing a stack of books on your head). This is balance. This is why there are different footwork patters that pros teach, to be able to achieve this movement, especially from the waist on up, so every ball can be hit close to the same way every time.

For example, I have seen some pros insist on one stance or the other when it comes to teaching let’s say a forehand, but in Realtennis, this is not the case.

Try hitting a closed stance forehand when you are on the run. If you stop to hit it, you will be thrown way off balance and hit short because this will not allow you to use any LINEAR or ANGULAR MOMENTUM, so you just have to “ARM” it through.

Hitting with an open stance on this shot will allow you to rotate fully, thus smoothing things out.

Now, there are some Band-Aid reasons why you may be feeling this way also which might include:

• • Hitting the ball late (lots of reasons for this)
  • Hitting the ball too EARLY (yes you can do this and I have a quick tip on it coming up in our quick tip page soon)
  • Hitting balls out of your strike zone
  • Hitting balls back a different way that they came to you

  (an example might be when someone gives you an arc ball and you try to drive it while making contact above your head). You should hit it back high

  • Using the wrong footwork patterns
  • Using the wrong grip
  • Using improper wrist too much
  • Small hitting zones

But my guess is the balance factor and I am very confident on that. The question is, what is causing it.

You can always send me a quick 15 second MP4 clip from a phone and email it to me at [e-mail] and I will give you an exact answer. This goes for you our listener too. And if you do this, record either from behind the hitter or at a 45 degree angle facing the hitter. Behind is a bit tougher to see contact points, but easier for other things.

So I hope that this helps you out Erin and let me know either way how you are doing.

What issues do you want answered about your game? Send me an email at [e-mail], call me at 231-735-8518 or go ahead and push that BIG RED BUTTON so I can get your question audibly emailed to me and, who knows, I may even answer it on the air. Also, By doing this, others may have some answers for you too by commenting at the bottom of the post

I hope to spend more time with you next week on the Real tennis Network.

Chris Michalowski, USPTA/USTA HP
Coach Mick

Episode 006 Template – CLICK HERE

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