Are Tennis Coaches at fault for not providing analytics in their programs? No, Most coaches already do the analytics for their students thus their advice is adjusted to the player’s ability to do as the coach request. To tell you the truth, I believe that the number one reason players do not meet their potential is because of our training methods. Players are not given enough opportunity to analyze their game off the playing field.
Too many of our players go into analytical mode during the hit or during the point. In part because we have had no way to separate the analysis from the stroke building and everyone is always wondering are they doing it right each and every stroke? Good Tennis Lessons, Tennis Instruction, or Tennis Coach is a way that these problems can be overcome. The way I was able to get most of my students out of the analysis mode was to feed the balls faster than they expect so that there is no time to watch their great hit. The other way was to make them hit so many shots in a row that they had to “get into the zone”. Concentrate on what it was they were doing. Hitting the ball at a specific point of contact for a specific result.
Some believe that you have to analyze every shot before you hit. Reality is that you have to read the ball spin, speed, trajectory, and place yourself in the path of the ball to hit it at the point of contact that you need to achieve the desired stroke and placement of your shot. But that isn’t analytics as much as it is shot recognition. Then comes the question what is the good, better and best shot to hit from that point of contact. These have to be the pictures that one brings up in their mind based on the point of contact they perceive they will have when they get there.
I have a ball machine that can tell a player what they are doing with a Heavy Topspin shot, how they handle a drop shot where their shot goes when they hit a passing shot. This machine will also give the player immediate verbal feedback in certain modes which means the player doesn’t have to look at where every shot they hit is going.
These analytics will help a player learn what they can do and what they should do if they receive this type of shot. At the same time it will allow them to have the ability to continually grow in this life-time sport. Just as an eastern grip is better for hitting low balls with topspin, tall players need to serve and volley, that doesn’t mean short people can’t. It is just harder, and it can be learned and done by anyone given the time to create the motor skills to accomplish the task at hand. Just like an eastern grip can hit a slice.
I believe that Analytics if filtered will give a coach more influence over the player’s development. It will give the player more control over their success. Tennis analytics will also allow sponsors to stop looking for the next Federer and move the tennis industry in the direction of building great players. Don’t get me wrong, there are traits that make great people, but I know if people are prepared to do the things they are asked to do, taught to concentrate on the things they are doings and given the conditioning to have timing (being in the right place at the right time with the right stuff) and have developed the ability to visualize themselves doing the thing they are trying to do. They will be far more successful at everything they do. And Tennis Analytics is the next step to the highest level of game. And anyone that is found using them off the court to improve their pictures on the court will be more successful at everything they do.
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“Our duty as men and women is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. ” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin