Grass tennis court

Grass tennis courts

Grass tennis courts are amazing to play on. When I first stepped on a grass tennis court in White City, New South Wales, Australia, I felt I was playing on a carpet surface similar to the one in my parents living room. It was awesome. I felt like I had come home. Some players adapt to a favorite surface. It took one time for me to realize – grass was it for me.

Grass courts have changed from the time (mid 70’s) I played to now. Those changes came around 1995. The grass used before that year was different. The length of the grass was longer. Also, the soil was not rolled as much then, so presented a different kind of game – more serve and volley than in the present day game.

Ugly is Good?

Again, back in my day, the expression to use when playing grass tennis was, ‘ugly is good’. It simply meant to expect the unexpected on the bounce. The soil was softer and if not rolled consistently there could be unpredictable bounces. The grass was longer and depending on the player opposite you could be facing a ‘slice and dice’ kind of player, which on grass could present fits when trying to field their shots. Underspin lent a difficulty to playing the ball that, when it made contact with the grass, skidded and stayed low. Anyone with a bad back did not want to call grass their favorite surface.  A drop shot, executed at the right time, did not want to come up to a normal height on its bounce. The grass and soil acted as a ‘sponge’ and took the energy out of the bounce so it stayed very low. Serve and volley was the way to go back then.

Nowadays, the grass is a different texture and the soil is harder. The grass is also shorter and in 2001 the mix was changed again, to acommodate the longer rallies with the harder soil composition that caused more groundstroke rallies. Serve and volley on grass has largely become a thing of the past, with the change in grass and soil. Now serve and volly is mixed in once in awhile, but not used on a point by point basis as in the past.

Another aspect of grass court tennis is the wear and tear on the grass. Players in the past would wear out the serve area and the ‘t’ at the service line due to serve and volley. Now the baseline has become the predominate area of wear and tear with only some occurring at the ‘t’.

Grass court tennis used to be incomparable to other surfaces. With moisture (or not) on the grass, wear and tear on the surface of the grass itself, humidity versus drier conditions affecting the ball travelling through the air, it is still a different experience, but maybe not as much as in the past. This coming from a player who loved the ‘ugly is good’ play on the grass courts back in the day. Today it allows for groundstrokes to be predominate and loses the excitement of taking the ‘risk’ of creating low bounces with drop shots, underspin approach shots, etc.

As you can see I am a big fan of grass court tennis. How about you? Do you have a favorite surface? Have you ever played on grass?

Tennis Ball-Rubber Base-Felt-Endurance

The materials that go into making a tennis ball are at first glance rather straight forward. When doing some research on it, each web site I visited showed much the same process. The ITF also has strict regulations on what a tennis ball should and should not do in its performance testing.

Yellow Tennis Ball

In 1974-75 I was part of Penn’s tennis ball testing staff. This basically consisted of me receiving a delivery of tennis balls at different times from the factory that were not for resale. Each batch of balls came with a number of questionnaire forms. I was to give out a can of these balls to members chosen by myself. Many times I would test a can myself with a fellow pro. We would then play a certain number of sets with said balls.  Following our play we were to fill out one of the questionnaires. I then returned these, with the used tennis balls to the testing facility for them to read the results.

At the time I was tennis director at the East Orange Tennis Club in East Orange, NJ, which consisted of 12 red clay courts. In 1975 I received a batch of tennis balls from Penn to test. These balls were special. They were to be used at the French Open that year. After putting the balls to the test, my eyes were further opened to the differences that could be built into the performance of tennis balls. I had given a can to some A players in the club, some of whom had played Davis Cup in years past and one who had been ranked #1 in the country as a junior, although now married with children. These players played nine sets with these balls and they still looked like new. It illustrated to me the difference tougher materials, built into the felt and make up of the ball, could make with the pros who hit with much more power and spin along with longer rallies on the red clay at Roland Garros.

It also opened my eyes in regards to the retail market the ball companies market to. Going into a Sports Authority, buying a Penn ball at a much cheaper price, also meant the ball not lasting or performing at the level of a tournament player tennis ball. The price point of tennis balls is pin-pointed with regard to the quality and longevity of  its lasting performance. Market research also takes into account the public’s ‘patience’ point in targeting how long and how much a player will pay to play with one can. As a tennis director with a pro shop I remember times when a shipment of good  quality tennis balls would wear out quicker than normal. It caused me to question if that also wasn’t built into the retail plan of a major tennis ball company to be implemented circumspectly.

How many of you put much thought into what kind of tennis ball you play with? Do you see the professionals now take three or four balls before each point and choose two before putting the ball in play? The playability of the wear and tear makes a difference in the choice of shot, or ‘tempo’ of the pace, when struck. How important is this quality of the tennis ball in your playing. Each ball – Wilson, Penn, Dunlop, Babolat, etc. tends to have slight differences in their playability. Do you have a favorite?

French Open-tennis ball speed-court surface

The tennis court surface plays a big part in a players choice of shots, strategy and conditioning. The French Open is called a clay court surface. It is really white limestone covered with a layer of powdered red brick dust. This is to promote drainage in case of rain.

In my early days in New Jersey I was Head Pro at the East Orange Tennis Club, which consisted of 12 red clay courts. This was in the mid seventies when clay courts consisted of real clay covered with powdered red shale. Real clay is not porous and has no ‘sliding’ qualities to it when played on – hence the application of crushed red shale to promote sliding on the surface. At that time, if it rained – depending on the amount of rain – the courts would be out of play, sometimes for a couple of days. The water would ‘sit’ on top of the clay. It had no where to go.  We would have to wait for it to evaporate as the clay underneath the crushed shale allowed no drainage. Sometimes, to speed tournament play, we would add a slight amount of flammable liquid to the water lying on the surface and light it on fire to speed the evaporation and get the court back into playable condition. The only problem occurred if the flame got too close to the lines laid on the court and they melted.

This type of surface had to change to accommodate the media attention the French Open attained as a Grand Slam event. Players and spectators did not want to wait for long periods of time, after rain, to return to play. Thus the white limestone with powdered red brick dust.

Ball speed off the court surface

With the granular content of the court, the ball making contact with the court surface has different bounce characteristics. Depending on the kind and amount of spin used by the player, the ball will bounce differently on ‘red clay’. A players ‘style’  of hitting makes some players stronger, or weaker, depending on the amount of spin they use. Their mental understanding and patience, due to extended rallies on the slower surface, also plays a part.

I have only touched on the player, and playing surface, qualities, The French Open challenges. This article hopefully challenges you to look closer at each players position on the court, their hitting style and mental approach to the game based on the ‘red clay’ experience.

Learning Serving Basics-Tennis

Serving could easily be the most important stroke in tennis. Not to belay the other aspects of the game – they all come together to make a complete player. However, the serve is such an important component of a players game. Confidence rises and falls with the accuracy,spin, and speed of your serve.  You don’t get the opportunity to win a point in a game if you can not get your serve in the correct area. With it you get the opportunity to control the point from the outset depending on the accuracy,spin, and power of  your serve. Men love the power aspect of the serve. Ladies love to have a good looking technique in the execution of their serve. The higher the level of play and the better the technique, the better chance you have of winning the point.

Beginner Level

1. Racket in the back scratching position:  serving is similar to throwing a ball. This is the most important aspect of the throwing action. If the racket is not in a downward (back scratching) position maximum momentum and spin will never be achieved. In comparing  throwing and serving, there is a difference in the position of the elbow, as your arm moves forward, beginning the throwing action. In throwing a ball the elbow moves forward, whereas in the serving motion the elbow stays back and extends upward with the culmination of the forearm and wrist making the final thrust to the ball.
2.  Standing sideways to the back drop(fence) on the tennis court, from a back scratching position(the racket touching the lower middle back), extend the arm and racket in a throwing action up as high as you can reach and stop the head of the racket at the apex. That will be the contact point once you toss the ball in the act of serving. Now, putting the racket down into the ‘back’ position, place a ball in your ball tossing hand. With an underhand toss, gently(keeping your tossing arm straight) release the ball(the release point is just above eye level) to that contact position you just measured, and with an upward throwing motion(controlled) of the racket arm catch the ball against the fence. This is as close to serving as you can get and still practice the correct toss and contact point with the racket.
3. The grip: this is probably the hardest aspect of the serve to learn. A continental grip is non-negotiable if you want to play the ‘A’ game. Without it you won’t be able to generate the power and spin that comes with the pronation of the forearm prior to contact. The biggest problem with starting with this grip is pronation is not achieved. The arm stiffens and does not want to pronate. It has to be learned. It does not come naturally. Without pronation, the elbow precedes the extension of the upper arm and full leverage cannot be achieved. Take a slower approach and gradually moving the grip to the continental over time is advised.

   The foregoing would be the beginning of teaching the serve to a first time student.

Self Taught Beginner

Assuming this player wants to just learn how to have fun in playing the game of tennis, I would take a different approach. Learning to serve with the correct technique takes much patience and a lot of time. By the time the technique has been learned, the frustration with just wanting to play tennis and have fun has worn off and the player has moved on to ‘golf’?

With this kind of player I would take a much easier approach and have them toss the ball in front of them and ‘bunt’ the ball into play.  If they are athletic and good at throwing I would have them use a modified western grip, or even allow a western grip, with a throwing motion. The importance of this type of teaching would be to encourage participation in the sport of tennis. If the player is ‘of a mind’ to improve and wants to put more time into the serve, that would be where the points made in the first part of this blog would be introduced.

I love the game of tennis and all it offers, especially to the beginner and the club players. Beyond that, without the ‘love of tennis’ it gets too serious and other things come into play – parents, winning?? Play hard, play smart, and have fun.

Physical-Emotional-Pain-Tennis

There isn’t much written material when you do a search for playing with physical/emotional pain in professional tennis.

Physical

That physical pain is a part of a professional tennis players career should be a given. That’s why I was so surprised to ‘not’ find much written about it. The only article I found was from back in 2013. there may be others but they didn’t come up with my search. On reflecting about it, and the nature of tennis being a one on one (singles), or two on two (doubles), the more sense it made. Professional tennis players don’t want their opponent to know the extent or an injury. Make no mistake about it. These players play with pain day in and day out. It is an accepted part of the trade. The extent of the injury will determine whether a player will take the risk to play that tournament. The level of the tournament also measures into the athletes ‘acceptance of risk’ it will take to play a tournament. For example, a player with a slight sprain may elect to play the US Open and not play in a tournament that is a Future’s or Challenger event.

Emotional

A physical injury has a great impact on the emotional state of a professional. If the injury is slight and the player can play with it; i.e. a blister on the foot or hand, they have to have the mental toughness to block out the nagging pain that comes with using it. On the other hand, a serious injury; top five – can force a player to take time off to heal.

The overall effect of a serious injury has an overall debilitative effect on the athlete that has as much to do with their emotional response as their physical recuperation. As much as your mind tells you the injury has healed and you are healthy to compete again, the emotions can have an overall effect of making you ‘hold back’ when you re-enter competition. The emotional recovery from a serious injury is just as important – if not more – than the physical healing process. Depending on the level of tournament, or your ranking, your physical return may take longer or shorter, but emotionally there will be a time of adjustment before you really believe you are healed.

When we watch professional tennis we really are not aware of injuries in the match being played. We tend to ‘not’ think of players playing with some kind of pain, but they are. It goes with the territory. After my playing days and turning teaching pro, I taught for 20 years with knees that the ATP Doctors in New York said I should have replacements of, as they were bone on bone. As we watch the players in these events, they are playing with some kind of pain, noticeable or not. They don’t want the injury to be ‘outed’ due to competition, or betting. However, we all are disgusted when a player calls an injury time out at a crucial time out in the match because they are trying to throw their opponent off their game.

It is a remarkable effect of professional athletes – tennis professionals-that as an independent contractor in their profession, pain is normally present at some level in their body.

Have you ever thought about this aspect of professional tennis and the cost in pain? How about you? Do you think you would accept that as part of your profession and still have the desire to compete professionally?

Doping-Tennis

It has been interesting to me to follow the conversation that is taking place on the tennis scene regarding doping and its prevalence in tennis. This conversation is taking place in other sports as well, including golf, but my interest and occupation over the years has been tennis.

Some years ago, I was tennis director at Orange Lawn Tennis Club. Gene Scott held a lower level professional tennis event at the club. One of the players that year was John McEnroe. His manager at the time commented to me about one of the up and coming players on the tour-something to the affect this player had blown up physically in a very short period of time.

Over the years there has been ‘talk’ about different players showing signs of ‘doping’. Back in the day Jimmy Connors and Ilie (Nasty) Nastase held a tour managed by Bill Reardon where there was ‘talk’ of trading matches and possible drugs. There have been other players, some deceased now, with the same ‘doping’ attachment, but nothing solid to the public. Recently the drug ‘meldonium’ has been highlighted not only in tennis but in other sports. The athletes are fighting back saying there is no proof how long meldonium stays in their system, wanting to buy some time (no immediate suspension). In light of Sharapova’s 30 million dollar a year company and the on coming 2016 Summer Olympics ‘dollars’ are definitely at the forefront (hidden) of this publicity, with promoters hoping this will all blow over.

Dick Pound, the founding president of the World Anti-doping Agency, has some pointed remarks to say about why this hasn’t come to the forefront before this. Read his remarks-they are insightful.

I remember a track star, Edwin Moses, many years back gave an interview in which he made a statement on doping. One of the things I remember most specifically was he said no matter what drug testing they came up with the athletes would always stay one step ahead in the manner of ‘fooling/masking’ the tests.

I found the remark by Dick Pound regarding the sponsors attaching ‘values’ to their sponsorships revealing. The promoters do not want doping to be linked to high profile athletes due to the promotion of ‘values’ being linked to their sponsor’s product.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming days. In this day and age what would you do to be ‘successful’. Would you succumb to the ‘doping’ world to increase your chances of success or to ‘stay on top’ as an athlete, if you could be assured it would be masked or covered up by promoters? If you did would you accept, in your character, that you were ‘successful’. What is your world view?

Rules-Injured Player-Line-up

You are the coach and your team is playing in a NCAA- DI dual in a year ending fight for the top position in your conference. Your number two player has an abdominal injury and you know if you take him/her out of the line-up it weakens your whole team as each player below has to move up one position. What do you do?

Scenario 1

You have talked with your player and he/she has agreed to play three games and retire. You do not inform the rest of the team, even though they are aware of the injury. This will allow the rest of your team to play their normal positions and you have a good opportunity to win the dual and place first in your conference. The other coach protests (one of my players has quietly informed one of the oppositions players-which is passed on to the coach). You over ride their coaches reasons by saying, “My player played yesterday. They are going to play today.”

Scenario 2

You have talked with your player and agreed for their own physical well being they cannot play. It means the rest of the team moves up and the team has less of an opportunity to win the dual. You bring the rest of the team together and explain the situation. Everyone has to ‘step up’ and play hard, play smart, but enjoy the competition.

Under Scenario 1 the whole team stands to benefit, but do they? Even though the coach doesn’t tell the team, the team knows what is going on. The think about it. If they were the injured player and the coach asked them would they agree to play three games and retire? If so how do they feel about it? Everyone is relieved about not playing up, but is it fair to the other team? Would they want to be treated that way from the other team if the situation was reversed. What do the rules say? The rules state not to play the injured player.

Under Scenario 2 the team has been told by the coach the injured player will not play. Each player will play up in their individual positions. The team knows the rule. Putting a winning record together is also built on the timing of the situations that go into the schedule. You can’t predict who will be injured ‘when’ and who will be out sick ‘when’. However, character plays a big part in everything ‘coming together’ and this is what a coach should want each player to take forward into life. The team could still come out with a win. You don’t know how the other team is going to play that day. An upset could happen and it could not.

What would be your approach? Your job is on the line. The university likes winners. Which Scenario would you choose?

My Way or The Highway?

There are three basic styles of teaching: 1. my way or the highway, 2. your way, 3. together.

‘My way or the highway’.

We have all come in contact with a coach who teaches this way. Some years ago I had a famous tennis player come teach on my staff. I will never forget the first time we shook hands. Her hand engulfed mine and the strength of her handshake, even at age 58, was formidable.  She was former Wimbledon champion, Althea Gibson. Althea had won Wimbledon in 1956. She became the first the first person of color to win a Grand Slam title. Living in East Orange and having fallen on bad times financially, Althea came to West Orange Tennis Club looking to teach some junior players-perhaps looking for the prodigy. However, her teaching style proved to be too strict and unyielding. She moved on to other endeavors after a short time teaching, as it did not produce the results she was looking for.

Your Way

This type of teaching allows the student to guide the teacher in their lesson plans. I won’t spend much time on this style of teaching.  I have not encountered it directly in my coaching experience, either as a player, or in contracting teaching professionals to teach for me. However,I have observed this style of teaching in other venues, i.e. high school team coaching, parks and recreation tennis lessons, etc. In this type of teaching the teacher lets the student guide the lesson by asking the player what they want to work on, then looks for positive reactions from the player in their endeavor to improve. When the student gets discouraged and wants to change the lesson plan or drill, the pro follows theirs requests.

Together

The professional and the student work together in this positive blend of achievement. The professional is astute in combining his own playing and teaching experience with the personality and skills of his student. Together, they talk and work at achieving goals in performance. It takes skill and confidence to teach ‘together’. It is also immensely satisfying. Trust is an outcome of this type of teaching. Discipline, hard work, respect for each other – all this and more can develop out of this type of teaching relationship.

In reviewing your teachers, or your teaching experiences, which of these would you fit them, or yourself into?

Coaching-Integrity-Tennis

Whether you are a professional, high school or college coach/player, integrity should be at the top of a coaches/players credentials.

In or Out?

Reasons why integrity should  be first:

1. Integrity means calling a ball in when it touches any part of the line on a tennis court.
2. Integrity means calling the correct score when your opponent asks you, because they have gotten mixed up.
3. Integrity means NOT calling a let on a serve that is an ace.
4. Integrity means not blaming the chair official for overruling your out call with a: “Correction, the ball was good.” There is honest human error at least 2 or 3 times a match.
5. Integrity means NOT blaming your coach when you lose.

Players are afraid of losing their scholarship at a collegiate level, their ranking in the junior standings, or the way their peers see them on their high school team. Coaches are afraid of losing their jobs if the team they are coaching doesn’t do well. These are a few of the reasons why integrity isn’t high on a players or coaches list these days. Players find it easy to call a ball out on a key point rather than believe in their ability to win by the rules. Coaches find it easier to support their players bad sportsmanship, or calls, rather than teach integrity and belief in the players ability to overcome adversity.

The bottom line is winning is only winning when it follows a set of rules that are fairly set down in a sport for both players to abide by. Then it comes down to the integrity of the players/coaches work ethic to see which one wins-by the rules, using their work ethic and talent. Winning isn’t really winning when it is done ‘outside’ the rules: i.e. players calling a ball out on game/set point, when it is in, or a coach teaching his players the chair umpire can’t really tell if a ball is on the back/side of the line, because of their position on the court, so call it out.

How do you play the game of integrity? We all have the choice. How does integrity play into your choice of friends and work partners and tennis?