Thanks, Mariela. This is just my personal experience based on many years of playing tennis and other sports.

Loved this article. I’m currently working on a study about breathing patterns in tennis. I have been searching for studies about this but haven’t had any luck. I’m wondering if you could give me any references that support this article, it would help me a lot. Or this article is based on your experience as a coach? Thank you!

A lot of the grunting in professional tennis makes it sound like they’re exhaling after contact. For example, Murray does a sort of relaxed sigh after contact on his serve, but during the serve motion he does this sort of squeal that would be hard to do if he were beginning to exhale earlier.

What do you think about this?

Hi Stu,

I would start exhaling when I would start swinging upwards towards the ball.

Hi Paul,

Yes, I agree that we inhale as we prepare but I found it to happen automatically if the player focuses only on the exhale as they hit.

My goal is always to minimize the instruction, say as little as possible to achieve what I want.

The less the players think, the better they track the ball and the better they will play.

So for me the instruction on when to inhale is redundant. It would be my last resort to mention it and I would do it only if some player struggled for long time with proper breathing and finding the right rhythm.

Good to point out the importance of breathing!
I’ld like to add another important moment of breathing and that is:
breathing in while preparing.
In my experience as a player and coach this helps with the rythm of the stroke as well as building up the energy for a powerfull release.
I’m looking forward to hear your view on this?

Kind regards,
Paul

Agreed, Walter. Belly breathing will also happen more naturally when we hit more shots by engaging the core more. And yes, longer exhale…

… unlike Sharapova, Azarenka, etc.