Excellent analysis! Most club players want to hit the ball as hard as possible. How does hitting with less power and more control work for doubles?

Sure, here’s one free hitting session:

https://vimeo.com/202487299

At the start we play slower since we just started rallying but after a few minutes we’ll get to normal rally speed.

Well, I do not have net and volley game. But I am fine to run a lot. My current coach (former Division 1 college player) says that we (adult recreational players) are not hitting the ball fast enough. He has crazy acceleration on his shots, by being former semi professional player. But he is putting most of this acceleration into the spin, so he is not losing control on the balls at all hitting with all his power.

Hi James,

Well, I try to answer to everyone and I am just a regular guy who happens to pursue his passion of tennis and share ideas online.

So quite a few questions, let me try and be concise:

1. I would start with a question whether you really need the mental stress of competitive tennis? I used to play for many years until I had enough.

I don’t play for points now for more than 15 years and I am just happy when I play tennis and hit balls freely.

So really question yourself whether you really need all that suffering. And realize that it’s only our ego that drives us to compete.

Do we really need to fuel it?

2. Yes, there is good success in controlling anxiety in sports in general. There are a lot of techniques that work over time.

I shared a lot of tips on my older mental focused website and I suggest you start on this page and then check the links / topics that are interesting to you:

https://www.tennismindgame.com/tennis-psychology.html

There are also a lot of other mental tennis articles on the website.

3. There are always more and less predisposed players / people for any part of the tennis game. Some are mentally better initially, some are better learners, some are very hard working, etc.

You always deal with some stronger sides and weaker sides of the mental game so you always have to work on it. Anxiety is just one of many issues and it’s completely normal.

4. The one thing that always troubles recreational tennis players is lack of practice matches. They typically either practice with 0 pressure or play serious matches with 100% pressure.

They don’t have matches in between where they would keep score but this wouldn’t be a real tournament or match.

So they don’t get used to pressure.

With juniors we try to give them many practice / sparring matches where they get used to pressure. So your goal is to find some tennis pals and play some points with them to get used to competing.

I’m a little starstruck that a well-known YouTube personality would sit down in Slovenia and write me a personal reply – thank you!

Truth be told, I _would_ like to learn how to play tournament matches, but I free hit nearly 100% of the time. I don’t have much experience playing conservative, high percentage tennis.

But my problem goes deeper than that (as most problems do, I imagine). Simply put, I am overanxious. On the arousal/performance curve, I am so far to the right, I’m off the page. So short of a tranquilizer dart and/or Transcendental Meditation…

HOW CAN ONE LOWER THEIR ANXIETY LEVEL ON THE TENNIS COURT?

What advice do you give anxious students, and how often would you say they actually improve? Or do you see this as a personal struggle, i.e. one either succeeds or fails entirely on their own? Or worse, do you believe it is a fixed personality trait that you were, or were not, born with?

Hi Vlad,

Yes, now we’re getting deeper into tactics and the mental game.

If I play a good player I will lose approximately 50% of the rallies. 😉

That should be normal to players but I know it isn’t. Check this article for stats on winning points:

https://tennishead.net/expert-analysis-winning-just-52-of-your-points-should-be-your-goal-says-novak-djokovic-tactician-craig-oshannessy/

The player would like to have some sense that he is doing the right thing, some kind of confirmation.

Most of the time there isn’t any. You could be at 4:4 after 45 minutes of tennis.

And yes, you may be doing everything right. In many cases players will “break” mentally in the last crucial moments of the set or match.

Only then you will realize that you were doing the right thing.

So only if I am clearly losing most of the rallies, then I have to change my game.

Hitting harder is usually not the answer because I don’t have the skills to control the ball at higher speed.

So my usual answer was to charge the net and get out of rallies. You need to have good net skills though.

So I would serve & volley a lot and look for any way to come to the net or disrupt opponent’s game with drop shots, etc.

Hi James,

Hitting the ball hard is probably very enjoyable to you so you do it.

For other players winning is enjoyable.

In my opinion, you cannot have fun enjoying hitting the ball hard and winning at the same time.

These two exclude each other.

Winning matches is all about playing with high probabilities of hitting and making the right decisions.

No one can tell someone else what is right for them.

If you enjoy hitting ball hard, do it and don’t play tournaments.

I don’t play matches for more than 15 years now, I simply don’t enjoy competing anymore and working so hard to win a match.

I rather just hit balls in free hitting sessions and enjoy.

And I do not recommend you change your stroke technique when playing matches.

If you do go on to play matches, find a speed with which you are consistent and go for the targets I mentioned in the comment below.