Tennismetrics 101

In my last post I mentioned that I have been working on a tennis equivalent of Sabermetrics (the objective, quantitative analysis of baseball performance using statistical data) to help me objectively evaluate tennis performance potential in players who I have coached or am interested in coaching.

In modern tennis, the physical attributes that are most coveted are foot speed and arm speed (aka racket speed). It’s really that simple. But does that mean that the fastest runners make good tennis players? Of course not, you have to have sufficient motor skills—read: hand-eye coordination—to succeed in a game based on ball-striking. But in many parts of the tennis world (especially here in the US), the pendulum swings the other extreme as well where “experts” think that success in tennis is primarily based on ball-striking capability and mental discipline, which is also clearly untrue.

So, what I am looking for in a true pro prospect? Aside from the usual mental and emotional intangibles… Whether the player is male or female, I am mainly interested in seeing players have a very quick, explosive first step toward each shot and having a very fast first serve. Developing the other physical and technical attributes required for pro tennis success is a frankly, a relatively simple process.

Among the players that I have personally coached, the highest rankings achieved by these players conform almost EXACTLY according to how they performed on two standard tests used to evaluate explosiveness and lateral agility.

Meaning, the player who performed the best on both tests is now steadily climbing the ATP rankings list, while the player who was among the slowest on both tests (but is a very good ball-striker) is competing at the NCAA D3 level.

Want to know which two tests I am referring to?...

Well, when you send me a check for a minimum of $45,000 (which is a typical amount spent annually in the US to develop a high-performance tennis player), I will reveal the answer to you. I have a family to feed, after all…

Again, it bears repeating… Tennis has evolved into a true athletic event. Athleticism is what separates the true pro contenders from the pretenders, and even at the highest reaches of the game, athleticism is the single factor that imposes limits on tennis performance, much more so than any other factor that influences a tennis player’s ability to perform in matches—ball striking ability, mental discipline issues, tactical expertise, etc. The potential for improvement in these areas is much, much greater than improving a player’s level of athletic ability. A relatively well-trained athlete that currently runs the 40-yard dash in 6.0 seconds is very unlikely to improve their performance to the 4.5 second level, for example.

Today’s reality is that if you, as a budding professional tennis player do not have the athletic ability that at least somewhat approaches the level of other professional athletes from other sports (the NBA, NFL, Premiership, Bundesliga, etc.) with respect to speed, explosiveness and agility—or, you at least maximize whatever your capacity in these areas are—your dreams of pro success are unlikely to be realized.

TTFN!

How to increase your racket speed-Part 3 The dawn of a new era in conditioning for tennis

In my last post, I started to talk about whether it’s possible to increase your racket speed by some form of off-court training. And I mentioned that the answer to this question depends on WHEN you asked me this question.

If you asked me if there were any exercises I could do to increase my racket speed before February 2006, the answer would be NO.

If you asked me the same question after February 2006, the answer would be YES.

THERE ARE EXERCISES YOU CAN DO TO INCREASE YOUR RACKET SPEED!

Someone has invented a revolutionary training aid and training program that actually enables athletes in various sports to increase the speed of their golf swings, hockey slapshots, baseball swings, soccer kicks...

And after February 2006, tennis serves, forehands, and backhands.

Why do I seem to know so much about this innovation in conditioning for tennis?

That’s because I have had the privilege of partnering with the inventor of this ground-breaking invention to design, develop and test a tennis-specific training program and together we have created a business venture to bring both this breakthrough, one-of-a-kind training aid and training program to the tennis world.

So, what’s the name of this revolutionary tennis training aid?

It’s called the SpeedChain…

And with it comes the dawn of a new era in conditioning for tennis.

Maybe you’ve heard rumors about the SpeedChain and how training with it increases your serve and groundstroke speeds. I recall that some of the regulars from Tennis Warehouse’s “Talk Tennis” forum started a thread or two about the SpeedChain a while ago (end of 2005, as I recall)…

So, how much speed improvement are we talking about? We are talking about an immediate 5 to 15 MPH increase after the very first time you train with it.

The actual training program takes only about 15 minutes to complete and you see an immediate result. In the long run, the more you train with it, the more you improve your speed…

After that initial 5 to 15 MPH burst forward, players typically continue increasing their racket speeds at a rate of 1 to 3 MPH per week for up to 10 weeks. I’ve personally seen players improve their serve speed almost 30 MPH after 10 weeks of training.

Oh yeah, and I should mention that training with the SpeedChain only takes about 30 minutes per week total (i.e. twice a week for 15 minutes).

And, if you’re wondering why I am so certain about the effectiveness of SpeedChain training for tennis, it’s because I helped create the training program. I have personally trained with and tested the SpeedChain and its tennis-specific training exercises with an ever-growing number of high-performance players from Top 5 sectional juniors to NCAA D1 collegiate players to ITF Futures and ATP Challenger players. The training exercises are simple to do, and it turns out that SpeedChain training for tennis delivers training benefits far beyond increased racket speed (e.g. better speed endurance, stronger rotator cuff muscles, accelerated learning of stroke movements, etc.).

SPEEDCHAIN TRAINING INCREASES YOUR RACKET SPEED, PERIOD.

THE RADAR GUN DOES NOT LIE!

Are you beginning to wonder if you’re missing out on something?

We’ll talk in more detail about how and why the SpeedChain increases your serve and groundstroke speeds when conventional off-court training methods (weights, medicine balls, rubber tubing and bands, plyometrics, etc.) haven’t.

We’ll get into the nitty-gritty about this new era in tennis training—and in speed training in general—next time!

TTFN!

How to Increase Your Racket Speed-Part 1, The hard road to a faster racket

At this point in time, there are really only two effective methods to increase your racket speed. One method is something everyone will recognize. The other method is novel and somewhat out-of-the-box, and only a select few in tennis know about, but sooner or later, I'm pretty sure that everyone will be dying to try it.

The first method to increase your racket speed is to optimize your stroking technique.

(See, I told you it would be something you'd recognize...) And, contrary to what the whole tennis establishment in the US is telling you, there isn't a "wide range" of acceptable tennis technique especially if you're interested in becoming a tour pro.

Given the kinds of ball speed that the pros are capable of generating with their strokes, the ball speeds that are necessary to be competitive at the tour level, and the natural laws that humans, rackets and balls must obey on planet Earth, there really is only one way to strike the tennis ball that maximizes both speed and control for each stroke.

Namely, if your forehand—the one stroke that has undergone arguably the most technical change in recent tennis history—is not identical in its execution to the forehands used by that of Federer, Safin, Moya or Nadal, you will be significantly disadvantaged as an aspiring high-performance tennis player.

There really does exists a single, core set of movements you need to make with your body in order to maximize your racket speed without losing control of your shots. The tough part is the fact that the chances are great that your local teaching pro--well, make that the vast majority of teaching pros and coaches, including many decorated high-performance and collegiate tennis coaches--has absolutely no idea what these moves are.

The good news is that for those of you out there who are either "naturally athletic" or have been exposed to a lot of different sports in your life, it's pretty likely that your body already knows how to make those necessary movements, it's just that you don't know how to put those movements together to make an optimal tennis stroke.

Now, I suppose that you want to know what these “core moves” for the various strokes are?

Well, if you want to me or anyone else to teach these to you, you will need to pony up some significant $$$. Why?

Because if you learn these moves, your ROI—“return on investment”—in tennis terms would be priceless and in real-world, financial terms (depending on your age), your ROI may be somewhere in the 500 to 1000 percent range.

As in, you could “make” 5 to 10 TIMES your original investment.

Here’s an example:

If you spend $10,000 to learn the moves, and should it turn out that you can actually execute them, and learning these moves gets you a college scholarship worth $100,000 as a result…

When you do the math, your ROI comes out to 1000% or 10X your original “investment”.

So where do you go to learn these "optimal" strokes? To a famous tennis academy? To one of the many online instruction sites? To the instruction pages in the monthly tennis magazines? Where?

Sorry to be bearer of more bad news, but if you're living in the US, the answer is really none of the above. IMHO, I think that there are maybe 7 to 10 tennis coaches in the entire US that would be knowledgeable and capable enough to teach you the kind of tennis techniques that would help you become a true pro prospect. And, 7 or 8 of these 10 coaches work almost exclusively with established touring pros and are constantly on tour with their pro clients.

So where else can you turn to? Maybe, if you really want to learn "pro techniques" you need to go to Spain or France as now many of the famous, and very knowledgeable former pro players and tour coaches have set up tennis academies in those countries. Perhaps spending some time at the Casal-Sanchez or the Bruguera Academy in Spain, or at the Mouratoglou Academy in France, or wherever Bob Brett (coach of Boris Becker, Goran Ivanesivic, among many others) has now set up shop (I think his new academy is in San Remo, Italy) will be a wise investment given the inaccessibility of pro stroke "knowledge" in the US.

Alternatively, if you are one of those people who learn mainly by watching (a "visual" learner), you might benefit by going to one of the instruction sites that have a large video archive of touring pro strokes (TennisOne, Advanced Tennis, etc.) to study how the pros actually do it and try to copy what you see.

The downside of this approach is that you should be really careful about reading the "expert analysis" your model pro's strokes that are thrown about on these sites. Why be so careful? Again, remember that there are maybe only 10 coaches around the US who both understand and can teach these optimal techniques and none of them write for any of those websites!

Chances are, you are as much of an expert in tennis technique as those experts who are currently writing columns for these websites...

OK, so now you may be somewhat discouraged about trying to increase your racket speed by optimizing your stroke technique. (If you happen to be American, that is.) Want to hear about that second method I mentioned earlier?

We'll talk more about that next time!

P.S. I wish I could say something positive about tennis coaching in the US with regard to technical knowledge, but that's hard to do because it's painfully apparent that we are really very far behind the curve especially when it comes to high-performance tennis.

On one hand, the USTA is to be given a lot of props for recognizing that the US is far behind the rest of the tennis-playing countries of the world when it comes to developing world-class players. But the stark reality remains that for all they have done in the past 10 years, they have only really made up about 5 years of the 10 year lag between us and the rest of the successful tennis nations such as Spain and France.

Bottom line is, it's really a "good news, bad news" deal... The good news for the US is that we're now only 5 years behind everyone else instead of 10 years, but the bad news is that we're still 5 years behind the competition. C’est la vie!