I talk to a lot of tennis players that tell me they feel like they have stopped improving in tennis. After 3 decades of teaching players and more than 63,000 hours of on-court teaching, I have learned why I believe this happens to so many players.
Five Reasons Your Tennis Improvement has Plateaued.
1) Your overall practice regimen does not include enough match play.
Research shows that American players take more private lessons, participate in more drill classes, and buy more equipment, but the one thing we do less of than any other country is… PLAY matches. This is why so many players struggle when they compete and often feel like they are better in practice and they are in an actual match.
2) Your intensity level at practice is often too low.
I work with a lot of high-performance juniors. I typically see them in our after school clinics. If you track their day, you realize that most of them get up at 6:00 a.m. and then go off to school for a long day of classes and studying and then end up at my tennis center for a class is from 4 to 6:00 p.m. It’s not uncommon that when the kids get to our class they are already exhausted from a long day. But this is a chance for them to understand that life is difficult in that even though they are tired, they have to bring their best ever effort to the court even though it might not be easy. This is one of my favorite life-lessons that tennis teaches players. The players that can do this are that ones that have the most success.
3) You’re more concerned with winning now than developing your game for the future.
We see it all the time. Players say they want to get better in the long run, but in classes and in matches the abort the necessary new skills they are working on for winning at that moment. This can even happen in a drill class (practice) when they don’t want to rotate down one court lower. It’s easy to say that you want your long-term improvement, but it takes a special commitment to be willing to take a step backwards so that you can eventually take two steps forward.
4) You’re not adding or acquiring more USABLE tactics to your game so you can beat a wider range of players.
You don’t have to have every tactic in your arsenal to be a good tennis player. But you have to have more than one. The best players have a favorite way to play, but they also have to 2-3 other ways that they can play. By USABLE I mean something that you can actually deploy and use in a match, not just something that you can do in practice, but are too scared to deploy in competition.
5) When you practice on your own (without a coach) you waste valuable practice time by not having a specific purpose.
Practicing with the coach is very important. But the very best players put in additional practice time without a coach. Those times are critical and I have found that the best players make the best use of those practices when they are away from their coach. Having a specific plan and set of drills that you will do is the key to improving during this time. It is not enough to just go out and hit with your friends. You have to have purpose in your practice.
I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this post and thanks for reading and sharing it if you think it is helpful.
Good Thought or reasons. I think we should started tennis with group tennis lessons so that we become a professional player. Because in a group we can learn more instead of private tennis lessons .
Hi Jorge
What’s left to say for me :-)? They all said it already
You are of course just right! You have a tremendous analytical sens, thus giving you the ability to see and express clearly what tennis is all about! Great work indeed!
Charles
My high school coach of 50 years ago never put us through a single drill. He always had great teams and the best players in the state. As far as technique goes he would take us to a tournament and have us watch. He would put the best player on our team out on the court and tell us what to watch for. He kept a ladder in a visible location and created a culture which stressed competing. We learned how to win and how to loose from each other. There was independent play on the weekends and it was all about playing sets. There were the summer tournaments that kept us busy and learning. We learned to love to compete. It worked.
Smart Coach!
Hi Jorge,
Your 5 reasons is absolutely right on, I agree with you.
in my 14 years of coaching experience
Kids I agree with you , they don’t play enough matches to improve, thier mental and physical ability to win tight high school r college level matches.
I have always found that adults, who do drills year after year, and obsessed with clinics
you see them at the same level they started,
In my opinion, it’s not necessarily match play.
they play matches home and away, travel teams.
but the most important thing missing is
not improving thier technique , serve, volleys, overhead, proper grips.
They try the grips and techniques for a few times, it doesn’t work me, and play with what’s comfortable, at the same time complain, they r not getting better, and blame the coaches, pursue a different coach.
Not seeing what they are missing to get to the next level
Pattu
100% agree with this blog post, but you missed #6, a main key element, if you have shitty technique your ceiling is lower. Example: You have a palm up serve and cant develop a 5.0 level second serve. Well the palm up second serve will never be 5.0 level, because you need to develop a closed racket face for spin. Many adults that play for 25 years and are still 3.5-4.0 level tennis players, most of the time don’t have a great technical foundation.
I am a the #1 player at my high school and I have been playing since I was kid. I have been feeling this way for quite sometime. I even felt like i’ve been getting a little worse. However, when i read this, it all made sense. Thanks to your advice, i’m gonna get my practices back on track to continue and improve my game. Thanks alot and keep doing what your doing.
Good luck Nathan
After 30+ years of teaching, here’s what I’ve learned.
1. Most grown-ups/parents are liars (sorry). On the one hand they will say ‘Do your best’ to youngsters, yet will celebrate even the most minor, inconsequential, short-term successes. It sends a clear message that no matter what platitudes they mouth, winning is all they care about.
2. Ignorance and/or apathy: Knowledge is constantly evolving. And a lot of knowledge is acquired by deliberate practice/experimentation. Ego is a great impediment to learning new things.
3. Not putting in enough time (if any) in off-court conditioning and training.
I love what your doing, Jorge, and have great respect for you. But, I think you are too soft. Maybe you’ve realized that you just have to sugar-coat things for the mamby-pambies.
I tell my kids that good players are good problem-solvers. It is not a bad thing to make a mistake; what is bad is repeating the mistake because you can’t figure out a correction. To that end, I switch roles with them. I tell them to be the coach and correct my errors – technique, strategy, whatever. I emphasize that they need to figure it out themselves.
Thank you, this information is very valuable to me as I am a relatively new tennis player. I would love to see another article on sport-specific exercises.
I’ve only coached high school tennis for 4 years, but I know that my time with the students is limited and many cannot afford lessons or clinics.
What are some specific plan and set of drills and purposes that you would suggest for them to work on because one thing they’ll do is play on their own with other players.
Hi Jon, You can find a ton on that on my players website which is 100% FREE. Go to https://www.jorgecapestany.com
What about age and injury?
Yes… that is another valid reason.
Thank you very much coach Jorge. I appreciate very much your sharing to us your expertise so we, coaches can be efficient in our job. Yes, I tell my students, YOU PLAY THE WAY YOU PRACTICE! If their level of play in training is low, this will be noticed in real matches. Regards.
Would you outline a good practice:match ratio?
Thank you!
I tel l my own players that for every 1 hour they practice, they should play 1 hour of match play.
Number 2 and number 5 is what I see lacking most these days but I agree with all. Thanks for all the great material you are sharing.
Great points Jorge, I would probably include proper eating,sleeping and sport specific exercises as well:)
I especially like number three. As a high school coach, I find it difficult to get kids to.focus on skill development. I tell my JVs that I don’t care if they lose every match. I want them to work on the techniques taught in practice, but time and time again they bunt the ball just to keep it in the court. These players usually stay on JVs.
As a high school coach of 17 years, I could not have written a blog any better! You hit the nail RIGHT ON TOP of the head! I have seen an incredible reduction in “live” match type play between players and an increased dependency on coaches. How do they honestly expect to transfer practice skills to a match against other players without playing live. The winning RIGHT NOW philosophy is just that – for right now! As a side note, I have used many of your teachings with my players. Keep up your great work!
Thanks Duncan