Watching professionals and top players at tournaments is always a good indicator how your game is in comparison.
Observations whilst you enjoy the play can give you some great tips how to improve your own game.
Fitness Is King
Fitness levels of modern pro’s is truly astonishing, over the last twenty years this level of fitness has increased incredibly.
The fitness that they possess is mainly strength, their physique may not show it but they are fabulously strong. Hours spent in the gym amongst the weights, developing key muscles is something that was rarely done in the past.
Many games are simply won by the stronger and fitter player.
Domination Using The Forearm
Modern day players hit the ball extremely hard, and the forehand is one of the main attacking shots in their artillery. Some players tend to run around their backhands in order to play a forehand shot. An exponent of this is Tommy Haas, who has a decent backhand, but he still decides to run around it to play a more powerful forehand.
Pro players make a lot of use of the wrist and forearm muscles, it is something amateur players tend not to do.
If you have a great forehand and a weak backhand you may want to consider copying Tommy Haas. The best advice is to work hard to develop your backhand.
Exploiting Weaknesses
Good pro’s will study their opponent and use tactics to exploit weaknesses. Modern players cannot get away with having any weak shots anymore. Andy Roddick still manages to overcome his backhand weakness with an overwhelming serve.
This trend is also creeping into the women’s game also but not as common. A great number of club players are now going down the tactical route of exploiting their opponents weaknesses.
The lessons to be learned from this are fairly straightforward, depending how much time you have to devote to your tennis coaching lessons then you must work on your weaknesses.
Take yourself out of your comfort zone and work hard on the areas of your game that you know need improving. Keeping on improving an already good forehand will not benefit you as much as making a very poor backhand into an average one.
As for the fitness levels, you can do a lot of the hard work yourself away from your coaching sessions. Although, because tennis is quite a unique game, you will have to do some specific tennis physical work as well.
The groups of muscles used in tennis are far different than most sports and you must work hard to develop them. This will help your technique immensely and give you the abilities to play the hardest of shots.
