If you have been reading our blogs on famous players analysis, you can see that there are many tips and assorted pieces of information that can be gleaned by watching professional tennis players in action.
Sitting down with a TV and your tennis coach or friends can be a great and fun way to study the way professionals play and to pick up useful hints.
How To Watch VT Footage
To get the best out of the viewing of your favourite players games, be prepared to take notes. You should also set objectives of what you want to get out of the viewing, try to focus on one or two things at a time.
It is also helpful if a friend helps you to take relevant statistics during play. Obviously they are in areas that concern you most, such as how many cross-court shots, or shots hit down the line etc.
Compare these “Stats” later with your tennis coach to how you would have approached the game.
Areas To Focus On
- Net Clearance –
Watch the pro’s shots over the nets, as this is often related directly to how much depth they are achieving in their play. This is probably easier to do if you actually watch a game live in person rather than on TV. The camera sometimes provides illusions that are misleading. An interesting footnote is that in 2013 statistics showed that the top three players cleared the net regularly between 60 to 100 inches, demonstrating the power of clearing the net by some margin.
- Footwork –
TV is great to study footwork as the camera get up close and personal, plus the option of Video enables you to slow things down to watch the footwork even more intensely.
Whilst doing so things to look out for are, the split step, how the player moves towards the ball and then how he recovers afterwards. Also watch how the different players set up before they play or receive a ball, and the key element of how they keep their balance throughout the shot and how they recover afterwards.
Slo Mo
Using slow motion to focus on technique is a great thing, it enables you to break down an action or movement so you can study it in minute detail. Tennis is a dynamic game and is played in fits and starts, to try and properly capture say a serving action in its entirety with the naked eye and remember it all is almost impossible. But with the use of slow motion and replay, you can replay the service as many times as you like.
Shot Selection
TV footage is excellent at showing shot selection as it shows close ups of play and shots of the entire court. In most games the majority of shots are inside the middle 18 feet of the court, and players shot selections reflect this. What is of interest is the shots they select when the ball is outside this area.
So next time you sit down to watch your favourite tennis star in action, try to follow some of the above tips and you never know, you might end up picking some valuable information.
If you live close to Northwood, Longueville, Linley Point or Riverview then why not consider Social Tennis? The facilities at Tennis World Lane Cove are second to none and will provide you with the perfect opportunity to improve your tennis game.
