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Sensational Tennis: Adding Pace Sensations

Wayne Elderton

We have started a new series to emphasize that it is the "feelings" of a stroke more than the movements themselves that players need in order to learn technique.

Shot Sensation Elements

As mentioned in the last article, (Sensational Tennis: Feeling your way through a Game-based Approach), a Shot’s "Sensation" is defined by three key elements. All these add up to the overall feeling of the shot (for full definitions, see the previous article in the series):

Swing Scale: How much the racquet travels before, and after the impact. We use a scale of 1 (small) to 10 (big) to describe the preparation and a second 1-10 number to describe racquetwork after the impact. Shots could be a 2/5, 10/10, 3/1, etc.

Racquet Rhythm: This is how fast the racquet is moving before impact verses after. Many shots in tennis require a slow-fast rhythm.

Linkage: Sensations also include which, and how many body segments are used in a shot, and in what order. More links typically add pace. Fewer links are used to take pace off.

Sensational Effects

Also mentioned in the last article, we outlined three main categories of sensations:

• Sensations that add pace to the ball
• Sensations that take pace off the ball
• Sensations that maintain the pace of the ball

As we also learned last article, intentions drive our movements. Every movement is only relevant if there is an accompanying tactic you are trying to accomplish. To this end, we will always include a common tactic the sensation is used for.

Sensations that Add Pace to the Ball

Adding pace is an advanced skill. Without good coordination and timing, your consistency will go way down. Even though the racquet is accelerated in these feelings, the racquet face must always travel for a good distance towards the target.

Hit: is the feeling of a "multi-segmented" action, like a chain whipping.

• Tactics: A good time to use a hitting feeling is in a baseline exchange. If your opponent sends a weaker/higher ball, you can use your forehand to attack with an inside-out to the opponent’s backhand. This works inside-in as well but is riskier, since there is not as much court space to work with as when hitting on the diagonal used in the inside-out.

Throw: A throw feeling is close to a hit but without the "whipping" action. The main key is to "let go."

• Tactics: A good time to use the throw sensation on the one-handed backhand is when the opponent hits a weaker ball that you can step into and drive. If pace is not added the opponent will receive an easier shot.

Punch: This is not the volley starter players should use. Many coaches don’t like the word "punc." It does, however, describe the explosiveness required (not the direction) on this particular shot.

• Tactics: In this situation, the player is coming to net. The opponent has floated a shot that is higher over the net. Receiving the ball high gives a better net clearance and creates more court to hit into. By putting the ball away with power, even the quickest opponent will have no chance to respond.

Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Wayne Elderton's article by emailing us here at TennisOne.

Wayne Elderton

Wayne is head of Tennis Canada Coaching Development & Certification in British Columbia. He is a certified Canadian national level 4 coach as well as being certified by both the PTR and USPTA. For two consecutive years he was runner-up for Canadian national development coach-of-the-year out of nominated coaches from every sport. Wayne has also been selected as Tennis BC High Performance Coach-of-the-year and was the 2007 Canadian Tennis Professionals Association Coaching Educator of the year.

Wayne is currently Tennis Director at the Grant Connell Tennis Center in North Vancouver. He has written coaching articles and materials for Tennis Canada, the PTR, Tennis Coaches Australia,Tennis Corporation of America and the ITF. He is an international expert on the Game-based Approach.

For more resources, you can visit Wayne Elderton's website at www.acecoach.com

New Progressive Tennis DVD

Wayne Elderton and coach/videographer Neil parker have just completed a new DVD for Tennis Canada on ½ Court Tennis for 5-7 year olds. It contains some of the most up to date methodology found world-wide. The clips in this article are taken from that DVD. It is available on Wayne Elderton’s website: www.acecoach.com.