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TennisOne Lessons 
Four Rules for the Older Player (Against a Much Younger Opponent) Jerôme Inen On the senior tour John McEnroe can still trade punches with much younger opponents. It is proof of his talent… and of certain tactics you, as an amateur, can use too. A couple of years ago, when I was already in my forties, I was fortunate to reach the final of a 35-and over-tournament in the Netherlands. I was again so fortunate — and truth be told a bit lucky — to win the final as well. It took me three sets in sweltering heat to subdue my opponent, Mister Jansen. (I never learned his first name). He was twenty years older than I was — a man in his sixties playing in a 35-and over tournament. The tough thing about Mister Jansen was his ability to hit shots out of the air. Every time I tried to hit a deep high shot (or sometimes even a normal deep shot), Mister Jansen would hit a full swinging volley from the baseline. And he often hit the ball right to the place where I had just vacated. At the time I thought Mister Jansen was a very peculiar case, but as the years go by, and I play younger and younger opponents, I find myself thinking more and more: ‘There was a method to his madness.’ And it is the same method in madness (or genius) one can admire in John McEnroe. All right, McEnroe (born in 1959) doesn't play guys who are twenty years younger. But he is No.1 at the moment in the ATP Champions Tour, ahead of Carlos Moya (1976), Goran Ivanisevic (1971), Thomas Enqvist (1974). So how does he do that? Analyses of Old versus Young First I want to explain that percentage tennis (maximizing your chances, minimizing your risks) is perhaps not the best strategy for older players, particularly if they play against younger players. The best chance of success in tennis is trying to win most of the points... But for older players, winning enough points may be more important. Tennis is a sport of sprints. We can have long and strenuous discussions about whether it is an aerobic sport (depending on oxygen) or anaerobic (depending on immediate chemical processes like ATP and CP metabolism). But the bottom-line is: tennis is a game of sprints and every sprint takes a gulp out of your personal sprinting-tank. And if you are over 45, your tank will always be smaller than an opponent who is twenty years younger. Let me give an example. I can still beat both my daughter (12, five feet eight) and my stepson (22, six foot four) in a sprint across a tennis court. If we do ten sprints, I may still win. But after twenty sprints my legs would be gone and after fifty sprints my stepson would give up but my daughter would still be running.
The same applies to your upper-body. There grandfathers of 60 who can do more push-ups than some 40-year olds (or 20-year olds!). But what if they have to do a series of 10, 20 or 30? So, in short: if you are over forty, and you play against someone who is younger, you don't want to make a tennis match a running or a punching match. Rule One: Play Closer To the Baseline John McEnroe plays close to the baseline — and often on it — and he uses the pace of his opponents ball to create his own pace. He doesn't wait for the ball to slow down after the bounce but instead, attacks it quite early. He takes it quickly but with a rhythm that is just right. His timing can be compared to how Steve McQueen plays with his baseball in the jail scene in the movie "The Great Escape." He throws the ball against the floor, just before the wall. The ball bounces against the floor and very quickly against the wall. And then with a very characteristic kathump the ball bounces back. In a moment, I will tell you how to achieve this even if you are not blessed with the great hands of a John McEnroe (or a Mister Jansen for that matter). But first you, might ask: "Does it really reduce running much just by standing closer to the baseline? Is the difference between half a meter behind the baseline and, say, 1,5 meters so important?" One meter (three feet) doesn't seem like much, but with every meter back, the geometrics of the court dictate you enlarge the distance you have to cover. Roughly calculated, if you're one meter behind the baseline, you have to cover an extra two meters side to side compared to standing on top of the baseline. That sounds incredible, but take a look at Novak Djokovic and Radek Stepanek. The first is a very aggressive baseliner who plays close to the baseline. Stepanek is an all-court player who, if he plays at the baseline, plays further back than Djokovic. According to tribesports.com/blog, in a 2007 US Open match of five sets, Stepanek ran close to 8km (5 miles), while Djokovic only ran 5.6 km (3.5 miles). Imagine that: Stepanek had to run 2400 meters more than Djokovic during the same match! That is about 480 sprints of five meters each
Line Two: Hit Quick But Loopy — In Two Senses Standing close to the baseline, while still playing a dependable baseline game may seem simple enough, but it does take some adjustments. Tennis players who try to play closer to the net, often make two mistakes. The first is they totally straighten out their strokes and hit what some call 'baseball-strokes.' very flat, very straight and often, unfortunately, very short. The second mistake is that players start to imitate Jimmy Connors flat net-skimmers (or so they seemed). They take every ball very fast and try sent it back faster than it came. But if you take the ball early and try to hit it low over the net, you have to bend your knees very deeply (just like Jimmy did, remember), and keep them bent during the stroke. But we want to avoid tiring our legs. We want to use minimal effort to create maximum effect. Usually, you do that by using gravity.
How? First of all: keep using — or start using if you didn't — a loop in your swing. Second, even more importantly: don't pause between your backswing and your forward swing. Many players have learned to prepare early and keep their racket back and get ready. That can be very effective but if you want to save energy, it is not wise. Extensive research in tennis has shown that, for all kinds of reasons, a continuous, loopy swing produces the most ‘oomph’ for the least effort. Here's a drill to help your timing, both regarding the loop of your swing and taking the ball with the right fast, but not too fast rhythm. Agree with your partner to hit slow and loopy shots in the mini-court. Try to time the loop of your racket with the curve of the approaching ball.
Taking the ball earlier means the ball will be higher than if you let it drop beneath your hip. You can't brush as much from low to high as before, but there is still space to do that, even if you take the ball at chest level. But for many players it will take some adapting. To help us do that, we have to take a leaf out of the book of the player that changed forever the idea about 'proper' technique: Björn Borg. Most of us who remember him playing, have a skewed idea of how he actually played. For instance, you might think that Bjorn played well behind the baseline and relied on his great speed and the ability to run down almost every ball.
However, Björn Borg played much less farther behind the baseline than everyone assumes. Yes, receiving first serve he would sometimes disappear off the television-screen, so far was he backed up. But after the return, his approach was far more aggressive. Take a look at a few of the points in the final of the Stockholm Open in 1980, Borg-McEnroe. Take particular interest in the rhythm of the bounce and the following hit with the racquet 'Most recreational players have learned — and not without reason — to run to the spot where they are going to hit the ball, ready themselves… then wait for the ball to lose most of the speed and height after the bounce. Bjorn Borg always seemed to be the epitome of that approach, partly because he stood so far behind the baseline when he returned first serves. In actuality, Borg, when not receiving a first serve, played almost as close to the baseline as McEnroe did and took the ball almost as early after the bounce. Also observe how loopy the ball is hit by both players during regular baseline rallies. Yes, quick after the bounce... but still looped over the net.' Line Three: Diversify Your Grips Most tennis players realize that the key to winning matches is to minimize errors. The dominant idea is that to avoid making mistakes, you have to repeat the ‘right’ technique over and over again. This means that most players use, for example, one grip for the forehand. However, if you are much older than your opponent and have chosen to play closer to the baseline, to save steps, you may find yourself hitting from less ideal areas of the court. That means you have to able to able to hit where you are, where ever and how ever the ball bounces. Sometimes that means taking a ball above your shoulder or one that is already past your hip. Sometimes you will have to hit a kind of half-volley-drive because the ball bounces very close to you or perhaps you need to take the ball out of the air and hit a swinging volley. The point is, all of these shots and many others require different grips than the one you use for your everyday standard forehand groundstroke. In short: practice your forehand and backhand with different grips, from the ‘old fashioned’ continental-forehand to the ‘modern’ full western because it is important that you solve technical challenges in a match with your hands… without having to run around the block so you can hit with the grip of preference. Be versatile on court by diversifying your grips. Line Four: New Percentages When one thinks of percentage-tennis, one doesn’t automatically think of John McEnroe. And at the time, I did not think Mister Jansen played a high percentage-game (remember Mister Jansen, he's the older man I played at the beginning of this article). But he won more tournaments than I did that year. And as McEnroe has said (and I am paraphrasing here): "Percentage tennis for me was going to the net after my swinging, left-handed serve. It just made sense." As with the serve and volley, shots like the swinging volley from the baseline and hitting drop shots look like high-risk tennis. But if you are fifteen or twenty years older than your opponent, these shots begin to make sense. Because in that situation, it is not about winning as many points as possible, just the points you need. to win the match. Say you hit a drop shot. That young guy or girl runs forward, reaches it, and perhaps even wins the point. So? You saved yourself fifteen steps or so, by taking three shots out of the rally. While your opponent had to make fifteen quick steps just to get to the ball! If you hit ten drop shots in a match. Nine get over the net. Perhaps you score two or three points. The other seven are for your opponent. But you’ve made him or her sprint 150 meters extra. And all that extra running may be the great equalizer. The same percentage applies when playing serve and volley. Force yourself to play serve and volley at least ten times per match.But don’t try to hit a winning serve and follow it to the net .Instead, hit the slowest, highest over the net flying kick-serve you can, or the slowest side-skipping slice-service and follow it to the net. Don’t run… just follow it in a steady pace. Use a classic volley. Or stop midcourt and hit a swinging volley. You win the point? Great. Lose the point. Okay, but you saved yourself the steps of a regular rally. Even if you play someone who is twenty years younger.
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"I"ve learned tennis the traditional, form-oriented way — and it is not the right way! Lijftennis is my attempt to show other people a way to learn quicker, with better results and less frustration. If I have one message: don"t copy others, play and learn from your own body and perspective!" |
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