TennisOne Lessons

Prep Like the Pros

Michael McDowell

As I walked around the practice courts at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, I was struck by just how different the game of tennis is when played at the highest levels. Some of this difference is the function of finely honed skill, which has taken thousands of hours to cultivate. However, another part of the difference simply involves preparation; that is, getting to the court and being ready to play your best game.

I have a friend who is now an avowed “minimalist.” He throws a racquet and a can of balls in the car and rushes off to the courts only to arrive 5 minutes before (or after) he is scheduled to play. Upon arriving he makes his standard quick apology, and says, “Don’t worry about me I’m ready to play.” My guess is that all tennis players know this guy or somebody very much like him. He uses the first 30 minutes of the match to get warmed up and ready to compete, complains incessantly about being a “slow starter” and frequently gets injured and leaves the rest of us without a doubles partner or an opponent.

While we may not be able to hit like the pros, we can learn a great deal about getting ready to play by observing their approach. Essentially most players on the tour do three things to get ready for a match:

• Go to the practice court to groove the strokes they anticipate will be most important to their success in the upcoming match;
• Perform a dynamic warm-up to get blood flowing into the muscles and raise the core body temperature;
• Complete a short hitting warm-up prior to playing.

Now you may not want to go out to the practice court for every fun match you play; and, in these cases, the last two steps are sufficient. However, if you are competing and are concerned about the outcome, it only makes sense to do everything you can to improve your chances of playing well.

Hit the Practice Courts

Just schedule the time (and the court space if necessary) to get out for 30 minutes or so within a couple of hours of your scheduled match. Here at the 2011 Cincinnati Western & Southern Open I have made a point of seeing what the pros are doing to prepare. Yesterday for example I went out and watched Samantha Stosur and Rafael Nadal before their matches. Just like basketball teams go out for a morning shoot around on game day to get their shooting strokes grooved, top players go out two to three hours before a match and try to find the rhythm and feel of their strokes before they head to the courts for competition.

Most people have played with players who try to get their practice time in before the match; and, if you don’t shut them down, they will hit for 30 minutes. But, again, this is not a warm-up; it’s practice (or more accurately a very different stage of pre-match preparation). Of course, they are just responding to their bodies telling them that they are not prepared to play. So don’t put yourself in this predicament; get a teammate or a hitting partner and have this person help you prepare for the match.

Here we have a video of a small portion of Stosur’s pre-match hit. First, she came out and spent about 10 minutes working on her groundstrokes – trying to find a rhythm and getting great contact. Because her forehand is such a big part of her game, she spent probably 70% of the time on this stroke. This is an important point. This is match preparation not practice. In a practice session, she would likely spend at least as much time improving weaker elements of her game as she does honing her weapons. But today she realizes that, if she is going to win, she needs to control the match such that she is able to hit far more forehands than backhands.

Next she spends a good deal of time working on her fabulous kick serve. Don’t think pros who possess great serves don’t constantly work to ensure this weapon is available when needed. Finally, for about the last ten minutes, Sam works on a couple of areas that the average recreational player virtually never practices: return of serve and attacking the weak mid-court shot from your opponent. Let’s take a look at a couple of minutes of this work.

The next step in a pros preparation process typically occurs out of the spectators’ sight. Until a few years ago, it was thought that static stretching was the best way to prepare for an athletic event. However, there is now substantial research to indicate that dynamic stretching/warm-up (i.e., combining movement – usually sport specific movement – into the warm-up process) is a far superior approach.

While I don’t have time to go into the specifics in detail, it seems that a dynamic warm-up is preferable both from the standpoint of avoiding injury as well as from that of not interfering with performance. In addition to helping prevent injury, this type of warm-up prepares the athlete to compete by increasing core and muscle temperature, elongating the muscles, as well as stimulating the nervous system. This warm-up will start with a low stress activity such as jogging around the court or a leg swing routine and gradually build to more and more aggressive movement exercises. It should last 5 to 15 minutes and an athlete should have broken a light sweat by its conclusion.

The final step of the preparation process is one with which most of us are familiar – the short on court hitting session with your opponent. To illustrate this element, let’s watch Rafa’s warm-up before playing Julien Benneteau.

So here we have detailed an often neglected element of becoming a top level player -- organization. If you work out a routine that fits your game and interest level, you can make significant gains in terms of your competitive readiness by preparing like the pros.

Make no mistake, most of us will never hit the ball like Stosur or Rafa. It takes tremendous dedication to the sport and thousands of hours of deliberate practice to do that. But by warming up before a match like the pros, we just might make significant gains in our match readiness and our confidence as well.

Michael McDowell, USPTA (P-1), PTR, Etcheberry Certified: Currently Director of Tennis for Advantage Tennis Academy (AZ), former USTA League Coordinator for Central Arizona, Head Pro at Mesa Country Club and Director of Tennis For Arizona Tennis Association. Michael currently coordinates a junior program that exposes over 250 kids per year to tennis; and offers training to players from beginner to tournament level. His main goal is to encourage as many people as possible (regardless of age and/or abiltiy level) to share his passion for the great game of tennis.