It gave us youtube which in turn gave us the crazy nasty ass honey badger; the opportunity to waste copious amounts of time re-watching the Michael Jordan years Chicago Bulls pre-game introductions; old school tennis matches as well as eztv.it which allows me to download English speaking shows which in turn preserves my sanity and therefore my marriage.

On the downside, the internet has also led to thousands of in our case instructional tennis sites popping up. These sites tend to breed like rabbits and often end up joining forces into some giant evil super rabbit.

If you are stupid enough to give even one site your email address then once they join forces with one of their friends who is hawking some trifle about the 17 step process that will lead you down the yellow brick road to Federer’s forehand, you end up getting bombarded with email after email extolling the virtues of this and that and every other ‘secret’ of the pro’s.

It’s a waterfall of crap.

Now, I don’t happen to pay any attention to 99% of it but wouldn’t you know it, parents of kids I teach certainly do. In fact, the internet has become a minefield for coaches.

I could count on one hand the amount of weeks this year that I haven’t had to deal with some hair brained theory about this and that or the need to dramatically change the direction of said son or daughters training because Mummy/Daddy/Grandma or Grandma subscribes to this site and this week they got three emails about the newest way to do whatever.

I recently went back to my home country of New Zealand for two weeks of surfing, sleeping on the beach and too much partying only to return to a scene straight out of a tennis horror show.

You see, I live in an area of Europe where it seems like I am one of the only people who teachers open stance on both the forehand and two handed backhand. Seriously, I’m not kidding. It’s like living in the middle ages of tennis.

I encourage kids to wait and stalk the ball and would rather eat a bowl of worms then see someone take their racket back early and turn sideways. But, one particular boy I coach has a relative who is also a coach but would rather eat a bowl of worms than see his nephew wait for the ball, hit from an open stance and god forbid, try and hit the ball 3-4 feet over the net.

Every time I go away, coach X takes advantage of my absence – and he’s not the only one.

I battle for 3 months to build good habits only to get them shredded in 2 weeks.

I know this is a bit of a rant but everyone needs to get things off their chest. So this is my turn and you’re just gonna have to deal with it. Europe may produce the world’s best tennis players right now but after having lived and coached at a high level here for over 18 months, it’s more because of luck/access to competition/kids telling their coaches to leave them the eff alone/or something else than tons of good coaching.

Quite frankly, I’m baffled by the whole thing.

The internet is also a massive pain in the proverbial. More information is not better. Better is better and as my Dad used to say when I was about to go and play a game of rugby, keep it simple stupid.

So in conclusion, I know that was not the most coordinated piece of writing I’ve ever done, but I think people need to constantly be reminded that often the best way to progress is to ignore the latest biggest and best piece of information that comes your way.

Find a path, build momentum and stick to it. And if that doesn’t work then there’s always youtube and ‘The Story of Festivus’ to fall back on.

Many of us experience this when least expected.

Without getting too deeply into explaining it, it is basically getting out of your mind, shutting it off.

How you do that? Well, focusing on the task at hand, completely in present time. For some, it is a common occurrence, for many, a difficult task.

Once in the Zone, how do you stay in it?

Here are some guidelines that you could use:

1. You need alignment of your efforts. If you use poor technique, you’ll be out of the Zone in a minute.
2. You need awareness of this state and respect it, that is not to shuffle your focus around.
3. You needed calmness, serenity. Emotions produce endocrine responses. Anger, for example, causes surge of responses that will throw your concentration off.
4. Things will happen that may look miraculous. You are creating at a higher level. You have to trust yourself.
5. Feel is key, your feedback, knowing what to do. Enhance this perception. Trust it, too.
6. Stay calm. Don’t rush. Be a master of patience, especially with yourself.

It’s very interesting how some players are in furious action, and still remain observers themselves.

There are numerous examples in sports, the likes of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Jerry Rice, Roger Federer, Lionel Messi, Tiger Woods at his best, and hundreds if not thousands more. Their performance can be astounding and the performer still look at ease.

Asked about it, they simply say “I was in the Zone.”

But even young pros have the same problem, especially those who lock their front foot while they stroke.

The main culprit is the close-stance position and stepping into the ball. Both aspects twist the landing knee in a stressful manner.

It is not unusual for pain and injury to travel up and manifest itself in the lower back.

Many close-stance professionals counter this problem by rotating the foot upon landing to avoid a stressful twist.

Is the close stance really necessary? Not really. Experiments with the open stance both for forehands and two-handed backhands have shown that facing the net is far more efficient, powerful, gives you better control and is more natural to the body. The new load on the outside foot and explode applies perfectly to both strokes provided you don’t have the habit of stepping forward into the ball with your inside foot which effectively closes your stance.

Modern tennis has shown that open stance and hitting up and across the ball rather than forward increases your spin, control and is also a source of power.

Step into the future and play the natural, most efficient way.

Since I’m married and have responsibilities like trying to earn enough money to pay for things like potential houses and whatever kids need (I’m guessing food, clothing, toys, more toys and more clothing), I don’t have time to do a story like this proper justice.

But then again, my professors at journalism school always thought I took shortcuts and didn’t really apply myself so, why start now.

To start with, I’m going to take you back to the 1980’s. Up until around about the time Johnny Mac  imploded (1985 give or take), tennis dominance was relatively split between Europe and the Americans. For every Borg or Lendl the US could call you with a Connors and raise you with a McEnroe. However, once Boris Becker and his nut huggers won Wimbledon in 1985, Euro’s started bringing out the grand slam whooping stick.

Between Lendl’s victory over McEnroe in the 1985 US Open final and Michael Chang’s win at the 1989 French Open, not one American male contested a grand slam final. Chris Evert’s last slam title was the 1986 French and apart from being a doormat for Steffi Graf to trample on in the 1988 Aussie Open final, the other doormats Steffi used were largely of the European variety.

And while the Euros (plus Gabriela Sabatini) were for the most part the queens of the castle for the 90’s until Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport started getting things together, the same couldn’t be said for the men’s game. Agassi, Sampras, Courier and Chang returned American tennis to the lofty heights of Connors and McEnroe and while they still had to deal with Becker, Stich, Edberg, Bruguera, Rafter etc, it’s indisputable that the 1990’s were America’s decade.

So far in the 00’s, I’m going to hand the men’s championship belt to the rest of the world team courtesy of Hewitt, Safin, Guga, R.Federer, R.Nadal and Djokovic although, honourable mention must go to Agassi for putting up a stiff fight up to and including the 2005 US Open. Since I can’t be stuffed going cross-eyed via peering at grand slam results and rankings, I’m saying the women’s battle was a 15 round draw between the Russians, the Williams sisters and the tag-team duo of Henin and Clijsters.

Over the last 10 or so years, Russia wins as far as, “holy crap they are just churning out tennis players like toy robots”, while Spain grabs the prize for, “if you’re a male and want to learn how to be successful on the ATP tour, you could probably learn from us” (honourable mention to the South Americans) and Serbia gets, “the where did that come from” award for Djokovic, Ivanovic, Jankovic and co.

But, where is the next bunch of Djokovic’s going to come from?

While they are tremendous tennis players and it’s not something you would wish on someone, it’s pretty hard to dispute that growing up in a war zone didn’t affect the current crop of Serbian players competitive nature and, “I’m going to make someone pay for that” determination in a positive way.

Right now, Libya is a god damn mess: should Colonel Gaddafi turn his attention to producing tennis players and hope that all the crap that is going on now will in a roundabout way help produce a flood of mentally tough baseline hugging machines somewhere around 2021?

Probably not, and while junior rankings have never been the best indicator of future success, what do these barometers tell us.

Of the top 25 U18 girls, Europeans occupy 14 of those spots. Russia has 3 representatives, Belarus has 2, Serbia has 2, the Czech Republic has 1 and Kamchatka has 0. Wimbledon champion, Ashleigh Barty of Australia, isn’t even 16-years-old yet and the USA has 4 girls in the top 25.

In the boy’s rankings, Europe also owns 14 of the top 25 spots. However what stands out about the boys is that Spain only has one player (although this isn’t really that surprising as it’s highly likely they have a bunch of tough as nails 17-year-olds who are already playing full-time on the futures circuit and just can’t be stuffed with the juniors … or not), Brazil and dare I say it Great Britain have 3 players each and the Aussies have 2 including recent junior Wimbledon champion, Luke Saville.

Europe’s top 10 U16 boys currently consist of a little bit of everything with Serbia being the only country with two players in the top 10. Spain doesn’t have one player in the top 10 where as Israel and Thailand each have a player in the top 10 which makes my head hurt although Andy Ram was also nails when I was trekking around the continent. Russia and Romania each have 2 girls a piece in the top 10 and also dominate the U14 boys with Romanians occupying the top 2 spots and Russia having 4 players in the top 10. In the U14 girls, the Russian’s and the Czech Republic each have  two players in the top 10.

Take junior rankings with a grain of salt or attach some importance to them, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. By the looks of things, it doesn’t look like Russian tennis or tennis in Eastern Europe is about to fall off a cliff anytime soon. Personally, saying things like, “yeah but it’s only juniors” is all well and good but having the ability to win matches and compete is something that shouldn’t be underestimated no matter what your current level of play is.

I seem to remember playing some pretty damn good juniors in Europe and South America in the mid 90’s and nobody at those tournaments seemed to think those kids who went by the names of Hewitt, Gonzalez and Nalbandian, to name a few, were going to be anything other than nails once they started playing for their supper.

(This is the first in what I’m hoping is a three part series on junior tennis. Number’s two and three are hopefully coming later this week. I say hopefully because number three depends upon one of my kids winning his next match in his current tournament. Ahh, no pressure buddy.)

It will be interesting how technique and tactics fare in the upcoming months. Physical health will also play a role. At the best of three sets anything can happen, but with matches extended to five sets, as in the Slams, it is quite unlikely. You have to play well and be superbly fit.

In the Xmas of 2006 my wife Irene gave me a present with Oscar’s DVD’s and his book ‘Play Better Tennis in 2hrs’, of course I was very skeptical and I actually remember saying to Charisma’s mum ‘Why have you wasted money on this, I don’t need DVD’s or books to tell me how to play tennis…To this day I still regret saying those words.

I started reading and of course like probably many others started to doubt a lot things especially when most of it was against the techniques I was taught but luckily for me I’m one of those curious human beings who like to dig into information/data until I have a better understanding of it and therefore make my own judgement. So I tried a few of the things that were on Oscars video and book and I couldn’t believe the improvement.

Charisma was 5 years old when I first took her to our local tennis club, at the time the GB Girls were running tennis lessons. I took her there in the hope that she would enjoy the game and become addicted to it. The session was about 45mins long, it was going to be 45mins I would almost regret for the rest of my life because after the session Charisma ran up to me and said ‘dad I don’t like it’ I was devastated!

So I left it at that until Nov 2006 when she asked if she could give tennis another try. I started teaching her and also allowed here to join group sessions at our local club and also got her one-to-one coaching with the club coach.

When I got familiar with the Modern Tennis method I knew it was something I had to try on my daughter; Charisma quickly picked up the techniques and was enjoying it simply because she found it easy.

My wife found out that Oscar was planning a trip to the U.K. in Sept 2007 and that he was going to run some courses during his stay, she was quick to book me into the advance courses, I was very grateful because I wanted to 1. to meet the man himself and 2. I wanted to know if what I was doing was right and whether or not I was interpreting his techniques correctly.

The courses were brilliant I learnt so much from Oscar in those 2 days; when I introduced myself I mentioned to Oscar that I was teaching my 6yr old daughter his methods and that the results were mind blowing, I told him how within a month she was already rallying with me with ease. Oscar offered to meet her so he could have a look for himself.

I took Charisma to see Oscar on the 29th Sept 2007, I will never forget this day because my daughter made me a proud father, she got on court and demonstrated to Oscar what she could do and she was fantastic! I still remember Oscar’s kind and encouraging words at the end of the session, he offered to help me teach Charisma and said if we ever visited Florida to come and see him.

I continued to teach Charisma modern tennis and in August 2008 we happily took up Oscar’s offer and visited him in Florida. Oscar coached Charisma for about 2hrs and I was just at awe, I learnt so much just watching him work, it was an amazing experience!

By now Charisma was developing an all round game and in January 2009 we decided to put her in her first tournament, she would be playing against girls who had been playing matches since the age of 6. I remember it was a round robin tournament. Charisma won her 1st match but then lost her 2nd against the tournament favorite who looked like she was in a different league.

But Charisma played through her group and came 2nd overall it got her a place in the semi-finals, the match was amazing she was up against the number 2; Charisma was obviously the unknown in this tournament and was quickly down in the match 3-1 she was only a game away from being knocked out but she fought and fought and won the match 5-3.

She was now in her first final in as many tournaments, she was up against the favorite who easily beat her during the round robin stage. This turned out to be one amazing match Charisma won the match and surprised everyone.

We continue to follow Oscar’s method and Oscar to this day continues to support us in our journey. Charisma has now progressed to National level and has been recognized by the LTA and is part of their ‘Futures Stars Program’ she continues to improve and develop her modern game.

Her next National tournament in 2 weeks (21/07/2011) hopefully she will do well.

“Mate, if you win the under 14’s – Austrian championships – then I’ll sign up for one of the futures tournies here and you can come and laugh your arse off,” I said.

This particular kid of mine went on to win the under 14 championships and I had to carry out my punishment.

Crap.

I’m not an outstanding tennis player by any stretch of the imagination. If I have time to practice, workout and am playing someone who plays at or around my level, then I’m tough to beat. But when I decide to make a hair brain bet, don’t have time to practice and have to turn up at a dance in which I’m 10 years late arriving too, then one thing my Dad always used to tell me sticks in my mind:

“You can’t have too many expectations otherwise you’ll just be left feeling disappointed.”

Just to clarify things here, he used this phrase to refer to our local rugby league team, cricket team, national cricket team and could now apply it to our local rugby teams. Auckland sports teams – god help me!

So this was my thought process heading into my match on Saturday. My practice time had been entirely devoted to coaching a promising 13-year-old girl who was off to play in some ETA (European) events, hiking up a mountain in 33 (that’s celcius) degree heat on Tuesday, dominating a game of Risk on Wednesday and generally playing tour guide for my brother and his fiancée who were staying with me for the week.

In other words, I was taking the Marat Safin rather than Rafa Nadal approach to things.

Qualifying was split over two venues but the matches at my venue were subsequently moved to the main venue when it was deemed that two of the courts (red clay) were unfit to play on. Translation: there had been a bit of rain, guys were digging up the courts like gophers and after slipping over, one guy walked back to towel off at the back of the court and then started shaking the fence and screaming at the ITF supervisor over this particular court like he was some kind of caged zoo animal.

And yes, that did actually happen and yes, I think the ITF guy was freaked out by this racket wielding Orangutan. Before I left venue number one to drive to venue number two, I got to see something that confirmed my long held belief that a tennis book about guys travelling from sӤ$ hole to s%&$ hole and playing futures events on shoe string budgets would be the greatest tennis book ever.

An Italian guy who I’m naming to my David Ferrer All-Stars squad of guys who just run, run, run, run some more and do anything they can to hit a forehand was playing a big tall nut job. On this particular point, the big tall nut job hit a two-hander up the line in which he screamed “yes” as in yes that’s a winner, my point and suck on that before the ball had even bounced. A low brow move to say the least. The Italian Ferrer waltzed over to the mark, circled something and gave him the no, no, no that ball was out finger shake.

Nut job then went nuts, charged round to the other side of the court (wild horses couldn’t have held him back) and started pointing to what he thought the mark was. The referee came out, failed to calm both players down but did decide nut job had the right mark, awarded the point to him and then walked off the court.

On the very next point (I swear this happened) the exact same thing happened. The referee came out on the court, failed to calm both guys down (at this point he basically needed to walk out there with a chainsaw to accomplish this) but this time said the Italian Ferrer was right.

By the way, those two points took a combined time of 13 minutes to play and also involved the Italian Ferrer holding a running conversation with his coach, pouring gasoline all over the fire by arguing with what looked like nut jobs parents and basically anyone else who wanted to listen. I’m pretty sure his next move was walking over to nut jobs chair, picking up his bag and throwing it over the fence.

He was my kind of tennis player.

Shenanigans aside, I had a match to try and play.

When you spend all your time coaching and hitting with kids, you forget how fast and aggressive the game is becoming. I shouldn’t forget this because some of my kids are getting to this stage and I watch a lot of tennis on TV but I’m never really on the receiving end of this speed. If I’m practicing with them and playing defence, then I normally have time to do things (even while I’m on the run) but when you feel like you don’t have a whole bunch of time, it takes a while to try and remind yourself not to jump at the ball, rush and panic.

During our recently concluded club season, our singles matches would routinely consist of leisurely 10 minute (sometimes longer) warm-ups. And why not, there was nobody there to tell us to hurry-up, both players were usually ill-prepared, cold and or hungover (I swear one of my teammates faces was almost green one Sunday morning) so we could take our sweet time.

(And in case someone from the Tirolian Tennis Verband is reading this, then scheduling club matches for 10am on a Sunday morning when the teams largely consist of guys who are 18-years-old and older … not a great move. If you schedule 9-year-olds for this time slot … no problem. You dummies are the exact opposite of our final opponents who agreed to play us on a Saturday so we could then celebrate winning our league by partying like Brad Pitt at his mother’s wake on ‘Snatch’. My suggestion for next year is to play the matches on a Wednesday afternoon starting at 5pm. How many people are drunk at 5pm on a Wednesday? I rest my case.)

But when you’re not used to speed and you’re a little bit tight, having some uppity official who is also probably a deputy headmaster at some military school for screwed up kids telling you that you have 5 minutes maximum and then standing there watching you like a hawk, isn’t conducive to good tennis.

I bow at the altar of Mats Wilander but when he recently said that tennis should scrap the warm-up, I whole heartedly disagree. What I really needed was a 10 minute warm-up so I could get the feeling of a heavy kicking lefty forehand zoning in on my backhand. Should I try and diffuse this shot with a slice or go back and hit my poor man’s Gasquet one handers? These were the kind of decisions a longer warm-up would’ve allowed me to make. Rules!

Before we get to the match, even if I had practiced and then played well, I’m not beating these guys and I’m definitely not beating them on clay. For kids bought up on slick hardcourts like me, the problem isn’t sliding as sliding into shots is a god damn piece of cake. The problem is being moved wide one way, moving back towards the centre and then being pressured back towards where you came from. Cutting, and then moving back in that same direction is easy for me on hardcourts but on the clay (I should also add, if I wasn’t a good mover then I’d really suck) that unstable footing makes it hard to stop, turn and then feel like you can push off, get behind the ball and get your legs into the shot.

As a result of my opponent’s heavy ball (about 3 speeds above what I’m normally used to) and my scrap metal level rustiness, he quickly raced to a 3-0 lead. Even on good days, I’m a serial offender when it comes to turtle out of the gate like slow starts. At this point it’s clear my lefty opponent hits a pretty sweet line drive two-hander and can really go high and aggressive with the forehand. I’m also sure that if I can just play a little bit higher then I can maybe tempt him into just shooting himself in the head after 8 or 9 shots.

The next five games all go to deuce and are long drawn out, I’m going to rip one high and he’s going to try and rip it higher with big spin rallies. Although since I couldn’t even crack an egg with my shots, I was more in the roll them high category. Anytime I get myself set in the middle of the court and can use my forehand, I stand a good chance of coming out on top in the rally as he’s clearly cheating towards his backhand side and daring me to go up the line and I’ve got a rubber arm when it comes to tempting me into this shot and play it well. But I’m having big problems when he can get set up for a forehand and hit a few big high hard loopers into my backhand. Federer, Roger, is sitting there nodding in agreement.

The extra kick he’s getting off the court is not something I’m used to (not too many 45-year-old housewomen hit this type of ball) and I’m just half a step slow and late as a result. I have game or break points in each of these five games but end up losing the set 6-2 as he’s way more efficient dealing with that transition area than I am and takes advantage of a few too many of my short backhands.

All in all, I’m thinking that apart from the first three games, the rest of the set was pretty even and I should continue on my current path. This particular path is to go back to almost everything when I’m hitting groundies. I’m maybe 5’9” on a good day (whatever that means) and feel like I have to work my way into points like this on clay. On an indoor court it’s a different story as I can let my natural instincts, which are to try and attack and go for crazy shots take over, but on clay my biggest weakness apart from being too damn small (hats off to Olivier Rochus) and not being able to consistently take the ball on the rise well enough is trying to pull the trigger too soon. I want to win but if I lose I at least like to make my opponent work for his W so trying to tap into my Nadal survival mode is what I attempt to do.

I lose a 40-15 lead on serve in the first game and then blow a 0-40 lead in the second game to go down 0-2. A couple of times I had the chance to force the issue but pulled back and got burnt for it. The grey area of tennis is not one of my strengths anymore. To me, the grey area consists of anytime you need to make one of those, “should I or shouldn’t I” decisions. He’s on the run and is setting up to hit a slice so should I sneak forward? He’s hit one a little short there so should I take a crack at that ball or continue to build the point? That’s a looper, should I take it out of the air? Straight rallying or obvious situations when you are forced to do something are OK, but when you don’t play points and matches, your instincts desert you.

When you start coaching, you become the tennis equivalent of an African lion that got caught and put in a zoo. If that lion then got released back into the wild, chances are he’d be wandering up to the other lions and asking them what the chef was cooking that night. “What the hell do you mean I have to go and stalk a pack of zebra’s, this is bull-s$%§! I haven’t done that for years. I demand to speak to the supervisor.”

Like the lion, my instincts of when to move forward and go for one desert me from time to time. It’s also one of the reasons why I think one of the most effective drills you can do with your players is to have them hit back to one corner while you jerk them from side to side and then throw in a short ball that forces them to transition. It’s simple, can be unbelievable mundane but gets you tremendous bang for your tennis buck.

(And this is coming from a guy who hated this drill more than anyone when he was a kid. Naturally, I torture my kids with this on a weekly basis. I’m mean like that.)

The rest of the match is just a series of long points which usually end with some forehand highlight reel shot by my opponent. I don’t have the feel for trying to smother his lefty spin with my slice backhand, although he doesn’t make my job that easy by playing with tremendous width. I try and get him off balance by hitting more than a few drop shots (this is like a cocaine addiction for me) but he’s quick and counters this well. He’s a much better player than me and finishes off the second set 6-1.

Even though work makes it hard, I like to try and play as many matches like this (even if it does take a lost bet to get me out there) as I can because I always learn something. I don’t mean about my own game (I have too many limitations to even count) but about tennis in general. During my club season I played a German kid with a huge serve and big hard flat forehand. The kid had weapons. But even though he could really flatten it out and end the point quickly, his ball didn’t worry or bother me that much (I won in three sets). I felt no fear. On the other hand, the last three really really good players I’ve played against (an American, an Aussie and this Austrian) weren’t as quick through the air as the German kid but hit a heavy jumping ball that made you more uncomfortable than an NBA center sitting in cattle class.

Solid pace + good net clearance + spin = a ton of discomfort.

We all know this from watching the best in the world battle it out but it’s another thing to actually feel it. Anyway, I’m hoping this is only the first in a series of articles on tournament matches I intend to play over the next few months that may or may not give you an insight into what a sacrificial lamb (me) feels when he goes up against people who know what they’re doing (the other guys) on foreign soil (clay).

So, between now and my next tournament, I intend to get a little fitter and faster and try and bribe heavy hitters to practice with me because even though my expectations are low, I’m still fascinated by my own journey of tennis discovery.

I want to improve, learn more and play better tennis. The day I stop feeling this is the day I stop competing. My wife probably hopes this day is coming sooner rather than later but, I still have my eyes firmly focused on rounding myself into form sometime around the age of 65.

(Mark was a former NZ junior champion – woop dee doo – and in 2010 was the number one ranked men’s singles player in Singapore.)

Ehhhh …

How dare you say nothing is going on! Yesterday I was out there grinding away on the claycourts in Stuttgart trying to rediscover the form that made me the sexy pick to win the 2010 Australian Open. But sadly, instead of scaring Federer in the quarters in front of a packed out centre court in Melbourne, I spent my Tuesday blowing a one set to love lead to a German kid who had never won an ATP tour match before. What the hell is going on with me?

Nikolay Davydenko

Well Nikolay, since I have no god damn idea. I’m going to let your fellow countryman, Teddy KGB, from ‘Rounders’ answer this question. (Fantastically thick Russian accent) It hurts doesn’t it Nikolay? Your hopes dashed, your dreams down the toilet. And your fate is sitting there right beside you at change of ends. I talk about the racket Nikolay. You switch racket from magic prince to dunlop and then, nyet, nyet, no more!! Although since you already play so well, win lots of money then I guess you can splash pot or change racket whenever the f$%§ you want. Want a cookie?

I want to play golf in the 2016 Olympics, bad idea, good idea, great idea or phenomenal idea?

Yevgeny Kafelnikov

Inspired idea Yevgeny, and since you won the Russian golf championships, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt until the 79′s and 82′s start popping up on your scorecard and even then, who cares. As that great philosopher Roy McAvoy taught us, “greatness courts failure”. Hopefully the former two-time grand slam champ gets to a point of relevance where someone’s miking him and we can here him telling his caddy, N.Davydenko, things like, “this is for Putin who thinks I should lay up”.

After being shot in the leg by a sniper at the French Open, I made it all the way to the semifinals at Wimbledon on the back of some huge serving and big hitting. How do you like my chances at the US Open?

Sabine Lisicki

Your Wimbledon showing was no fluke. You had match points against Zvonerava at the French and as long as you can avoid rifle ranges and injuries, you’re the ultimate wildcard. The reason I say this is because you bring something to the table that not many other women do – a legitimately big and reliable serve. Apart from Stosur, Serena, Venus and now Kvitova, what other women out there have the ability to really bring it on the serve? When you don’t face heat all year and then come up against someone who can bring it, it’s not something you can easily adjust to. A women with a big serve is like someone on the ATP tour having to go up against Fabrice Santoro and his magic act. You just don’t know what the hell to do. You also showed against Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon that you don’t just resort to bashing the ball from the baseline. You can loop it, slice it, roll it and volley. You’re a legitimately exciting exotic fish. BTW: one of my goals in life is to create the anti-women women’s tennis player. Future stars of the WTA tour, be very very afraid.

After scaring the living daylights out of Venus Williams at Wimbledon with my 1970′s style tennis, I’m now taking applications for my tennis school on how to win points without thinking you have to scream, shriek and play recklessley or without any thought and variety at all.

Kimiko Date Krumm

Ladies, please, sign-up now.

I’m 15-years-old and am absolutely set as far as my technique is concerned. What would you reccomend I do to take my game to the next level?

15-year-old kid

Take a page out of Novak’s book and work on your athleticism, speed, power, strength, agility, stability, dynamic flexibility and basically any kind of athletic quality you can think of. Tennis is only going to become a more lateral sport. What I mean by that is things like string technology are only going to improve and allow players to create more and more angles and hit these angles at a faster and faster pace. As someone used to tell me, there’s been guys with dodgy forehands and serves who have done well before but nobody who was a lousy athlete ever did any good at all. Back when I was a kid, Michael Chang used to run everything down. There wasn’t a ball he couldn’t get to. You could say the same for Nadal although he does way more with the ball than Chang ever could from a hopeless position. Novak has taken this one step further by bascially seeing like he can get to everything but always being strong, stable and flexible enough to always get serious stick on the ball. The last thing you should be doing – going on long distance runs at a steady state. Tennis is a speed and power sport. These things take time to develop so I’d suggest you get started.

(Tangent alert: The US Davis Cup team isn’t exactly your mother and fathers davis cup team. When I was growing up it mainly consisted of Agassi and his fake mullet, Sampras, Gordon Gecko Courier and maybe Johnny Mac or someone playing doubles. This snake was a god damn King Cobra. Mardy Fish and Andy Roddick’s rotting corpse stepping out there for the singles … despite their rankings, is a skinny sea snake at best. Although huge points for Courier’s wall street look. Heah Jim, “lunch is for wimps.”)

David Ferrer doesn’t have a big serve and he doesn’t have a monster forehand. His backhand is solid but it’s not Novak Djokovic’s or Andy Murray’s backhand. He doesn’t travel with some huge posse or to the best of my limited knowledge have some sultry Spanish flame sitting in his box cheering him on although I’m sure he has a stable of them at home.

But, he moves like a deer, has one of the best returns in the sport and is the definition of determination. I suspect he spends his down time hanging out at some Clubber Lang type gym in Spain that is home to a chin-up bar, a toilet, an old mattress and a broken lightbulb. And when he’s done there he earns extra cash pulling tourists around the city on a rickshaw.

I spent a large part of my Saturday watching qualifying at a futures tournament in Kramsach, Austria. Kramsach is around 45 minutes from my house and someone who I have been helping out happened to be playing. Even though Kramsach lies in the heart of Tirol (if you want spectacular mountain scenery, this is the place) it is just like any other club in Europe which plays home to a futures tournament.

Translation: it has a ton of clay courts and basically everyone who enters qualifying is nails.

(Tangent alert #2 – Nothing and I mean nothing pisses me off more when I read a story from some snarky tennis writer who largely spends his time hanging out in an air conditioned press centre drinking beers, eating Italian subs and writing his BS match reports based on stats and player quotes describe so and so as a poor player or struggler or just not a great tennis player in general. Go watch a futures tournie in Spain, Germany or just anywhere in Europe and while these guys aren’t lining up to stare down Djokovic anytime soon, don’t tell me they’re not extremely good tennis players.)

People from certain parts of the world just have no idea how good tennis is in Europe and people in general just have no freakin idea how tough it is to make it in a sport such as tennis. Even at the lowest level of professional tennis (qualifying at a futures tournie) whether you’re a junior looking to earn your first point or a 22-year-old stuck at 950, you can count on 63 other guys who look like starved, stray dogs ready to scrap, claw, con and cheat their way past you.

David Ferrer looks just like these guys and yet he’s a top ten player who has carved out a hell of a nice 7-year stretch since 2005. It’s all well and good to look at guys like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic and admire their strokes, bank accounts and whatever else, but guys like Ferrer show that doggedness, stamina and toughness are also talents.

They’re not as glamarous as hitting sweet drop shots or serving cruise missiles, but in the dog eat dog, living in rat hole after rat hole world of futures tournies when you might be playing six sets of tennis in a day just to make it to the last round of qualies where you have to take down some hungry (literally … it’s possible) kid from Slovakia who could run for 3 days straight just to get into the main draw, you could do a lot worse than modeling yourself on senor Ferrer.