Tennis fans are no couch potatoes. Especially now, when it’s Australian Open time for millions of tennis fans around the world. Their patience was put to the test after the last Slam event, the US Open, ended four months ago, an eternity for every serious tennis fan. Unlike World Series, Super Bowl or Stanley Cup, though, tennis fans are using the TV coverage to look for every edge to improve their own game. While the aforementioned events are being watched by the very legions of couch potatoes they have created over time, Doritos and Budweiser are not the most important ingredients for watching a tennis Grand Slam event.
Tennis players are more likely to watch an Australian Open match with a writing pad & pencil and with their tennis racquet on hand. Taking notes on shot selection and strategy is a must for some, while others use their racquets for shadow swinging in sync with their favorite players.
Tennis fans enjoy seeing the qualifiers giving those Top 10 players a good run for their money. Their hearts went out to Dinara Safina during her 6-0, 6-0 loss to Kim Clijsters, They’ve all been there, losing badly because of a confidence problem; making one unforced error after another. Improving their game is a big part of many tennis players’ weekly regimen. Taking clinics and lessons for gradual changes and the building of muscle memory is one way, buying videos and copying the star players on TV is another.
But what are the odds that the average recreational tennis players can ever achieve skill levels even close to professionals in the top 1,000? “No chance” says Nikki Robbins, teaching professional at Weddington Golf & Tennis in Studio City. “The pros devote their entire being to playing tennis where us average adult players have lives in which we need to make money to support our hobby of playing tennis.”
Internationally renown tennis teacher Vic Braden says that he prefers his students to watch one player only for a certain time period. He adds "They will get a better idea of the movements demanded. As for shot selection, I like my students to call the shots before it's hit, to see if they learn shot selection patterns". Trying to examine what the real difference is between Roger Federer and the average adult recreational tennis player, a look at some incredible figures may help.
Roger is 29 years of age and started playing tennis at the age of 6. He began playing and practicing seriously at the age of nine. Let's say he picked up a "professional" regimen of at least five 6-hour practice days at the age of 12, about 17 years ago.
Serves
Seventeen years of serves amounts to an amazing number for professional tennis players. During that time Roger would probably have served about 500,000 practice serves. Add approximately 1,200 matches Roger played as junior and as professional. That’s at least another 100,000 serves, leading to an estimated total of 600,000 serves. And during much of that time Roger had coaches and peers to help him correct problems and strive for constant improvement, especially in the so very important developmental phase as junior player.
Are these numbers realistic? "While I don't know how long Federer practices, I would make a differentiation between tournament weeks and practice weeks.”, says legendary Coach Oscar Wegner of Encino, who has coached tennis greats like Gustavo Kuerten and Vince Spadea, and who guided Bjorn Borg on his comeback. “Another difference would be if it is a day off at a Grand Slam, for example, or a day when he has a match. My recommendation would be to hit about 20-30 serves in the morning or early afternoon on match days, depending on the time of the match, including first and second serves, while on off days that amount could double. On practice weeks this could go up to close to 100 serves, between service practice, warm up serves before playing points, and points serving.”
How many serves has an average adult recreational tennis player been able to hit in the same time span? Hard to say but most likely not more than 50,000. That includes a few clinics and lessons, but most of those serves were totally unsupervised. So here is a first big difference now: Roger Federer has launched at least 10 times as many quality serves than the average adult recreational tennis player.
Ground strokes
Looking at the ground strokes lets us estimate Roger probably practiced a million practice forehands and backhands in 17 years. Now add the ground strokes during match play, maybe another million. More than 2 million groundstrokes played and practiced! At the same time many recreational tennis players have rarely practiced at all, they just play matches, often with very short rallies. How many groundstrokes could this add up to?
Over three million correct, often coach-supervised ground strokes and serves means Roger put his time in. He lost a ton of sweat and missed a lot of play time with his friends as a kid, in order to become the world class player he is today. Career prize money of $61 million plus endorsements - well done, Roger!
Now, what can an ordinary, recreational player learn from all these numbers? The one and only logical conclusion would be to hit more practice balls and play less doubles or singles. Rod Laver, legendary player with 200 career titles and 2 calendar year Grand Slams, who now resides in the San Diego area, says: “…hit more balls. Forget playing all the time. Practice your strokes. Set yourself a goal, like 100 ground strokes a day. 100 serves a day. Do it consistently with someone who knows what those strokes should look like. I guarantee you you'll get better that way.”
Conclusion
Vic Braden used to say: "If you want to hit a forehand like Andre Agassi, you’d have to hit one million ground strokes – and they have to all be technically correct!” The average adult recreational tennis player probably has a better chance winning the lottery than becoming as skilled as Roger Federer or break into the Top 1000. But tennis players are no couch potatoes. They use matches like the ones broadcast from the Australian Open to study techniques and improve their own understanding of how the game is played. And when the match is over they can’t wait to go out on the court and try out all those great strokes they were just observing. Football fans: try that after the Super Bowl!
Did you enjoy this article? Receive e-mail alerts when new articles are available. Just click on the "Subscribe" button above.
Comments