Anatomy of a Tennis Mini-Game
Tennis not best understood as a single, uniform skill. Rather, tennis exists as an interconnected set of different, related skills. For any given tennis skill, once a certain level is reached, practicing on a...
Bad Decisions… Or Just Bad?
What do Karue Sell and Scott Adams have in common? Believe it or not, both have addressed a very common, often misunderstood match play decision: When should I take my forehand up the line?...
“I Just Started Missing.”
Ever wonder why sports books try really, really hard to get you to place parlay wagers? It’s because the parlay bet, a bet type where you bet on multiple events, and ALL of them...
The Power of Patience
If you can keep the ball heavy, deep, and, most importantly in the court, for more shots in a row than your opponent can, you’re almost always going to win. Occasionally, one player can...
Abandon Anger
Anger wastes mental energy and clouds judgement, two clear detriments in any competitive setting, so while anger certainly has its uses, “useful emotion in the game of tennis” isn’t one of them. To better...
Certainty is a Feeling (and Cheat Code)
Certainty as an epistemic state is a lie. A human being can never truly be certain about something, and most people have far higher confidence in their predictions than is warranted. That said, certainty...
Serve is Out = Great Return, Explained
Your opponent hits their serve long. “Out,” you say, as you swing at the ball anyway. Lo and behold, the shot you produce on this return, a return that, by all accounts, should be...
Your Brain Will Trick You (Into Missing)
Sometimes, it’s amazing now “lucky” Novak Djokovic gets. He hits line after line without missing, appearing to aim to targets not even 6-inches wide, and yet never hitting the ball out. But what’s really...
Stop Losing Winnable Matches
One of the beautiful things about learning a fundamentally sound, fault tolerant forehand, is that the speed of said forehand can be easily dialed up or down, without fundamentally changing the swing. The grip...
Is “Coach-You” a Terrible Match Coach?
We’ve already discussed how to play better in matches twice before. Here are those two articles, if you’re interested: Vision Will Transform Your Match Play Great In Practice, Bad in Matches Today, we’re going...