Monday, October 30, 2006

What Does A Tennis Diamond Bracelet Have To Do With Tennis?

Have you ever heard of a diamond tennis bracelet?

If you do a little research on the most common terms that people type into google to search for tennis terms, you'll find that the terms tennis bracelet or tennis diamond bracelet come up very frequently.

I was curious so I decided to do a little research.

And, it's an interesting story with a tennis twist involving one of tennis' greatest female players.

To learn more about the origin of the term tennis bracelet go to:

What is a diamond tennis bracelet?

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Tennis Tactics And Tips Ebook guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
Tennis Cartoon Screensaver
. You can download a trial version for FREE.


Technorati Tags

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

I Played A Match Against One Of The Top Players In The World!

tennis lessons online
What a thrill!

A friend of mine is friends with one of the top tennis players in the world and he set up a fun doubles match.

I don't want to name the pro but before I talk about his game, let me just say, he's a terrific guy. Played just hard enough to keep it interesting and kept up a running stream of humorous and good natured trash talking.

Now, neither myself or the other two guys can even remotely challenge the pro. So, to be honest, he was just fooling around except for a couple of points in the second set when his side was behind and he decided to step it up a notch.

What did I observe?

Amazing returns of serve - Man, this guy could return. Super clean, quick, low liners that just were back at your feet before you could move.

Tremendous volleys - Our pro is a doubles specialist and has one of the best volleys in the world. Again, short preparation, little racket movement, and then boom -- a rocket perfectly placed. And, with the same motion, a drop volley that just dies.

Incredible anticipation - Many times I had a short ball and was trying to disguise my intentions by not looking at the part of the court where I was going to hit the ball. But, it didn't make any difference. Our pro could read where I was going anyway and was just standing in the right place.

I didn't have a chance to hit groundies with him, and he was serving at half speed, so I didn't get to experience what returning one of the world's top serves is like but I can just imagine.

All in all, it was a great thrill for me.

Have any of you had the opportunity to play with top pros?

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Top Selling Tennis Tactics Ebook guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
Tennis Cartoon Screensaver
. You can download a trial version for FREE.

Technorati Tags

Monday, October 02, 2006

Why Can You Play So Well One Set And Then Play Horribly The Next?

tennis lessons online
First, a little confession.

When it comes to peak sports performance, I'm not a huge believer in the theory that says that all one has to do is to just relax.

If that's all it took then, hey, just relax in your favorite way, then go out and shoot scratch in golf, or play high level tennis for 3 sets.

It's not that easy!

I believe that the key to playing consistent high level tennis is to master muscle memory of high level stroke production. Then, when you have total confidence that you've got the swings grooved, you can just relax and let it go.

You see the relaxation comes after creating muscle memory of the right patterns.

I believe that proper stroke production in tennis is a beautiful dance of all the various parts of the body moving in a natural and efficient rhythm. Now, there may be many different ways to acquire the muscle memory, but that's a different issue to be discussed at a later time.

So, in my opinion, if at times you play really well and hit the ball beautifully and other times your strokes fall apart, it's not neccessarily mental.

It's quite possible that your muscle memory is failing and you've gotten out of synch. This is when I think you have to have cues on each stroke that guide you back to that place where your rhythm returns.

The cues could be anything but they have to get you back to the right muscle memory. You may tell yourself to turn your shoulders as far as you can on your groundstrokes when you're struggling. Or, maybe holding your weight back a little longer on the serve before exploding into it.

I'll be discussing this issue more in later blogs as it fascinates me.

And, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of The Top Selling Tennis Tactics Ebook guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out a little about tennis history here Tennis history

Technorati Tags