The above post is an excerpt from Frank’s New Zealand Player, Parent and Coach Summit. Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
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High Performance Secrets
Top 7 Patterns
The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
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The Art of Winning
Learning sound mechanical strokes and learning how to win are two distinctly different lesson plans. Learning how to win begins with understanding why you lose.
“Blowing a lead” is one of the most common mental and emotional match blunders seen day in and day out on the tournament trail. Learning to recognize the signs preceding the “Blowing a lead” scenario is the first step in correcting this blunder. Please read on…
We will take a peek into sports psychology to dig deeper into why your child had a top seed on the ropes, let them back in and lost another close one. Developing a pre-set protocol to handling these situations is what we call: The Art of Winning.
Below are Three Common “Blow a Lead” Scenarios and their Solutions:
SCENARIO: Top seed Mary Lee Chin just went down 2-5 to a relative nobody. Without a word, without any facial gesture at all, she calmly sits her racket down against the net and simply walks off the court. Mary is gone 10 minutes and your little Kelly’s mind is racing. “Where’d she go? Did she take a bathroom break? Did she quit? What am I supposed to do? Should I just sit here? Do I get a ref? Should I hit serves? Is she mad? Did I do something wrong? Maybe she thinks I’m cheating her and she is getting a ref against me? ”
SOLUTION : Kelly should take this time to remind herself that Mary knows deep down that stroke for stroke she doesn’t have the answer to beat her. Mary is hoping that her little “walk about” will pull Kelly’s mind away from her game plan and give her fiery strokes time to cool down. Mary Lee is hoping that random external stimuli will race through Kelly’s mind and she’ll temporarily forget about her current task at hand.
Kelly’s only job is to refocus her attention on the exact performance goals she is applying successfully. This includes successful serve patterns, return patterns, rally patterns and short ball option patterns. Any play that’s winning at a 70% rate, keep doing relentlessly.
SCENARIO: Your son, Mark, is playing in the zone. The opponent is even yelling “This dude’s treeing!!” Without even noticing, Mark had jumped to a 4-1 lead. During the changeover he slips out of his quiet, relaxed state of mind and begins an internal dialog that sounds like a rapid firing machine gun.” I’m killing this top seed…he’s not even that good. ..When I win, what are all my buddies going to say? What’s my ranking going to jump to? All those academy kids are going to see that I’m the man! Maybe now my dad will be proud of me?” The USTA will surely have to invite me to the high performance camps… I wonder how big the trophy’s going to be when I win this thing?
Mark walks back onto the court with a totally different state of mind. He looks like Mark, but he’s not Mark- “He’s a dead man walking.” Mark starts to play. He’s out of sorts, blows his massive lead and proceeds to lose the match. After losing, Mark’s opponent says” You’re getting a little better, keep it up.”
SOLUTION: Focus control is the learned behavior of rituals and routines. Mark’s loss isn’t due to stroke mechanics; it’s due to his wandering mind and his lack of changeover rituals.
Champions stay in their performance frame of mind during changeovers by applying a mental routine of only thinking two games back and two games forward. Thoughts include: Did I hold serve? Why or why not? Did I break the guy’s serve? Why or why not. Champions have taken the time to learn to how to eliminate external stimuli and only focus on the current task at hand. Mark should play 6 sets and only focus on the art of changeover rituals.
SCENARIO:
Opponent Justin has a bad reputation for gamesmanship. After your son Matt built a nice 3-0 lead, JJ or Jerky Justin, as he’s known in the tennis arena (and probably throughout his life…), starts his antics.
JJ is well versed in monitoring the location of the officials. If no linesmen are in sight, he’s a happy camper. Justin is also an expert at spotting an opponent who is emotionally vulnerable. Justin routinely hooks on line calls and does so, usually on game points. To make matters worse, he is well versed in accusing the opponent of hooking him on calls. How could I forget, JJ is also a master at changing the score and/or accusing the opponent of changing the score. I call Justin “type” players “creative line callers” – Unfortunately, they are found in every age division in every section. So, what’s the secret for Matt to overcome this situation and calmly closing out the match?
SOLUTION: The answer lies in discovering Channel Capacity.
Channel Capacity is a neurological term which refers to the degree the human brain is able to focus. The brain cannot successfully focus on two uniquely different tasks at the same time. A junior tennis player with his undivided attention on the drama of being hooked cannot simultaneously focus on the art of winning. (“Creative Line Callers” rely on this fact- even though they do not know why…) It’s a tough task even for a mature adult to focus on their performance goals relevant to the moment at hand, when all they can think about is the deliberate deception taking place before their eyes!
After a heated confrontation, I suggest taking a bathroom break of your own. Take 5 minutes to disconnect away from the drama and reconnect with your performance patterns that got you the lead. Once again, rituals and routines are the key to maintaining the proper state of mind. Rituals keep your mind busy focusing on the art of winning so it cannot wander off to the drama of the situation. Matt should play 6 sets and only focus on the art of between point rituals.
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
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Parental Role on Match Day
Thank you for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
An athletes parents play a very important and supportive role on match day. The following Parental Role on Match Day:
- Equipment preparation & nutrition/hydration requirements
- Warm up routines (Primary/Secondary Strokes) and imagery
- Keeping the player away from other players and parents
- Discuss styles of play, strengths and weaknesses instead of the opponents past successes or failures
- Emphasize the importance of executing the correct shot the moment demand
- Charting/video recording the match
- Loving and supporting their child!
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De-Stressing Your Athlete
Thank you for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Parents, it’s important to understand one of the most important parental goals of tournament play and the key to assisting your child on game day is to DE-STRESS them.
The ideal parent of an athlete helps their athlete focus on their game and not on the uncontrollable issues surrounding their game. Stress impairs performance:
- Stress Increases Muscle Contractions
- Stress Decreases Fluid Movement
- Stress Impairs Judgment
- Stress Reduces Problem Solving Skills
Athletes performs best in a calm relaxed mental state.
I recommend you and your child pre-set two to three performance goals each match. Such as: 65% first serves in, or apply offense, neutral and defensive shot selections appropriately. If your child hits all the performance goals, they win! This takes some of the pressure off the child and allows them to perform to their best of their ability (performance goal) without the stress of having to win (outcome goal). This also takes some of the stress off the parent by allowing them to chart the match performance goals. For more parental tennis tips see: The Tennis Parents Bible
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
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Nurturing Tennis Strengths
The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Nurturing your Child’s Tennis Strengths
Your child has a genetic predisposition to excel at a particular style of tennis. A common parental mistake is assuming that your child is wired like you! Most likely they have a different brain type. They may see the world differently and approach tasks differently than you would.
I’ve found that by understanding each player’s brain type, body type and personality traits similar patterns emerge as you examine obstacles and skills. Other similarities are found in frustration tolerance levels, similar styles of play and decision making abilities. The player’s upbringing, family, friends, and cultural environment also play a large part in shaping their game. This is called the “nurture” side. (The other is called the “nature” side.)
To dig deeper into brain typing I suggest you visit my friend Jon Niednagel’s site: www.braintypes.com or Google brain typing and read about your child’s preferred learning style. I suggest, that you first take a few minutes to accurately brain type yourself, your spouse and each family member. It may open a whole new world of communication.
Note: Since writing The Tennis Parent’s Bible, Jon Niednagel’s site is no longer free.
Once you have identified your child’s brain type, consider your child’s preferred learning style. The three preferred learning styles are visual learners, auditory learners and kinesthetic learners. The following is an example of talking to a visual learner.
Mr. Kolouski says to me, “I’ve explained numerous times to my son, about decreasing the racket face angle 30 degrees. I told him to rotate his right palm a quarter of a turn. I’ve expounded on the 60 degree lift through the shoulder hinge. I decipher things for hours. I explain everything in detail, yet my son’s still confused. I feel like I am conversing with a granite wall!”
Explaining detail after detail for hours on end to a visual learner is just plain preposterous.
Different people have different learning styles or preferences. Getting into your child’s world and understanding how he’s wired is the key. Remember that a parent and coaching blunder is forcing your child to enter your world!
Dozens of my students annually win their first National title and skyrocket their rankings by applying brain typing. Their training was systematically customized to their unique brain and body types and their rankings greatly improved. Best of all they enjoyed tennis again!
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
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Off-Court Training
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Accelerating your Tennis Game with Off-Court Training
A fit player is a stronger player both physically and mentally. Off Court training accelerates a player’s on court performance. When the player gets fatigued their movement gets sloppy, their stroke spacing is off and unforced errors begin to fly off their racket. Poor decision making and negative emotions set in. Often, the actual cause of a child’s emotional breakdown is lack of fitness.
Unfit players do not perform their rituals, they do not spot tendencies and they do not manage their mistake. Poor physical fitness manifests in mental and emotional breakdowns. For instance, most juniors go for low percentage shots due to the fact that they are too tired to grind out the point. So is off-court training linked to the mental side? Absolutely!
The Following Off Court Training Skills are Essential to High Performance Tennis:
- Lateral Movement (Side to side)
- Up & Back movement (Forward & back)
- Aerobic Fitness
- Ability to Accelerate
- Ability to Decelerate
- Speed/Agility
- Stamina
- Recovery Time (Between points)
- Recovery Time (Between matches)
- Strength (Upper body/core/lower body)Body Coordination (Gross motor skills)
- Hand-Eye Coordination (Fine motor skills)
- Flexibility/Stretching
- Anticipatory Speed
Accelerate your child’s tennis game with proper off court training. High level tennis demands high level fitness. Ignoring off court training and only focusing on stroke mechanics will severely limit your child’s tennis potential. I recommend you begin by selecting two or three of your child’s weakest off court tennis skills and begin developing. A stronger fitter player will be more confident and mentally tougher!
FYI: Proper hydration and nutrition is also a critical factor in the physical, mental and emotional links of every tennis competitor. As parents, we have to insist that our players fuel up before battle. Dehydration triggers fatigue, dizziness, headaches and nausea. Improper nutrition lowers the blood sugar levels to the brain. Improper nutrition and hydration guarantees poor decision making skills at crunch time.
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Secret to Maximizing Potential
The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Ten Essential Skills to Maximizing Potential
In this decade, the standard in which every industry performs is doubling and tripling annually. The world of competitive sports is no different. The game’s standards are constantly rising. How does this affect the parent’s role? Due to the increasing numbers of competitors, parents are forced to become more involved in their child’s development. Even in a one-court shot gun shack tennis club in Russia, the competition is training more efficiently. The competition is bigger, faster, stronger and smarter than ever.
FUN FACT: Let’s look at the evolution of the average service speed of some of the #1 player on the ATP pro tour. In 1980: Connors served 84 mph; 1990: Becker served at 112 mph; 2000: Sampras served 128 mph; 2010: ATP professionals often hit the 140 mph range. Andy Roddick holds the current record with a 155 mph delivery! So, what’s the actual service speed your little “Joey” will need to serve on tour in the year 2020… 160 mph plus. That’s evolution baby.
The evolution of your child’s progress is a direct link to their new found training methods. Progress is not made while staying in one’s comfort zone. I suggest asking your youngster to step outside of their comfort zone as they enter into the learning zone. This is where advances actually take place. The Tennis Parent’s Bible’s has identified ten essential steps to accelerate your child’s performance. The following post addresses 3 out of 10 essential steps:
Brain Types and Body Types
Hopefully, you’ve taken some time to visit Braintypes.com and familiarize yourself with how you and your child are wired. Different brain types certainly excel at the physical sides of the game, while some types handle pressure and evaluate tendencies better. Tennis experts agree that a combination of motor skills, mental skills and emotional skills are required at the higher levels. Understanding your child’s preferences will assist you in building their weakest link. Other wonderful benefits of understanding brain types include: disagreement resolution, relationship building, academics and vocation.
Organize a Quarterly Schedule
Purchase a weekly planner and structure in the different areas of development. This includes tournaments, off-court gym, cardio work, hitters, lessons, practice sets, and video analysis to review game days
Nurture All Four Sides of a Complete Player
- Primary and Secondary Stroke Skills
The four different forehands, four different backhands, three different serves and four different volleys need to be developed. Players possessing keen primary strokes and non-existent secondary strokes are usually come in second in a field of two. Your child’s game needs depth to go deep into the draw. - Shot and Pattern Selection Skills
Independently place your child in an offense, neutral or defensive position. Drill the movement and typical shot selections of that position. Secondly, assist your youngster in designing their proactive patterns. That is their serve patterns, return patterns, rally patterns and net rushing patterns. - Movement and Fitness Skills
Anticipatory speed is just as important as foot speed. A typical movement drill requires the coach to explain the sequence. The coach says, “Ok, forehand approach shot, forehand volley, backhand volley, overhead, let’s do it!” I recommend training brain speed as well. So, I would say “Get to the net, I’ll give you 4-6 shots”. I would randomly mix in approach shots, swing volley approach shots, traditional volleys, half volleys and overheads. Now, multitasking begins. In essence, practicing in the manner in which their expected to perform. - Focus and Emotional Skills
Emotions come into play during live ball, not drills. We call it dress rehearsal/stress rehearsal. In the session, start sets half way through and asks your child to close it out with role playing.
Here are a few valuable lessons to handle in simulated live ball drills:
- If your child has trouble with cheaters, every ball your child hits on the line, the opponent gets to call it out. This rehearses emotional control, as well as the art of winning while keeping the balls away from the opponent’s lines.
- If your child has trouble closing out a lead; ask them to only focus on sticking to the exact game plan that got them the lead. A common focus flaw is getting bored with an easy set, then going for low percentage, exotic shots.
- Another typical focus flaw is shifting from playing “to win” (AKA: Attacking) to simply pushing or “playing not to lose.” Many intermediate players get a lead against a top seed and then begin to push. Essentially hoping the top player will choke to them, and hand them the trophy. Guess what, top players didn’t reach the top by choking away matches to lesser players!
- If your child hates to play moonball/pushers, hire a college player to role play and be a pusher for the session. Ask your child to rehearse the side door/short angle pattern, the moonball approach shot to swing volley pattern and their drop shot to pass and lob patterns in actual dress rehearsals. I estimate it takes 100 hours of specific pattern rehearsals to perfect the skills needed to beat a top pusher.
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Only Playing Up Matches?
The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Should my child only play up matches?
Tennis skills must be practiced on the practice court and during practice matches. If your child is expected to win every practice match, they will most likely not practice new tennis skills for fear of losing the practice match. Putting too much stress on winning a practice match can be very destructive in the development of a high performance player.
Most junior tennis players and their parents fall into the trap of ONLY seeking “up” matches. Up matches or playing someone better is a terrific way for your child to rehearse their A game plan. It can provide a major confidence boost to hold your own or even take a set from a higher level player. It’s a prominent way to get pushed and stretched to the limit.
Two Pitfalls of ONLY Playing Up Matches:
- Your child will lose most of the time and that isn’t always the best way to motivate some brain types.
- Your child’s practice match victories may be a false victories! A false victory is achieved when the higher level opponent isn’t trying to win, but is using your child as a sparring partner to rehearse his or her B or C game plans, secondary strokes or patterns. I often ask my players to play lesser players and focus on only hitting slice backhands. They are not trying to win at all.
FUN FACT: Alexa Glatch was a great Southern California junior player. She went on to play on the WTA tours and played on the U.S. Federation Cup squad. All through her junior career we scheduled sparring matches. She would be absolutely okay with losing most of her practice matches, as she rehearsed her weaker proactive patterns or her secondary strokes that she didn’t quite own. Yet in tournament junior match play, she would bring her A game plan and beat most top juniors. Essentially giving her practice match opponents fits.
I suggest asking your child to spend an equal amount of time playing weaker players. This will assist in the development of their B and C game plans. We know that players need to master different styles of play in order to be a contender at the national level. Juniors, quite honestly, won’t even try to develop their B and C game in an up practice match. (They don’t want to lose at a faster rate. Can you blame them?) If they won’t rehearse those skills in an up practice match …and they do not want to play practice sets against weaker opponents…when will the skills be developed and rehearsed?
The interesting question is: Why won’t your child play players they speculate are worse? Usually it is a genuine fear of an ego whipping.
SPECIAL NOTE: Players that won’t play down practice matches can often blame their parent’s fragile ego. Uneducated parents unknowingly sabotage their child’s growth by not allowing them to play sets versus different styles and levels of opponents. Consider paying a college player or great adult club player to play practice matches?
At our workshops, we structure practice sets against different styles of opponents, not just different levels. If your child has issues beating a Moonball/Pusher… guess what we focus on? You guessed it, the tools required to beat a Moonball/Pusher! Also, we gladly assist players in finding a weekly up match as long as they agree to play a down match as well.
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Struggling with Consistency?
The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thank you for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Is your child struggling with consistency?
The battle cry heard daily on every court around the world is, “You need to be more consistent!” Makes sense right? It sounds simple, but how? If your child has an issue with consistency the information listed below will surely push them into a higher level. Try the following solutions to help your child become a more consistent player. Work these kinks out of your game and you’ll have a house full of trophies.
- Train Almost Every Day
Practice in the manner in which you’re expecting to perform. Design patterns and positions to expose your strengths and hide your weaknesses. Winning two tough matches a day for 5 days straight is the criteria for winning a national title. Try and play one match a day for a week. If it sounds too tough, try to play a full match for three days straight.
- Rehearse Shot Selection
The most common type of error in junior tennis is low percentage shot selection. Abiding by the laws of offence, neutral and defensive is a factor. Spotting tendencies as they occur is a critical factor in proper shot selection.
FUN FACT: The “window” your ball travels above the net is crucial in the development of depth. This is called “air zones.” Consistent depth is a key to consistent wins.
- Simply Match the Speed of the Incoming Ball
Champions’ are comfortable matching the ball speed. Fighting the compulsion to always increase the ball speed is a sure fire way to be more consistent. When you don’t have the feel in a match, shift to this plan. This is also a super warm up routine. It shows the opponent you are stable versus crazy.
- Hit the Right Side of the Ball
Beginner and intermediate players are happy simply hitting the ball. Top players understand that to hit short angles, topspin lobs and slice shots, it requires more detail. The hidden gem here is that it trains you to watch the ball more carefully. You simply can’t hit the outside edge of the ball traveling at you at 100 mph if your eyes are wondering.
- Spacing
Proper movement and positioning around the strike zone is called spacing. Using adjustment steps to align each stroke is an underlying factor in the ability to actually use good form. A common cause of short ball errors is spacing.
- Proper Form
Forms include grips, backswings, follow-throughs, core balance and keeping her head still through the strike zone. Cleaning up flawed strokes involves “trimming the fat” versus adding more to the player’s stroke.
- Master Spin
In high level tennis, spin is simply used as a consistency tool. The key ingredient in hitting the ball hard and in is spin. Also, as the ball speed increases in a rally, a player then must slow down the ball with spin to re-gain a positioning advantage. Controlling the point consistently is done with spin.
- Repainting the Line
It is not the player’s job to paint the lines. Keep balls down the center when you aren’t feeling a clean groove. Players who gun for the line make boat loads of errors, allow a cheater easy access to cheat as they increase their frustration and complicate even the easiest of matches.
- Increase your Fitness
Being fit has wonderful benefits. It increases your overall confidence, allows you to stay in points longer, think clearer, problem solving better, accelerate and decelerate quicker, use cleaner strokes, calm the breathing and heart rate, recover faster after long points, recover after long matches and prevent injuries.
- Increase your Focus
Ability A common issue with inconsistency is playing solid, winning tennis three games in a row; then getting bored or unfocused and giving three games right back. Staying in the moment and focusing on your next point’s performance goals are “key.” This is done by mastering between point rituals. Also play an inner game with yourself. Focus on simply winning three points in a row when you are bored.
How to be more consistent from the back court?
- Simply match the incoming ball speed versus increasing velocity.
- Choose cross court for added room as well as a lower net.
- Aim 3-4 feet inside the lines when you choose to hit big.
- Apply spin (topspin and/or slice) to increase control.
- Adjust to the current playing conditions.
- Apply proper offensive, neutral and defensive shot selections.
- Choose your strengths and avoid your weaknesses.
- Apply “air zones”, by hitting through the proper heights above the net.
- Consider the “court zones”, where the incoming ball lands dictate your shot selection.
- Take a fresh look at your fundamentals. Re-tooling a mechanical flaw may make all the difference.
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
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