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How to Stay Focused During Tennis Matches

by Cosmin {WebTennis24} | Tennis Tips Blog | 0 comments

Often, during a match, players allow themselves to be distracted by certain external factors. By the time they realize what’s happening, they have already lost a set or even the entire match. This raises the question: How can a player stay focused during a match?

In this article, I will highlight four tips that I’m confident will help you concentrate more effectively in your next tennis match:

Keep your eyes on the court.
It’s easy to get distracted by noises from the surroundings, such as people shouting or crying babies. Therefore, it’s crucial to keep your eyes focused on what’s happening on the court. This includes paying attention to your opponent, the ball, and the umpire or scorekeeper if applicable.

Learn to watch the ball.
While it may seem obvious that you should be watching the ball as it approaches you, sometimes our attention shifts prematurely toward where we want to send the ball. To address this, I have an exercise that I would like you to practice:
Find a quiet spot, either sitting or standing, and choose a spot on the wall or any object to direct your gaze towards. Try to maintain your focus on that spot without allowing your eyes to wander for a minute or two.
This exercise will improve your ability to concentrate and track objects like the ball during a match.

Always remember the score.
To stay focused and engaged in the match, it’s important to continuously be aware of the score.
I recently witnessed a match where my younger daughter was losing. She approached the fence near where I was watching and asked, “Tati, what’s the score?” This made me realize that her lack of focus on the score was impacting her performance.
Not knowing the score during a game is a sign that your attention is wavering, and your mind is not fully in the game.

Stay focused during long rallies by counting.
A helpful technique to maintain focus, especially during extended rallies, is to count each time you hit the ball. Start from one and continue counting with each stroke.
This method keeps your attention anchored to the ball and ensures your presence in the rally.

Give these four tips a try, and I’m confident you will experience improved focus and, hopefully, achieve more victories in your tennis matches.

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

How to Practice Against the Wall | Tennis Drills, Tips and Tricks

by Cosmin {WebTennis24} | Tennis Tips Blog | 0 comments

Do you find playing against the wall boring?

One of our subscribers asked me how to make the best of wall practice – get a good workout while improving his tennis skills.

So here’s the advice I gave him, and a few drills to consider:

“If I had a wall to work with only, I would focus on conditioning, accuracy, and ball feel. That means hitting a lot of balls (pick a number that you consider challenging), without making a mistake, aiming them at a certain spot assigned on the wall.

Every time I practice against the wall, I draw a circle/square on it (if there wasn’t one already) and try hitting a certain number of balls into that area (I usually go for 15, 20, or 25).

A Word of Caution:

Do not stay too close to the wall because the ball comes back sooner than you would if you were rallying with someone over a net – that means your stroke technique will be rushed, your arm will become tense, and your follow-through/finish will be shortened.

Instead, stay further back and, if you want, let the ball bounce twice so that you have more time to relax your arm on every shot.

Another aspect you can practice is footwork and conditioning (see the first drill below).

Here are a few drills that you can do against the wall:

1) Hit the ball straight ahead and move your position side to side, alternating one forehand and then one backhand. Your legs will soon be tired and you’ll get excellent cardio.

2) Practice the transition from the imaginary baseline to the net – hit 3-4 groundstrokes, then move up to take the ball right off the bounce (half-volley) and advance closer to the wall where you take the ball in the air (volleys).

3) Serve, then move up to take the next ball as a half-volley, and continue towards the wall where you will practice volleys (practice serve-and-volley).

You can be creative with your wall workout, but keep in mind to NOT stay too close to the wall because you’ll become tense and rush your technique.”

Do YOU have any suggestions to get the best out of the tennis wall practice? Share it with us in the comment box below.

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

How to Anticipate the Lob for Better Offense

by Cosmin {WebTennis24} | Tennis Tips Blog | 0 comments

As a tennis player, you know that moving up to the net can give you a great advantage in the game.

However, it can also leave you vulnerable to lobs from your opponent(s).

Anticipating a lob can be the difference between winning and losing a point, so it’s important to know how to read your opponent’s shots and react quickly.

The following (2) tips are part of Tennis Questions / Tennis Answers which is one of the newest WebTennis24 programs focusing on quick tips and short lessons on technique, mental strength, tactics and strategies:

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Q: Is there a way to know if my opponent intends to lob me?

A: You come up to the net, split step, and get ready to hit your first volley.

But your opponent intends to lob you. How can you tell if he is going to do that?

There are two things that give away your opponent’s intention of hitting a lob:

Cue 1: He is backing up (making at least one step back) – in this situation, the court will be too big for him to hit an aggressive groundstroke passing shot, therefore he will choose to lob you.

Cue 2: He leans backward – meaning, he transfers his weight onto his back foot. This is another cue showing that he intends to get under the ball and send it high.

Once you learn to read those cues, take a step away from the net as soon as you can, and prepare for an overhead. Better have room afterward to step forward and smash the ball than have to scramble for one that you could barely reach.

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Discover more tips and quick lessons inside the Tennis Questions / Tennis Answers.

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

How I Learned the One-Handed Backhand (And You Can Too!)

by Cosmin {WebTennis24} | Tennis Tips Blog | 2 comments

The following is a personal story of when I decided to switch from a two-handed to a one-handed backhand.

But first, I want to take you back to the time I started to play tennis (at the age of 12)…

I was a skinny boy with weak wrists and forearms.

I barely had any control of my forehand, but my two-handed backhand was the main shot that I could rely on even when playing against older and more powerful players.

For many years, I had trusted the backhand more than any other tennis shot.

Later on, with the help of my father, who was willing to feed balls to me from the basket, I began to develop the forehand in order to catch up with my strong two-handed backhand.

My father would feed hundreds of balls every day to my forehand until I started feeling equally confident on both sides.

But then…

Years later, when I became a tennis coach, I realized that I needed to hold a few tennis balls in my non-dominant hand as I was rallying with my students, and so I decided to…

…”teach” myself the one-handed backhand… with which I fell in love from the first day.

It was not hard because I followed a series of progression drills that really helped me to understand the point of contact, the body balance (which is different than that of the two-handed backhand), and, of course, through a lot of repetition, I developed the timing necessary to hit the ball early.

The progression drills that I followed to learn the one-handed backhand are the same I use now to teach many students all the tennis strokes.

And I put them all inside the WebTennis24 program which you can have full access to:

ULTIMATE TRAINING FOR TENNIS PLAYERS – learn and master the one-handed and two-handed backhand groundstrokes, and more

Tennis is easy if you break it down into small tasks and put in the time to practice them.

Have fun learning or teaching this sport!

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

I Play THIS Tennis Game Once a Week (Friendly Competition)

by Cosmin {WebTennis24} | Tennis Tips Blog | 0 comments

I want to share something with you…

A solution to playing competitive tennis and enjoying your time on the court…

You see, I know this junior player whom I coach once in a while. She is a 17-year-old who LOVES tennis.

That’s why I agreed to play and practice with her once a week.

But, as much as she would like to play matches and see whether she can beat me or not, I came up with a game that suits us both: she gets to play competitively against me, and I get a good workout and practice my strokes.

It goes as follows:

We play a tennis game that continues until we decide to put a stop to it.

There is no score.

I serve for two points, she serves for two, alternating. We play every point out, but do not count it.

In this way, we play competitively, but do not keep track of the score.

No egos involved, no frustrations when missing a shot…

We just have a good time playing tennis, enjoying every point, learning from mistakes, and improving our tactics based on the decisions we make.

You can try this too. With your tennis partner(s).

It is a good way to play competitive tennis without the pressure of winning or losing. You will practice your strokes technique, get a good workout, and work on your match tactics in a relaxed way.

Try it and let me know how it goes in the comments below.

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

Why I Decided to Teach My Daughters Tennis

by Cosmin {WebTennis24} | Tennis Tips Blog | 0 comments

Do you consider that every tennis coach has a duty to introduce their children to tennis? Even if only to teach them the basics so they can enjoy it later with their friends?

These were questions I was asking myself as my baby daughters were turning 4 and 5 years old.

Many days and nights had I thought about it: what if they didn’t like tennis? Is there a social expectation from a tennis coach to have his children pick up the sport he likes so much?

I was young and did not have answers to those questions…

One of the biggest thoughts that I could not shake off was the one that eventually made me decide to take this step and introduce my daughters to tennis:

“Would I forgive myself after 20-30 years if I did not teach them to play tennis?”

No, I would not.

And this is how I got my daughters started with this sport.

There is more to this story, but I have to keep it short –

My daughters began with group classes so they could see other kids enjoying tennis, and only after they got a taste of this sport, they asked me to be their coach.

It was not easy because my daughters have strong personalities. And they “knew better than me” how to hit the ball and would not accept anybody telling them how to do it.

Even though their father was a tennis coach…
They knew tennis better than I. 🙂

Teaching your kids is not an easy task, but it would give a parent great satisfaction seeing them grow in the sport, become competitive, and learn to work hard to develop their skills… not to mention the hours you spend with them on the court is just… priceless.

So yes, I did manage to teach my two daughters to play tennis and we did this process together for 9 years.

Best part?

Occasionally, my wife would record some of their lessons.

If you want to see how I did it, and learn the techniques, the games, and the ways I interacted with my daughters on the tennis court, you can watch the whole 9-year process in this WebTennis24 section called My Daddy / My Coach.

Was it easy, or was it hard?

It does not matter.

The time I spent with them on the court during all those years is just precious.

If you are teaching your children or intend to do it soon, I am here for you.

I’ve done it, so I know what you will be going through.