John Cavill

I recently attended a conference and one of the topics was on Visual Coordination by a lady called Silvina Jozami at the Elite Tennis Academy in Spain. This particular topic is fascinating and the reaction of the people within the room while she presented was somewhat enlightening! I regularly visit the Global Tennis Team Academy in Mallorca, which is run by Jofre Porter and it was 7 years ago that the same information that Silvina discussed was shared with me by Jofre, so I thought I’d share with you all some important information you should consider when coaching your players.

Laterality refers to the preference most humans show for one side of their body over the other.

Examples include left-handedness/right-handedness and left/right-footedness, it may also refer to the primary use of the left or right hemisphere in the brain. Tennis is a very one-sided dominant sport as the serve is usually with the same hand every time and the huge majority of players use 1 hand for the forehand BUT why do some people have preference of a certain hand? There is no scientific evidence that someone is naturally born left or right handed, so this can only be put down to environment and possibly copying others.

When you refer to coordination in tennis, eye dominance is another huge factor as tennis is a receptive game where reactions come from a stimulus e.g. the ball or player. Everyone has a dominant eye and again, there is no evidence that you are born with a dominancy. To find out whether you are left or right eye dominant, I found the Miles Test on YouTube. The video demonstrates The Miles test where the observer extends both arms, brings both hands together to create a small opening, then with both eyes open views a distant object through the opening. The observer then alternates closing the eyes or slowly draws opening back to the head to determine which eye is viewing the object (i.e. the dominant eye).

There are many methods of improving sports vision skills for optimum athletic performance and they will vary, depending on your sport. It is also important to know that your eyes aren’t fully developed until 7 years old so perception skills in younger children e.g. judging depth, can be difficult for them.

If you are right handed and left eye dominant, you are referred to as ‘cross’. People who are cross are able to process more information quicker, which is to do with the side of the brain they are using and the greater increase of neuro channels that created for the messages to reach the body.

When you track a tennis ball coming off the opponent’s strings, the player has to have their full attention on what is happening during this moment. Through visual memory the players must make a split-second decision about their next move based on where they see their opponent and where the ball is on the court. You can’t really improve your focus flexibility as successfully through vision training or eye exercises when the loss of this skill is caused by presbyopia, which is the deteriorations of the eye and ability to focus on object close up. However, everyone can practice focus flexibility by concentrating on switching focus between distant and near objects.

A lot of players mishit shots when their focus isn’t on the ball hitting the strings of the racket.

They tend to look up to see where they want the ball to go and as attention can only be in one place, the contact is compromised. When you see Roger Federer playing shots in slow motions, he always looks on balance, his head is still throughout the stroke, contact point in front and his eyes are focussed on the contact point. He only looks up once he’s later on in the follow through with the stroke.

Experts have discussed the need to train the ‘Quiet Eye’ for improved shooting or striking results rather than comprehensively understanding what the underlying mechanisms are of the shot. The Quiet Eye has been defined as the final visual fixation of a long steady duration (500-3000 milli seconds) and has been described as a perception action variable. In tennis the Quiet Eye would be when our final fixation of the opponent hitting the ball and then the processing of this information to determine where the ball will land, it’s speed, trajectory, height, distance and spin. This information will ultimately lead to the player moving into the right position and making a decision on the shot they must execute.

Through experience as a tennis player they develop visual memory.

Visual memory is a form of memory that preserves some characteristics of our senses pertaining to visual experience. We are able to place in memory visual information which resembles objects, places, animals or people in a mental image. In tennis, visual memory is important to recognising the body position of your opponent to anticipate a response from their shot. Here is a simple game I found on the Internet, www.toytheater.com/visual-memory.php …I am impressed if you can guess where all 9 colours are placed with only 5 seconds to memorise them!

Dynamic visual acuity enables you to see objects clearly when they are moving quickly. You may have 20/20 vision when sitting still and reading an eye chart, but when motion is involved, your visual acuity could be worse. In sports vision testing, you might be asked to view objects or words that move fast across a computer screen and then identify them before they disappear.

The eye is a very complex and interesting object and its function in tennis makes a huge difference to performance. Next time you are on court and the players aren’t quite getting into position, not making contact in front or are not reacting to their opponents shots quick enough then hopefully some of the information in this article will help you delve further into the reasons as to why.

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