Todd Widom

All too often while watching junior or collegiate tennis players play matches, it is very difficult to figure out what is trying to be accomplished on the court in a tournament or collegiate match. The best tennis players know exactly how they are going to construct points against the opponent and how they are going to use their strengths against the opponent’s weaknesses.

Playing a match and running and hitting a tennis ball wherever you would like is not going to help you win more matches. Tennis is a thinking game and if you do not know how to plan points properly and execute them, your development will come to a screeching halt.

In the United States, it seems that we have become obsessed with perfecting our strokes rather than working on some more crucial areas of tennis that are going to help you win more matches.

Having proper technique is important, but understanding the game of tennis and moving and competing properly on the court is much more important. If you look at the best tennis players in the world, they all have weaknesses.

Taking more technical lessons and trying to develop pretty tennis strokes generates more money for the coaches. The best tennis players in the world hit the ball well, but also keep in mind that they have hit millions of tennis balls in a high disciplined environment for many years, which produces high level tennis players.

What people fail to understand, is that these high level tennis players are amazing athletes, and they could never hit these types of shots without grueling physical workouts that they endure day after day.

Tennis is a game of brains, toughness, and movement. There are plenty of professionals that have a weird stroke or a hitch in their game, but somehow they make a great living at this amazing sport. Once you get to a certain level, everyone can hit a tennis ball well, so what separates one player from another?

Athleticism, fitness and mental toughness is what is going to separate the high-level players from the not so high level players, at all levels. There is a reason that other countries are developing better and a larger number of professionals then the United States. Their philosophies of tennis are based on physicality, mental toughness, smarts, discipline and sound technique, not the most beautiful tennis strokes.

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