🎾 Coaching Tennis Technical And Tactical Skills¶
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Coaching
Tennis
Technical and
Tactical Skills
American Sport
Education Program
with Kirk Anderson
Human Kinetics
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coaching tennis technical and tactical skills / American Sport Education Program.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-5380-8 (soft cover)
ISBN-10: 0-7360-5380-8 (soft cover)
1. Tennis--Coaching. I. American Sport Education Program.
GV1002.9.C63C63 2009
796.342--dc22
2009002238
ISBN-10: 0-7360-5380-8 (print) ISBN-10: 0-7360-8607-2 (Adobe PDF)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-5380-8 (print) ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-8607-3 (Adobe PDF)
Copyright � 2009 by Human Kinetics, Inc.
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contents
preface v
Part ITeaching and Evaluating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
chapter 1 Teaching Sport Skills 3
chapter 2 Evaluating Technical and Tactical Skills 9
Part IITeaching Technical Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
chapter 3 Foundational Skills 21
chapter 4 Strokes and Shots 65
Part IIITeaching Tactical Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
chapter 5 Singles and Doubles Tactics 141
chapter 6 Offensive Tactical Skills 153
chapter 7 Defensive Tactical Skills 191
Part IV Planning for Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
chapter 8 Season Plans 219
chapter 9 Practice Plans 229
Part V Match Coaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
chapter 10 Preparing for Matches 241
chapter 11 During and After the Match 249
index 253
about the authors 261
iii
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preface
If you are a seasoned tennis coach, surely you have experienced the frustration of
watching your players perform well in practice, only to find them underperform-
ing in matches. In your own playing days, you likely saw the same events unfold.
In practice, your teammates, or perhaps even you, could hit the first serve with
good pace and spin forcing your opponent wide on the court. You could then move
forward to the net and hit the first volley crisply to the opening on the opposite
side of the court, but you could not transfer that kind of performance to the match.
Although this book will not provide you with a magical quick fix to your players'
problems, it will help you prepare your players for match day. Whether you are
a veteran coach or are new to coaching, Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical
Skills will help you take your players' games to the next level by providing you
with the tools you need to teach them the game of tennis.
Every tennis coach knows the importance of technical skills. The ability to
hit groundstrokes accurately and with a variety of spins, as well as powerful,
directed serves, and win points at the net with decisive volleys and overheads
can significantly affect the outcome of a match. This book discusses the basic
and intermediate technical skills necessary for your players' success, including
offensive, defensive, and neutral skills. You will learn how to detect and correct
errors in your players' performances of those skills and then help them transfer
the knowledge and ability they gain in practice to matches.
Besides covering technical skills, this book also focuses on tactical skills, includ-
ing offensive skills such as hitting groundstrokes from the backcourt, approach-
ing the net to hit volleys and overheads, and playing the serve-and-volley style.
Your players will learn to identify the style that works best for them and is the
most effective against the preferred style of the opponent. The book discusses the
tactical triangle, an approach that teaches players to read a situation, acquire the
knowledge they need to make a tactical decision, and apply decision-making skills
to the problem. To advance this method, the book covers important cues that help
athletes respond appropriately when they see a play developing, including impor-
tant rules, match strategies, and the strengths and weaknesses of opponents.
In addition to presenting rigorous technical and tactical training to prepare
your athletes for match situations, this book also provides guidance in how to
v
vi Preface
improve their match performance by incorporating matchlike situations into
daily training. We describe many traditional drills that can be effective but also
show you how to shape, focus, and enhance drills and minigames to help players
transfer their technical skills to tactical situations that occur during matches. For
example, you can change a tedious crosscourt groundstroke drill into an exciting,
competitive contest by keeping score of the number of balls that land behind the
service line and how many times the opponent has to play the shot from outside
the doubles alley.
This book also covers planning at several levels--the season plan, practice plans,
and match plans. We offer a set of eight-session practice plans based on the games
approach, which cover the length of the practice session, objective of the practice,
equipment needed, warm-up, practice of previously taught skills, teaching and
practicing new skills, cool-down, and evaluation.
Of course, playing in matches is what your practices eventually lead to. This
book shows you how to prepare long before the first match, addressing such is-
sues as communicating with players and parents, scouting your opponents, and
motivating your players. You will learn how to control your players' performances
on match day by establishing routines, as well as how to help them play at optimal
pace, maintain focus between points, and hit every shot with purpose. You will also
learn how to manage around such elements as wind, sun, and court surface.
Part I
Teaching and
Evaluating
Being a good coach requires more than simply knowing the sport of tennis. You
have to go beyond the sport and find a way to teach your athletes how to be bet-
ter players. To improve your players' performance, you must know how to teach
and evaluate them.
In chapter 1 we go over the fundamentals of teaching sport skills. We first
provide a general overview of tennis and talk about the importance of being an
effective teacher. Next, we define some important skills, helping you gain a bet-
ter understanding of technical and tactical skills before discussing the traditional
and games approaches to coaching.
We build on the knowledge of how to teach sport skills by addressing the evalu-
ation of technical and tactical skills in chapter 2. We discuss the importance of
evaluating athletes and review the core skills you should assess and how you
can best do so. This chapter stresses the importance of preseason, in-season,
and postseason evaluations and provides you with tools you can use to evaluate
your players.
By learning how to teach and evaluate your players, you will be better prepared
to help them improve their performance.
1
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1 chapter
Teaching
Sport Skills
Tennis is a very simple sport. The object is to hit the ball over the net and inside the
boundary lines one more time than the opponent does. As simple as that sounds,
the task of hitting a ball over a net and into the court has multiple variables that
each player must master to be a successful competitor.
The most obvious skills are the strokes used to hit the ball over the net: forehand
and backhand groundstrokes, first and second serves, serve returns, volleys, and
overheads. Other shots are lobs, approach shots, and drop shots.
In addition, a good tennis player must understand the five controls for each
of the preceding strokes: direction, distance, height, spin, and speed. With all of
these variables to master, every player must also adjust to an opponent's shots so
as to keep the ball away from the opponent.
To get to every ball, players must learn how to move before playing a shot and
how to recover after a shot. In addition, they must adjust to their own strengths,
the weaknesses of the opponent, their position on the court, and the playing con-
ditions.
Players must also be aware of the mental side of the game. Keeping track of
the score; calling balls in and out; controlling their thoughts and emotions; and
dealing with errors, conditions, and idiosyncrasies of their opponents are all parts
of the game.
Players on a doubles team must do all of the preceding while also working with a
partner on the same side of the court. Doubles players need to have all of the skills
of singles players while also understanding doubles formations. The team must
3
4 Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills
do everything possible to return balls to openings on the opponents' side of the
court and fill the gaps before the opponents can hit their shot to these openings.
Although tennis is a simple game, there is always something new that players
can learn, either tactics or techniques, that will make them better players or teams.
The learning and playing take place in almost every country, where players are
playing on the same-size court and with identical rules. These rules apply to men
and women, children and seniors. Tennis is truly a game for every person, in any
country, and it's a game that can be played for a lifetime.
Effective Teaching
Effective tennis coaches must be well schooled in teaching both singles and
doubles skills, shot selection, and movement and recovery. Coaches who are ten-
nis players have to learn about all styles of play because players come in all sizes
and temperaments. Because they must be able to teach more than one stroke or
style of play, coaches must learn much more than the style and strokes they use
when they play.
If you, like many coaches, play the game, you must master the transition from
playing the game to teaching the game, a more difficult step than most people
realize. To perform successfully, athletes need to gain a sense of how each skill
feels--how they have to move and think. As a teacher, you have to search for
ways to help your players gain that sense, that feeling, of how to perform skills,
and you must understand that different athletes often perceive the same skill in
different ways.
Additionally, to be an effective teacher, you must accept responsibility for the
performance of your athletes. If you hide behind the tired excuse that your athletes
just can't play, you will never be motivated to find the teaching strategy that will
produce improvement. But if you adopt the credo that the team reflects everything
the coach has taught the players, or everything the coach has allowed them to
do, then you will understand that every player can improve. Even if an athlete's
skill level is average, you can motivate her to hustle and give great effort, you can
drill her until she executes perfectly, and you can inspire her to help the whole be
greater than the sum of the parts. If you continually search for new ways to teach
the same skill, you will eventually find a phrase, drill, or concept that triggers the
athlete's reactions in such a way that she finally starts showing improvement in
areas where she previously struggled.
You have the responsibility of finding a way to teach, or motivate, your players
to improve their skills. This concept alone--your acceptance of responsibility for
your players' performances--will produce creative, exciting, and extremely effective
teaching, the kind of teaching that results in improved skills and performances
by both the individual players and the team as a whole.
Technical and Tactical Skills
As a coach, you are responsible for patiently and systematically explaining and
drilling your athletes on the basic skills and shot patterns that make up the game.
These skills, called technical skills, are the fundamentals that provide each player
with the tools to execute the physical requirements of the game. Each day at
Teaching Sport Skills 5
practice, you also must create scenarios on the court in which players have to use
their technical skills in matchlike situations, forcing them to make decisions that
simulate the choices they will have to make in a match. These skills, called tacti-
cal skills, are the bridge between practice performance and match performance.
Although the proper execution of technical skills is necessary for success, the
tactical skills (i.e., the ability to make the appropriate decisions) are the key to
having everything come together when it counts--in the match.
Obviously, other types of skills, such as pure physical capacity, mental skills,
communication ability, and character traits, all contribute to athletic performance
(Rainer Martens, Successful Coaching, Third Edition, Champaign, IL: Human
Kinetics, 2004, p. 170). Although all these skills are important, effective teaching
of the technical and tactical skills provides the foundation for successful tennis
coaching.
The variety of skills used in tennis is massive and impossible to chronicle in
one text. Consequently, this book focuses on the basic to intermediate technical
and tactical skills in tennis. These skills were compiled with the help of the United
States Tennis Association. The goal is to provide a resource that will help you im-
prove your understanding and instructional methods as you strive to teach your
players the great game of tennis.
Technical Skills
Technical skills are "the specific procedures to move one's body to perform the
task that needs to be accomplished" (Martens, Successful Coaching, p. 169). The
proper execution of the technical skills of tennis is, obviously, crucial to success-
ful performance. Most coaches, even those with little experience, know what the
basic technical skills of tennis are: serves, serve returns, groundstrokes, volleys,
approach shots, lobs, and overheads. But your ability to teach athletes how to
perform those skills usually develops only over a long period, as you gain coach-
ing experience.
The goal of this book is to speed up the timetable of teaching skills by improv-
ing your ability to do the following:
� Clearly communicate the basic elements of each skill to the athlete.
� Construct drills and teaching scenarios to rehearse those skills.
� Detect and correct errors in the athletes' performance of skills.
� Help athletes transfer knowledge and ability from practice to matches.
Effective coaches have the capacity to transfer their knowledge and understand-
ing of skills into improved performance of those skills by their athletes. This book
outlines a plan that will help you do just that by teaching you how to become a
master of the basic to intermediate technical skills of tennis and provide your
athletes with the resources necessary for success.
Tactical Skills
Mastery of the technical skills of tennis is important, but athletes must also learn
the tactics of the game. Tactical skills are defined as "the decisions and actions
of players in the contest to gain an advantage over the opposing team or players"
6 Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills
(Martens, Successful Coaching, p. 170). Many tennis resources overlook the tacti-
cal aspects of the game. Coaches even omit tactical considerations from practice
because they are focused so intently on teaching technical skills. Another reason
for this omission is that tactics are difficult to teach. One way that you can ap-
proach tactical skills is by focusing on the following three critical aspects, the
"tactical triangle" (Martens, Successful Coaching, p. 215):
� Reading the play or situation
� Acquiring the knowledge needed to make an appropriate tactical decision
� Applying decision-making skills to the problem
This book as a whole provides you with the knowledge you need to teach play-
ers how to use the tactical triangle. Part III covers cues that help athletes respond
appropriately when they see a play developing, including rules of the game, game
strategies, and opponents' strengths and weaknesses that affect match situations,
as well as ways to teach athletes how to acquire and use this knowledge. Part III
will also help you teach athletes how to make appropriate choices in given situa-
tions and show you how to empower players to recognize emerging situations on
their own and make sound judgments.
Perhaps the greatest frustration for a coach is to witness athletes making er-
rors in matches on skills they have repeatedly drilled in practice. For example,
in practice a player demonstrates perfect footwork while moving forward to play
an approach shot and continues to the net where he hits a controlled and well-
placed volley. During a match, however, he rushes his steps and overhits the ap-
proach shot and volleys wildly without getting set at the net. Transferring skills
from practice to the match can be difficult, but you can reduce errors by placing
the athletes in matchlike situations in practice to work on tactical skill decisions.
Only after rehearsing the tactical decision repeatedly in practice will the athletes
be prepared to execute those decisions (while maintaining their execution of the
related technical skills) in the match.
Traditional Versus Games Approach
to Coaching
As mentioned, transferring skills from practice to matches can be difficult. A
sound background of technical and tactical training prepares athletes for match
situations. Incorporating matchlike situations into daily training, however, in-
creases the likelihood that players will transfer skills from practices to matches.
To understand how to accomplish this, you must be aware of two approaches to
coaching--the traditional approach and the games approach.
Part IV of this book provides examples of both the traditional approach and the
games approach to coaching. Although each style has its particular advantages, the
concept favored in this book is the games approach. The games approach provides
athletes with a competitive situation governed by clear objectives and focused on
specific individuals and concepts. The games approach creates a productive and
meaningful learning environment in which athletes are motivated by both the
structure of the drills and the improvements they make. Finally, the games ap-
proach prepares athletes for competition because they have experienced situations
that closely resemble the tactical situations they will see in the match.
Teaching Sport Skills 7
Traditional Approach
Although the games approach to coaching has much merit, the traditional ap-
proach to coaching also has value. The traditional approach often begins with a
warm-up period, followed by individual drills, group drills, and then a substantial
team period, or scrimmage, at the end of the practice. The traditional approach
can be helpful in teaching the technical skills of tennis. But unless you shape,
focus, and enhance the team period, the athletes may be unable to transfer the
skills they learn in the drills to the scrimmage situation in practice or, worse, into
effective performance, especially of tactical skills, in matches.
Games Approach
The games approach emphasizes the use of games and minigames to provide ath-
letes with situations that are as close to a real match as possible (Alan G. Launder,
Play Practice, Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2001). But this method requires
more than just putting the players on the court, throwing out a ball, and letting
them play. You should use the following three components any time you use the
games approach:
1. Shaping
2. Focusing
3. Enhancing
Shaping play allows you to modify the game in a way that is conducive to learn-
ing the skills your athletes are working on. You can shape play by modifying the
rules, the environment (playing area), the objectives of the game, and the number of
players (Launder, p. 56). In scrimmage situations the stronger players often domi-
nate, and the weaker players merely get through the scrimmage without playing
a strong, active role. If you shape play by reducing the playing area, every athlete
will have the opportunity to learn and practice the skills required for tennis.
You also need to be sure to focus the athletes on the specific objectives of the
game. Players are more apt to learn, or at least be open to learning, if they know
why they are playing the game and how the tactics they are rehearsing fit into the
bigger picture. Provide the athletes with clear objectives and a straightforward ex-
planation of how those objectives will help them become better tennis players.
Finally, you must play an active role throughout the game, enhancing the play
by stopping the game at the teachable moment and instructing the athletes about
how they could improve their decision-making or technical skills.
A game called Half-Court Singles is an example of the games approach to teach-
ing tactical skills. This game involves two singles players playing points using only
half the singles court. The regular singles court is divided down the middle so the
center service line is extended to the baseline, making the court 78 feet long but
only 13.5 feet wide. This narrow court forces the players to use short and deep
shots to move their opponents and create openings. The objective of the game is
to move the opponent very deep in the court so the player can hit a short ball by
using a drop shot or drop volley in front of her, or to draw her opponent to the net
so she can hit a lob over her head into the backcourt. Because the court is narrow,
hitting the ball with angles will be ineffective, so players will need to think about
and work short and deep ball sequences.
8 Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills
To play this game, have players play to 10 points. Each player serves 2 points
before changing serves. To emphasize the deep and short openings, players are
awarded 2 points for hitting a successful drop shot or drop volley (a shot that
bounces on the court twice before the opponent can play the shot). Also, award 2
points for a successful lob that the player at the net cannot touch.
This game forces all players to think about keeping the ball in play and not
giving the opponent free points with unforced errors. It also makes players think
about how to win points by hitting a series of shots rather than a one-shot winner.
In this situation players are forced to use a combination of short and deep shots
to win points. This is a great learning situation for all players because it makes
them think about hitting every shot with a purpose.
The game seems simple, but some fascinating scenarios invariably unfold,
creating vivid opportunities for teaching. For example, if a player has an opening
shot in the court but hits a poor drop shot, it gives the opponent time to move
forward, play the shot, and take an offensive position at the net. Players will learn
that they must create an opening by forcing the opponent behind the baseline,
but they must be inside the baseline themselves to execute a successful drop shot.
This scenario illustrates some intriguing dimensions of the games approach to
coaching. Later sections of the text will offer more examples of this approach for
you to use in creating great learning experiences for your athletes.
Coaching tennis is a complex yet rewarding job. Tennis coaches are responsible
not only for the development of good players but also for the development of young
people who know right from wrong and how to make good behavioral decisions.
The emphasis of this book is on the concepts and strategies of teaching the basic
to intermediate technical and tactical skills of tennis, using both the traditional
and games approaches. The foundation of effective teaching that this book pro-
vides will help you master the art of helping your athletes refine and improve the
array of skills and techniques that make up the diverse, complex, and fascinating
game of tennis.
2 chapter
Evaluating
Technical and
Tactical Skills
Tennis is both an individual sport and a team sport. In building your team, you
should use specific evaluation tools to assess the development of the individual
parts that make up the whole of the team. You must remember that basic physical
skills contribute to the performance of the technical and tactical skills. In addition,
an array of nonphysical skills, such as mental capacity, communication skills, and
character skills, overlay athletic performance and affect its development (Rainer
Martens, Successful Coaching, Third Edition). In this chapter we examine evalua-
tion guidelines, exploring the specific skills you should evaluate and the tools to
use to accomplish those evaluations. Evaluations as described in this chapter will
help you critique your players objectively, something that you should continually
strive to do.
Guidelines for Evaluation
Regardless of the skill you are measuring and the evaluation tool you are using,
you should observe the basic guidelines that govern the testing and evaluation
process. First, the athletes need to know and understand the purpose of the
test and its relationship to the sport. If you are evaluating a technical skill, the
9
10 Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills
correlation should be easy. But when you are evaluating physical skills, or mental,
communication, or character skills, you must explain the correlation between the
skill and the aspect of the game that will benefit.
Second, you must motivate your athletes to improve. Understanding the cor-
relation to the game will help, but sometimes the matches seem a long way away
during practices and training. In the physical skills area, elevating the status of
the testing process can help inspire the athletes. If you can create a match-day
atmosphere with many players present and watching as you conduct the testing,
the athletes will compete with more energy and enthusiasm than they would if you
ran the tests in a more clinical fashion. Goal boards and record boards posting
all-time best performances can also motivate the athletes. The best of these boards
have several categories, including the longest rally from baseline to baseline, the
longest rally from the baseline to the net, the longest rally at the net from volley
to volley, and target hits with the serve. You could also include tournament results
as a team or even individual results or rankings for those playing in sanctioned
tournaments.
The best motivation, though, comes from a personal best effort in physical skills
testing, or an improved score in technical, tactical, communication, or mental
skills. When athletes compare their performances today to those of yesterday, they
can always succeed and make progress, regardless of the achievements of their
teammates. When they see themselves making progress, they will be motivated
to continue to practice and train. This concept, while focusing on the individual,
is not antithetical to the team concept. You simply need to remind the team that
if every player gets better every day, the team will get better every day!
Third, all testing must be unbiased, formal, and consistent. Athletes will easily
recognize flaws in the testing process and subsequently lose confidence in the
results. You must be systematic and accurate, treating every athlete the same
way, in order for the test to have any integrity. No athlete should be credited with
a test result on a physical skill if she does not execute the test regimen perfectly.
You must mandate good form and attention to the details of the test. The same
is true of evaluation tools that do not measure quantitatively. A coach who wants
to evaluate technical skills must use the same tool for all athletes and score them
fairly and consistently for them to trust the conclusions reached.
Fourth, you must convey your feedback to the athletes professionally and, if
possible, personally. No athlete wants to fail, and all are self-conscious to a certain
extent when they don't perform to their expectations or the expectations of their
coach. At the same time, all athletes have areas in which they need to improve,
and you must communicate those needs to them, especially if they do not see or
understand that they need to improve! Personal, private meetings with athletes
are crucial to the exchange of this information. Factual results, comparative rank-
ing charts, historical records of previous test results, and even videos of athletes'
performances can discretely communicate both areas in which they are doing
well and areas in which they need to make progress.
If you have a large number of athletes, you can accomplish these individual
meetings in occasional and subtle ways--by asking the athlete to stay for a few
minutes in the office after a team meeting, by finding the athlete after practice
or a workout in the locker room, by going out to practice early and creating an
opportunity to talk to the athlete individually, or by calling the athlete in to the
office at random times just to talk. These in-person, one-on-one meetings are by
far the best method of communicating to your athletes the areas in which they
need to improve.
Evaluating Technical and Tactical Skills 11
Finally, you must apply the principles that you are asking of your players to the
process of evaluating them. You must be an expert in your field in terms of your
knowledge of the technical and tactical skills for your sport, so that you can ac-
curately and consistently evaluate the skill that you see your players perform. You
must understand the value and importance of the physical skills (perhaps even in
your personal lifestyle and health habits) to convey the importance of these skills
to the game. You must have outstanding communication skills to be effective in
your teaching, and you must exhibit those skills in your dealings with other staff
members, especially when you are visible to the players, so that you can establish
credibility with the players regarding communication.
Evaluating Skills
Clearly, players must know the technical skills demanded by their sport, and they
must know how to apply those skills in tactical situations when they compete.
You must remember, however, that basic physical skills contribute to the perfor-
mance of the technical and tactical skills and must be consciously incorporated
into the athlete's training plan. In addition, various nonphysical skills such as
mental capacity, communication skills, and character skills also overlay athletic
performance and affect its development.
As you evaluate your athletes, one concept is crucial: Athletes should focus
on trying to improve their own previous performance, as opposed to compar-
ing their performances to those of their teammates. Certainly, comparative data
help athletes see where they rank on the team and perhaps among other players,
and these data may motivate them or help them set goals. However, because all
rankings place some athletes on the team below others, these athletes can easily
become discouraged, especially if they consistently rank at the bottom of the team.
Conversely, if the focus of the evaluation is personal improvement, every player
on the team has the possibility of being successful every time tests are conducted.
Whether you are looking at physical skills or nonphysical skills, encourage your
athletes to achieve their own personal bests.
Evaluating Physical Skills
The essential physical skills for tennis are strength, speed, agility, power, and
flexibility. The training and evaluation of those five physical skills are especially
important in the off-season and preseason periods, when athletes are concentrat-
ing on overall improvement. In-season evaluation, however, also ensures that any
off-season gains, especially in strength, do not deteriorate because the players and
coaches are devoting much of their time and attention to match-plan preparation
and practice.
Testing should occur at least three times a year--once immediately before the
tennis season begins to gauge athletes' readiness for the season, once after the sea-
son to measure the retention of physical skills during competition, and once in the
spring to evaluate athletes' progress and development in the off-season program.
In addition, you will be constantly evaluating your athletes throughout the season
to make slight adjustments, about which you will learn more in chapter 8.
Of course, training programs can positively affect several skills. For example,
improvements in leg strength and flexibility will almost certainly improve speed.
12 Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills
Furthermore, no specific workout program will ensure gains for every athlete in
each of the five skill areas. Consequently, testing and measuring gains in these
areas is critical in showing you and your athletes where they are making gains
and where to place the emphasis of subsequent training programs.
Strength
Strength testing can be done safely and efficiently using multiple-rep projections
of athletes' maximum performance. The risk of injury for the athletes is minimal
because they are working with weights that are less than their maximum load.
After properly warming up, athletes should select a weight that they believe they
can rep at least three but no more than seven times. Using a chart of projected
totals, the number of reps that they accomplish will yield their max. This type of
test is slightly less accurate than a one-rep max, in which athletes continue to work
with heavier weights until they find the highest load that they can rep one time.
But the one-rep test takes much longer to administer and is less safe because the
athletes are working with peak loads. Furthermore, the accuracy of the test would
be critical only if the athletes were competing with each other. Because the focus
of the off-season training program is personal development and improvement,
the multiple-rep projection is adequate for allowing athletes to compare their
performances with their previous performances.
Speed
Speed testing for tennis has always focused on the 10-yard dash. Rarely does a
tennis athlete run longer than 10 yards to hit a shot, so longer distances are not
indicative of the type of speed needed to play the game. Running from sideline
to sideline and from the net to the baseline both require sprints that are in the
10-yard range, so the athlete's time over that distance is crucial. Nevertheless, the
majority of runs that a tennis player makes in a match are short bursts, so a test
of the player's initial 10-yard speed from a standing start also correlates well with
the type of speed needed to play the game. The 10-yard test can be administered
Core Strength
Like the proverbial chain that is only as strong as its weakest link, the athlete's core ultimately determines
whether she can put it all together and translate her strength, speed, or agility into successful tennis perfor-
mance. The core refers to the midsection of the body--the abdominal muscles, the lower-back muscles, and
the muscles of the hip girdle--that connect lower-body strength and functions with upper-body strength and
functions. Core strength, then, is essential for tennis, but at the same time it is extremely difficult to isolate
and evaluate.
Without a strong core, the tennis athlete will experience great difficulty in keeping low as he plays the
game. The core also must be strong for the tennis athlete to be able to play with great explosiveness--com-
bining strength, power, and speed into movement around the court and powerful groundstrokes and serves.
Every physical training program for tennis, therefore, must include exercises that strengthen and develop
the core. A core training program must go beyond sit-ups and crunches, which, although important, are not
comprehensive enough to develop true core strength. Tennis athletes must incorporate active exercises such
as lunges, step-ups, and squat jumps to focus on developing the core.
Isolating core strength is difficult because it is involved in the performance of every physical skill. But
any exercise that recruits one or more large muscle areas and two or more primary joints (such as the bench
press) can be used to test core strength (See NSCA's Essentials of Personal Training, 2003). The ultimate
evaluation of core strength, however, is the athlete's performance of tennis skills on the practice court and on
match day.
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[Cuối tài liệu]
262 About the authors
coaches), which involve parents and other volunteers in teaching and coaching
players at the recreational level. This national program, presented in cooperation
with the USPTA and PTR, offers training to help develop recreation coaches.
Both the PTR and the USPTA praise Anderson for his leadership in the Quick-
Start Tennis format that uses slower balls, lower nets, smaller courts, shorter
rackets, and modified scoring for children ages 10 and under.
The United States Tennis Association (USTA) is the national governing body
for the sport of tennis and the recognized leader in promoting and developing the
sport's growth on every level in the United States, from local communities to the
crown jewel of the professional game, the US Open.
Established in 1881, the USTA is a progressive and diverse not-for-profit or-
ganization whose volunteers, professional staff, and financial resources support
a single mission: to promote and develop the growth of tennis. The USTA is the
largest tennis organization in the world, with 17 geographical sections, more than
750,000 individual members and 7,000 organizational members, thousands of
volunteers, and a professional staff dedicated to growing the game.
The American Sport Education Program (ASEP) is the leading provider of
youth, high school, and elite-level sport education programs in the United States.
Rooted in the philosophy of "Athletes first, winning second," ASEP has educated
more than 1.5 million coaches, officials, sport administrators, parents, and ath-
letes. For more than 25 years, local, state, and national sport organizations have
partnered with ASEP to lead the way in making sport a safe, successful, and enjoy-
able experience for all involved. For more information on ASEP sport education
courses and resources, call 800-747-5698, visit www.ASEP.com, or look inside
this book.
If You Like the Book,
You'll Love the Online Course!
The Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills book you hold in your hands serves
as the text for the online course of the same title, available from the American Sport
Education Program (ASEP).
Featuring video, audio, Flash animation, interactive quizzes, downloadable coaching
aids, and online test, the course takes you chapter by chapter through the book,
providing you with an engaging, interactive learning experience.
A highlight of the online course is the use of
Dartfish video technology, which allows you
to view video of the most essential technical
skills of tennis frame by frame. The video
is housed on a CD-ROM that you'll receive
with your course registration, along with the
course textbook.
Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical
Skills online course is a component of
the ASEP Professional Coaches Education
Program. Completion of the course puts you
one step closer to earning the program's
Bronze Level credential.
Register for Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills online
course today! Visit www.ASEP.com and select "Course Catalog" from
the "Quick Clicks" menu or call ASEP at 800-747-5698.
Developed, delivered, and supported by the American Sport Education Program,
a 25-year leader in the sport education field, the ASEP Professional Coaches
Education Program fulfills the coaching education requirements of nearly 40 state
high school associations.
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It starts with the coach
Much is expected of today's high school coach. On any given day, you may play the
role of mentor, motivator, mediator, medic, psychologist, strategist, or trainer. Each
requiring a separate set of skills and tactics that together make you a "coach."
The Bronze Level credential--offered through the ASEP Professional Coaches
Education Program--is designed with all of these roles in mind. It includes courses
on coaching principles, sport first aid, and sport-specific techniques and tactics, and
requires CPR certification. The Bronze Level prepares you for all aspects of coaching
and is a recognized and respected credential for anyone who earns it.
To enroll in any of these courses, visit the Course Catalog on the ASEP Web
site at www.ASEP.com or contact your state association.
To learn more about how you can adopt the program for your state association
or organization, contact ASEP at 800-747-5698 or e-mail ASEP@hkusa.com.
Developed, delivered, and supported by the American Sport Education
Program, a 25-year leader in the sport education field, the ASEP Professional
Coaches Education Program fulfills the coaching education requirements of
nearly 40 state high school associations.
You'll find other outstanding tennis resources at
http://tennis.humankinetics.com
In the U.S. call 1-800-747-4457
Australia 08 8372 0999 � Canada 1-800-465-7301
Europe +44 (0) 113 255 5665 � New Zealand 0064 9 448 1207
HUMAN KINETICS
The Premier Publisher for Sports & Fitness
P.O. Box 5076 � Champaign, IL 61825-5076 USA