In last week’s Newsletter we talked about how important footwork and movement are.  When your footwork and movement are not working well, many times the culprit is poor conditioning.  This routine is set up for 3 sets, first set 30/30 (30 seconds work, 30 seconds rest), second set 40/20 (40 seconds work, 40 seconds rest), third set 50/10 (50 seconds work, 10 seconds rest).  This is a very tough workout, as you’ll see, it beat me up and I only did the first set.   Prior to the demo, I had a clinic with 8 ladies for an hour, and also played points with a buddy for an hour, so I was not fresh when I started.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress to build up my anaerobic base, which will help me recover more quickly after points.  If you find yourself wiped out as I did when I got to the 5th exercise, do what you can, within the time limit, then move on to the next exercise.  Please post any comments or questions.

The French Open is the land of heavy topspinners with high bouncing balls up around your ears.  So it’s a good time to talk about dealing with those high bouncers.  If you have trouble with the high ones you’ll either end up with mistakes or hit short and allow your opponent an opportunity to attack.  One of the keys to remember is that even though the ball is up around your shoulders from the baseline area you must swing up into the ball.  A common mistake I see at the club level is that players tend to raise the hitting shoulder and swing too horizontally which will send the ball into the net or short setting up your opponent.  Usually players have this tendency if they prefer continental or eastern grips, (although eastern is workable if you keep the palm of the hitting hand down as you swing up into the shot), because with these grips swinging up on a high ball feels like you’re going to hit the ball over the fence.  This is the case with continental and eastern because the racquet face IS NOT NATURALLY CLOSED as you start your forward and up swing.  On the other hand, with semi-western the racquet face IS NATURALLY CLOSED as you start your forward and up swing and naturally becomes vertical at contact. If you do not have a semi-western grip in your tool box, you’ll want to add one to become effective returning those high ones.  When you first try a semi-western grip make sure you’re aiming a good 4 – 6 feet (sometimes even more, 8 -10 feet) over the net and swing as if you’re trying to hit the back fence with a line drive.  The reason I tell players to do this is because most times when players first implement a semi-western grip their shots typically land in the net or very short.  This is because they’ve never swung up so much on a high ball.  So get under the ball and swing up, (as in the Amelie Mauresmo Video) make sure the ball is ascending off your strings and you’ll start to get a feel for how much you need to swing up and aim high to hit a deep penetrating shot.

Notice here on this high bouncing ball that Amelie’s racquet is moving low to high into the contact point and that when the ball leaves her strings it’s going up, it’s ascending… probably clearing the net by a minimum of 6 feet to possibly 8 – 10 feet.