Practice for Smarter Targets

[5263]

Originally Posted by BU-Tennis

By middle, I do mean of course a ball hit with a certain amount of depth, although many of them were bouncing just past the service line, and even a few a foot or so before the service line. The ones which were shorter and not deep, the opponent was recovering so they weren't able to step in and around to hit with their best side (forehand).

I looked at these again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0_hzRy9mTA
and it seems to me anything weak near the center T gets
hammered pretty well and control of the points is taken.
There are quite a few well struck balls near the center T
that remain more neutral imo.

[gindyo]

Originally Posted by 5263

so once I get the pic set up, how do I import to here.
It won't cut and paste but
instead appears to need an internet site link??
thanks

Create an account on a site like http://photobucket.com/ upload the pic there and then just copy and paste the link in the popup that "Insert Image" icon opens.

You could actually use any account that you already have (Facebook, Google, etc.) where you can upload images. Upload the image and grab the url from your browser address bar.

Hope this helps


Edit: Or you could use BU-tennis's secret http://tinypic.com you dont even need an account there

[5263]

Originally Posted by gindyo

Create an account on a site like http://photobucket.com/ upload the pic there and then just copy and paste the link in the popup that "Insert Image" icon opens.

You could actually use any account that you already have (Facebook, Google, etc.) where you can upload images. Upload the image and grab the url from your browser address bar.

Hope this helps


Edit: Or you could use BU-tennis's secret http://tinypic.com you dont even need an account there

No account even required there, eh?
Thanks for the tips!

[spreed]

@ 5263

Here is my thoughts and experiences:

I worked with all of the three cones at a time at one court and made every student hit like 20 balls towards each cone. They adjusted smoothly and made only few mistakes and placed the ball better than normal.

On the other court were the players played alone I made the court about 3 feet shorter from baseline and sidelines towards the middle. Then they just played normal points and I asked them afterwards if they felt limited by the smaller court.

They all felt limited, but when I asked them on how the mistakes was made it became clear to me and them that it was almost only forced errors or balls inside of the normal court but outside of the "smaller" court. - So the "misses" was actually inside the normal court.

Then I made the adjustment that all court was playable like normal, but the lines was still there and in the normal point play they now got 3 points for a winner inside of the 3 feet line. It made it clear to them and to me, that almost all of the winners was inside of the "smaller" court. But maybe the most important thing was that they hit with higher pace and the players was making fewer mistakes.

To summarize I think you are leading us in the right direction 5263 and I would really like to know how you work with the smart targets in practice with talented juniors?

It's an awesome thread you have started and I will for sure follow it and write if I get any new experiences on using it in practice.

The best
Adam

[5263]

Originally Posted by spreed

@ 5263
But maybe the most important thing was that they hit with higher pace and the players was making fewer mistakes.

To summarize I think you are leading us in the right direction 5263 and I would really like to know how you work with the smart targets in practice with talented juniors?

It's an awesome thread you have started and I will for sure follow it and write if I get any new experiences on using it in practice.
Adam

Thanks Adam for your excellent post and the trials you ran relating to the Smart Targets. It seems your findings are very much in line with my experience and expectations with them.
Very good ideas in those drills and trials you are running.
Maybe you can try asking one player to focus on getting excellent depth and have his opponent focus on the Smart Targets and check those results without letting each know what the other is doing?

As for my findings-
I find my students also miss far less often; they especially miss fewer long and in the net, since the idea is to clear the net with very solid margin and employ biting spin to get the ball down as quick as possible. If you hit the shot strongly and well over the net, there will be very little chance of the ball coming down too soon. Your only concern in this case will be length, so having the intent to bring it down fast via TS should work well.
I find that they have much greater shot tolerance since they stay in points longer. This leads to them earning lots of free points due to this.
I also see them doing much better at being aggressive with shorter attackable balls, by using these targets, when the points go that long. Seems that often the opponents give up a UE before my players have to do much attacking though.

[gindyo]

5263, a question just popped out for you. Where does a flatter ball comes in in your teaching. I believe in being able to vary one's shots and one should not be limited to only heavy TS. We have all heard how Nadal is trying to incorporate flatter shots in his game. What are the situations where you would advice a flat shot?

[5263]

Originally Posted by gindyo

5263, a question just popped out for you. Where does a flatter ball comes in in your teaching. I believe in being able to vary one's shots and one should not be limited to only heavy TS. We have all heard how Nadal is trying to incorporate flatter shots in his game. What are the situations where you would advice a flat shot?

It's a good question, as you are correct in that there are times to hit:
1. Flat trajectory with spin
2. Flat shot- not seeking a particular spin (will still get some)

For Flat Trajectory, -that would mostly be for aggressive shots when you get a high bouncing, short ball that is in your skill zone to attack.
For attackable return of serves.
For these you still hit up and across the contact, but way more across for these.

For Flat shot not seeking spin- half volleys, return of 1st serves, and return of strong overhead smash. Just find the ball smoothly with more of a push out and slight pull across.
That what you are asking about?

[5263]

TM

Here is the diagram of the Smart Targets along with the square Avoid Area at the center T.

Important things about the Avoid Area that make it dangerous to hit into:
1. centrally located, which means that if it can be jumped for any weakness, it likely will be since it is so easy to get to from either corner or middle positions.
2. Returner can pick their best wing to attack it with
3. On a shot from this area, you can go anywhere you want and not have opened your court. No concerns about attacking and keeping the ball in front of you.
4. The returner of a ball from here can attack any weakness he perceives, such as limited coverage on a 2 hander.
5. And he can go with his favorite shot, like how Fed loves the IO attack.
* Don't forget the confidence he builds getting to work his attacks from here and the confidence you will lose.

Any one of the above is tough to defend, but in this case they can be stacked against you!
Ex..Returner caught in one of his corners, can get there to use his strong Fh, to go to your weak Bh and use his fav inside/out stroke, all the while not opening up his court for a counter attack.
Pretty hard to defend when it gets stacked against you like this.
On the other hand, if you can get it over to the better Smart Target, you have blocked him from stacking to near this extent, even with the same quality of shot.

[gindyo]

This makes so much sense.

[gindyo]

I had nothing better to do the other day so I decided to study the return patterns of both federer and murray during their final in dubai, dont know what value this could have accept to find out the the most used return is deep in the middle. I split the court in three areas deep middle ( anything that is past 4-5 feet from the service line), smart targets, and short middle, and then noted weather the returner won or lost the point. naturally when returning more points will be lost then won.
so here are the results


edit: the red sticks mean that the point really should have had the opposite outcome if it wasn't for a silly UE

[5263]

Originally Posted by gindyo

edit: the red sticks mean that the point really should have had the opposite outcome if it wasn't for a silly UE

Those red ones really tend to clear up the story. Glad you thought to include
that aspect.

[5263]

Originally Posted by gindyo

I had nothing better to do the other day so I decided to study the return patterns of both federer and murray during their final in dubai, dont know what value this could have accept to find out the the most used return is deep in the middle. I split the court in three areas deep middle ( anything that is past 4-5 feet from the service line), smart targets, and short middle, and then noted weather the returner won or lost the point. naturally when returning more points will be lost then won.
so here are the results


edit: the red sticks mean that the point really should have had the opposite outcome if it wasn't for a silly UE

I was looking at your work here a little more and found it very interesting and useful.

For all categories I counted the red marks for the opposing section
to account for how you said the outcome should have been according to your observations. Also we must remember that when returning in the pros, more points will be lost than won almost all the time.

Notice first- that returns to the Avoid Area in the Middle leads to where the player should be losing all but one point out of 19, confirming how much this area should be avoided. I don't think this is any big surprise and am pretty sure they don't want to hit there anyway, but it does show how poor that area can be.

Second and more surprising- notice how even though returning deep middle, back at the server is a pretty
good place to go, it only led to winning about 1/3 of those points.
Pros do hit here purposefully.

Thirdly- The big thing to notice is that with the returns to the Smart Target area,
the returner was in a position to win 11 of 19; over half the points and even about half the points if you took the actual results, not corrected for red marks! This is good evidence how much better this area is for a target, given that you would expect all targets to garner losing marks. Hitting to the target area probably didn't win too many outright, but at least put the returner in a position to fight for the point.

Nice info, thanks

[gindyo]

a snapshot form Istomin-Del Potro match at indian-wells



at this point of the match the score was 4-3 for Del Potro in he first set.

whenever I see one of these I will try to take a snapshot and post it here so we can collect a larger pool of data.

You can clearly see how Delpo was hitting his targets ( his balls are more concentrated in certain areas) and Istomin's shots are spread all over the place

[5263]

Yes, these are excellent to see and how they look for different players.
I think there are certain predictions that could be made from looking at these.
Pretty clear Potro is not hitting for the back 3-4 feet.
I bet many are surprised how close the avg shot speed it between the two.

[Power Player]

Florian meyer has a new site and one video on consistency shows a similar target area. 3-4 feet inside the baseline and 2-3 feet inside the alleys. He says if you aim to these spots every time, you will win more matches.

[5263]

Originally Posted by Power Player

Florian meyer has a new site and one video on consistency shows a similar target area. 3-4 feet inside the baseline and 2-3 feet inside the alleys. He says if you aim to these spots every time, you will win more matches.

Thanks for the reference. Sounds alot like we are talking about here and
I'll ck it out.
Do you have the link?

[Power Player]

Originally Posted by 5263

Thanks for the reference. Sounds alot like we are talking about here and
I'll ck it out.
Do you have the link?

It's a hidden video..u have to register to see it, but the videos are great..I need to find the link but maybe someone reading knows the site name.

[5263]

Originally Posted by Power Player

It's a hidden video..u have to register to see it, but the videos are great..I need to find the link but maybe someone reading knows the site name.

Pretty evident in his play below-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eZx-r7xXKc

[odessa]

Originally Posted by 5263

Pretty evident in his play below-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eZx-r7xXKc

That is Florian Meyer. A fun player to watch. A lot of variations and check out how close he gets to the net when he comes to the net. Great play against Nadal in Shanghai :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Y0W5JA9MY"
The other Florian Meier is also german but he is an tennis teacher with an instructional website : http://www.onlinetennisinstruction.com/

[5263]

Originally Posted by odessa

That is Florian Meyer. A fun player to watch. A lot of variations and check out how close he gets to the net when he comes to the net. Great play against Nadal in Shanghai :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Y0W5JA9MY"
The other Florian Meier is also german but he is an tennis teacher with an instructional website : http://www.onlinetennisinstruction.com/

thank you for the correction on the names here and the link as well.
Interesting that Meyer was such a fantastic example for this thread!
What are the odds?

This Meier has some good stuff on his site. Seems very organized and
thought out overall. I couldn't find anything too close to what we are
saying here, but did find where talked of not hitting so close to any line,
which is clearly in the same vein. Maybe his targets in drills are similar.