Let's define smart play/player

E46luver

Professional
If it was that simple everyone would be a smart player now.

You have demonstrated why most clueless tennis coaches have no idea how to teach tennis.

Knowledge has absolutely nothing to do with execution.
If it did, then every 3.0 watching YouTube lessons would be a 5.0 serving 130 mph.

This is so huge, it is the single biggest concept in learning tennis.
Knowledge has absolutely nothing to do with execution.

This applies both to strokes and to strategy.
Execution is the result of habit, progressive drills, and months of training.
Most people stay stuck forever, as they literally have no idea how learning works.

Make sure you listen to this. You will love this. Stay the course.

The Biggest Tennis Strategy LIE - Essential Tennis Podcast #316
 
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WestboroChe

Hall of Fame
WTH is food addiction?
People who eat way more than they should and way more often than they should. People who eat without hunger and eat for emotional reasons. It’s a real thing and since you need food unlike alcohol or opiates it’s incredibly hard to overcome.
 

WestboroChe

Hall of Fame
You have hit upon why most clueless tennis coaches have no idea how to teach tennis.

Make sure you listen to this.

The Biggest Tennis Strategy LIE - Essential Tennis Podcast #316
I don’t want to listen to the podcast. Can’t you just tell me what the lie is?
 

E46luver

Professional
I don’t want to listen to the podcast. Can’t you just tell me what the lie is?

If you're typing on a tennis forum, Ian's podcast is a gift from the gods.
Pearls before swine? Kick back and dig into that podcast.
It's literally the best tennis learning content you will ever come across
 

ptuanminh

Hall of Fame
People who eat way more than they should and way more often than they should. People who eat without hunger and eat for emotional reasons. It’s a real thing and since you need food unlike alcohol or opiates it’s incredibly hard to overcome.
Is it more a western world's problem (US) ??? Where I am from, its unheard of.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Just listened and yes it’s a great podcast and I’m surprised it’s exactly about what we have been discussing in this thread. And the crucial thing was the main topic: the story of a student who knew exactly what to do when asked by the coach but somehow he wasn’t doing it in match play. Ian claims that even though you know what to do in theory your bad habits don’t let you do it the right way. He also mentions interestingly that everyone talks about muscle memory but no one talks about strategy memory. Long story short, in order to play smart tennis you need to practice that smart tennis. Otherwise you will keep playing knee-jerk reaction dumb tennis forever. That’s basically what he says.
 

WestboroChe

Hall of Fame
Just listened and yes it’s a great podcast and I’m surprised it’s exactly about what we have been discussing in this thread. And the crucial thing was the main topic: the story of a student who knew exactly what to do when asked by the coach but somehow he wasn’t doing it in match play. Ian claims that even though you know what to do in theory your bad habits don’t let you do it the right way. He also mentions interestingly that everyone talks about muscle memory but no one talks about strategy memory. Long story short, in order to play smart tennis you need to practice that smart tennis. Otherwise you will keep playing knee-jerk reaction dumb tennis forever. That’s basically what he says.
Thanks! As for the person who implored me to listen to the podcast, I type on a tennis forum because I don't have time to sit down and listen to podcasts. I also prefer the asynchronous and interactive nature of a forum like this.

Strategy memory - that's a good concept. It seems to me that self-talk is an important tool to help develop that.
 

WestboroChe

Hall of Fame
Is it more a western world's problem (US) ??? Where I am from, its unheard of.
Hey let's not make this a US thing! There's plenty of unhealthy people all over the world and all indicators are that obesity is rising in almost every society. But yes, it does require that food be available in sufficient quantities. But it's not unreasonable to assume that someone could could develop an unhealthy addicition to sticky rice, or paneer for example. I read somewhere that eating cheese has an addictive quality to it much like nicotine. Makes sense to me. I freakin love cheese.
 

ptuanminh

Hall of Fame
Hey let's not make this a US thing! There's plenty of unhealthy people all over the world and all indicators are that obesity is rising in almost every society. But yes, it does require that food be available in sufficient quantities. But it's not unreasonable to assume that someone could could develop an unhealthy addicition to sticky rice, or paneer for example. I read somewhere that eating cheese has an addictive quality to it much like nicotine. Makes sense to me. I freakin love cheese.
haha i was only asking a question. In europe, food is also abundance, but obesity rate is lower than US.
Have you seen a sticky rice addict??? I have seen people addicted to burger and pizza, but not sticky rice :).
 

WestboroChe

Hall of Fame
haha i was only asking a question. In europe, food is also abundance, but obesity rate is lower than US.
Have you seen a sticky rice addict??? I have seen people addicted to burger and pizza, but not sticky rice :).
I haven’t personally but I can imagine they exist. Rice (Especially sticky rice) is fairly sugary and it’s sugary foods that are most addictive. In fact some people claim that sugar is more addictive than heroin. It definitely has a spike crash effect on blood sugar which causes the user to go back for another fix.

I think in most developed Asian countries the availability of sweets will have the same effect there that we’ve seen in the west. And while the US is still the world leader in obesity Western Europe isn’t far behind. And it really wasn’t that long ago that Americans were much fitter and slimmer than they are now.

This is definitely a public health crisis and one that America is definitely poorly positioned to handle as we believe in freedom and business. When the city of New York tried to pass laws to limit soda intake it was very controversial.
 

ptuanminh

Hall of Fame
I haven’t personally but I can imagine they exist. Rice (Especially sticky rice) is fairly sugary and it’s sugary foods that are most addictive. In fact some people claim that sugar is more addictive than heroin. It definitely has a spike crash effect on blood sugar which causes the user to go back for another fix.

I think in most developed Asian countries the availability of sweets will have the same effect there that we’ve seen in the west. And while the US is still the world leader in obesity Western Europe isn’t far behind. And it really wasn’t that long ago that Americans were much fitter and slimmer than they are now.

This is definitely a public health crisis and one that America is definitely poorly positioned to handle as we believe in freedom and business. When the city of New York tried to pass laws to limit soda intake it was very controversial.
Yeah, rice and sticky rice are sugar. But i have never heard of anyone who is addicted to sticky rice, in Asia, rice is abundant. And Asian people in Asia are pretty skinny. So rice (or sticky rice) is probably not the main culprit.
 

WestboroChe

Hall of Fame
Yeah, rice and sticky rice are sugar. But i have never heard of anyone who is addicted to sticky rice, in Asia, rice is abundant. And Asian people in Asia are pretty skinny. So rice (or sticky rice) is probably not the main culprit.
Not saying it is. Just saying that food addiction doesn't need to be food specific. It's more of an emotional issue.

Bottom line is you can become addicted to just about anything sex, food, alchohol, tennis. It is also important to recognize that addiction is defined by the inability to control one's behavior in regard to the object of the addiction despite the negative consequences of continued use of the substance. So if I'm just a fat, lazy slob and don't care that I'm a fat lazy slob that's not an addiction, but if I have to have a can of coke constantly, even though it's killing my pancreas, rotting my teeth and I just can't stop, that's an addiction.
 

WestboroChe

Hall of Fame
But we digress. One of the important things a smart player does is observe his opponent for anything that might give him an edge.

someone already mentioned Winning Ugly. There’s a great bit in that where he talks about playing Aaron Krickstein. AKs forehand was just killing him. Every shot was just a booming FH. Then he hits a little dinky shot on accident just off to the side between the service line and baseline and for whatever reason Aaron just sends it back without any real power. So Brad decides to start sending as many shots to that area as he can. It’s not a weakness but it s something he can use to catch his breath and keep AK back long enough to come up with another plan of attack. I don’t remember if he even won the match. I just thought that was a great story.
 

pencilcheck

Hall of Fame
A vid that shows what a smart tennis player would do, even though this is high level I think any tennis players can learn something from this vid:

Nishikori, who clearly is inferior in strength and maybe stamina, is somehow dominating Aliassime. Because he has been very smart in turns of shot selection, footwork, balance, serve placement (spin), mindset battle, changing pace and shots (which got Aliassime to force an error almost all the time), etc. Also sometimes all it takes to hit a winner is a block. Aliassime on the other hand, is not hitting that well, footwork all over the place, esp vertical transition and approach shot are both horrible and horrible, I bet a lot of 4.5 might do better than him at approach shot at the minimum. Clearly Aliassime is built for a pure baseline power player and he is not in the right mental state when hitting, he is trying to hit fast winner too much and lose control.

Notice Nishikori force a lot of errors and also play smart moves that build up the tension and Aliassime just can't recover in time for the set.
 
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Curious

G.O.A.T.
A vid that shows what a smart tennis player would do, even though this is high level I think any tennis players can learn something from this vid:

Nishikori, who clearly is inferior in strength and maybe stamina, is somehow dominating Aliassime. Because he has been very smart in turns of shot selection, footwork, balance, serve placement (spin), mindset battle, changing pace and shots (which got Aliassime to force an error almost all the time), etc. Also sometimes all it takes to hit a winner is a block. Aliassime on the other hand, is not hitting that well, footwork all over the place, esp vertical transition and approach shot are both horrible and horrible, I bet a lot of 4.5 might do better than him at approach shot at the minimum. Clearly Aliassime is built for a pure baseline power player and he is not in the right mental state when hitting, he is trying to hit fast winner too much and lose control.

Notice Nishikori force a lot of errors and also play smart moves that build up the tension and Aliassime just can't recover in time for the set.
Now these guys are awesome players of course, but I see your point. Although there are some points where the execution was just poor for their level, there’s quite a few also where the shot selection was clearly bad. Maybe I can post some of my games to see more obvious examples of unsmart tennis.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Ok let's make this more meaningful. I'll post some points from my matches. I'll exclude the ones where it was purely bad execution.
Now you tell me what was dumb in these points. I'll post one point at a time.
Obviously I'm the one who loses the point in the videos. In case anyone wonders who's who!:)


 

Dragy

Legend
Ok let's make this more meaningful. I'll post some points from my matches. I'll exclude the ones where it was purely bad execution.
Now you tell me what was dumb in these points. I'll post one point at a time.
Obviously I'm the one who loses the point in the videos. In case anyone wonders who's who!:)


Your return was weak. Try to return stronger, if he comfortably takes advantage of such returns. Either drive it or cut harder for more underspin - the ball will either go deeper or slide lower.
It was also dumb to give up and not play the shot.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Your return was weak. Try to return stronger, if he comfortably takes advantage of such returns. Either drive it or cut harder for more underspin - the ball will either go deeper or slide lower.
It was also dumb to give up and not play the shot.
My thoughts: of course the return could be better, like deeper ( faster is not always better though, it also comes back faster ).
Anyway, it was nice and floaty to give me time to recover better-a little more to the middle
Split step was just a little too late so couldn't really push from it to the ball
As you say it was dumb to give up on the point. I probably had the chance at least to lob it.
Also his shot was probably a little too good too.
How about the direction of the return? Could it be better ? Like more to the middle.
 

FiReFTW

Legend
Your return was weak. Try to return stronger, if he comfortably takes advantage of such returns. Either drive it or cut harder for more underspin - the ball will either go deeper or slide lower.
It was also dumb to give up and not play the shot.

Maybe if his opponent could attack that short ball with authority but that doesn't seem to be the case so I wouldn't say his return was weak enough at least not for this opponent, only thing I see is that Curious is too left when the opponent hits the shot, his positioning is too far left, should be around the middle of the center and where he is now, and he would comfortably get to the ball
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Maybe if his opponent could attack that short ball with authority but that doesn't seem to be the case so I wouldn't say his return was weak enough at least not for this opponent, only thing I see is that Curious is too left when the opponent hits the shot, his positioning is too far left, should be around the middle of the center and where he is now, and he would comfortably get to the ball
He is a bloody lefty, so you always worry about the wide serve there, hence the return position :D
 

Dragy

Legend
My thoughts: of course the return could be better, like deeper ( faster is not always better though, it also comes back faster ).
Anyway, it was nice and floaty to give me time to recover better-a little more to the middle
Split step was just a little too late so couldn't really push from it to the ball
As you say it was dumb to give up on the point. I probably had the chance at least to lob it.
Also his shot was probably a little too good too.
How about the direction of the return? Could it be better ? Like more to the middle.
Direction depends on how good he’s on the BH side. If he’s decent, CC shot from well inside the court into vastly open corner would be clean winner. If he struggles on the BH side, of course give him more BH, but try hard to recover timely.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
The return goes straight back to him. Would it be better to return down the line? He will have to run to the ball while I would have more time to recover to the middle.
 

Dragy

Legend
Maybe if his opponent could attack that short ball with authority but that doesn't seem to be the case so I wouldn't say his return was weak enough at least not for this opponent, only thing I see is that Curious is too left when the opponent hits the shot, his positioning is too far left, should be around the middle of the center and where he is now, and he would comfortably get to the ball
If the opponent is not good enough to pressure @Curious hitting a sitter with a FH from well inside the baseline... then everything was ok, just lucky shot, move on.
I agree recovery was insufficient.
 

Dragy

Legend
The return goes straight back to him. Would it be better to return down the line? He will have to run to the ball while I would have more time to recover to the middle.
If you returned DTL, you have to return past middle. His serving position wasn’t particularly wide, the direction of your return was decent. It was just weak and didn’t float deep enough to compensate the weakness, so he stepped in and attacked.
I don’t say “return deeper” as I don’t think you can just do it at will. Otherwise you wouldn’t be in that position.
 

ptuanminh

Hall of Fame
I don't see anything wrong with the point.
You have what you have, your return is the way it is. You can't just say return stronger and automatically do it.
the serve was good enough for you to return weak, opponent 1-2 punch it out, point's over. no need to fuss about it. move on to next point
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
I don't see anything wrong with the point.
You have what you have, your return is the way it is. You can't just say return stronger and automatically do it.
the serve was good enough for you to return weak, opponent 1-2 punch it out, point's over. no need to fuss about it. move on to next point
You have a point. I also thought that as another explanation: he was just too good there.
 

Dragy

Legend
You have a point. I also thought that as another explanation: he was just too good there.
Yeah, absolutely. The question is, does he do it repeatedly? My first “if” in the first post. If he makes his serves again and again and attacks your returns to finish in 1-2 shots, then it would be smart to go for more on the return, be that placement, depth, action on the ball. Yes you’ll hit more balls out than you do with most conservative returns, yet you push him off his king if the hill position, make him fight more here and there to win those other balls.
Evaluate and adjust, or don’t adjust, whatever feels smarter.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Anyway another point.
Dumb 1: why did I change direction on his return ball??
Dumb 2: didn't split properly with a good pause to move more balanced for the volley or apparently didn't even think about the lob lol.
Maybe he was just too good again!

 

Dragy

Legend
Anyway another point.
Dumb 1: why did I change direction on his return ball??
Dumb 2: didn't split properly with a good pause to move more balanced for the volley or apparently didn't even think about the lob lol.
Maybe he was just too good again!

Well) I/O forehand was good! You played from the middle, it’s not COD as if it’s playing against a good CC shot. Good decision, good execution.
The key thing was after that shot you lost focus/sharpness and missed his desperate slice, so was late to the ball and couldn’t hit a good approach shot. His lob was good, you possibly could jump or run it down.
There was still a good chance he couldn’t pull out any decent shot and you’d finish at net comfortably.
 

ptuanminh

Hall of Fame
Anyway another point.
Dumb 1: why did I change direction on his return ball??
Dumb 2: didn't split properly with a good pause to move more balanced for the volley or apparently didn't even think about the lob lol.
Maybe he was just too good again!
Now this one you are to blame for something. You hit a decent forehand, put your opponent in defense. in stead of moving up, you stay back.
For most rec players, when you hit a ball to BH, step in a step, should work most of the time.
The approach shot is bad, no depth no position.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Now this one you are to blame for something. You hit a decent forehand, put your opponent in defense. in stead of moving up, you stay back.
For most rec players, when you hit a ball to BH, step in a step, should work most of the time.
The approach shot is bad, no depth no position.
You mean I should have approached after that forehand? I doubt it was good enough to do that. He wasn't really out of position and again he is a lefty, so it was to his forehand.
 

ptuanminh

Hall of Fame
You mean I should have approached after that forehand? I doubt it was good enough to do that. He wasn't really out of position and again he is a lefty, so it was to his forehand.
I đint notice the lefty thing. nevertheless, i think it was a pretty good shot. i would come in against your opponent after that shot. you dont have to approach the net, but step in a step or two expecting a shortball.
You were a good 3 step behind the baseline at that point.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
I đint notice the lefty thing. nevertheless, i think it was a pretty good shot. i would come in against your opponent after that shot. you dont have to approach the net, but step in a step or two expecting a shortball.
You were a good 3 step behind the baseline at that point.
I don't wanna be in the no man's land either but you're right I could have been at the baseline maybe. Especially that moving back wasn't smart.
 

E46luver

Professional
The return goes straight back to him. Would it be better to return down the line? He will have to run to the ball while I would have more time to recover to the middle.

No.
Do not try to redirect serve return for winner.
Just neutralize it, not try to win the point.
Hitting serve returns DTL are low percentage "dumb" tennis.
Even on weak dink serves, it's not worth it, due to UE
 

E46luver

Professional
Slicing back serves is a bit weak and passive. This gave him a floater to attack.
Do some drilling of serve return and try to hit with topspin.
 

E46luver

Professional
Now this one you are to blame for something. You hit a decent forehand, put your opponent in defense. in stead of moving up, you stay back.
For most rec players, when you hit a ball to BH, step in a step, should work most of the time.
The approach shot is bad, no depth no position.

He also needs to learn to read a slice sooner. I am also working on this.
He should have taken a step forward when opponent was running wide.
Instead he split steps backwards. And reacts late to drop shot.
Desperate dig for approach shot was actually good, but point was already lost
 

E46luver

Professional
yeah, its not a bad habit to come in after a good forehand. if you get passed, adjust.

Careful. Taking a step in is different than going to net.
You don't charge the net from the baseline.
However, you can take a step inside the baseline if he's pulled wide.
You go to net after hitting an approach
 

ptuanminh

Hall of Fame
Careful. Taking a step in is different than going to net.
You don't charge the net from the baseline.
However, you can take a step inside the baseline if he's pulled wide.
You go to net after hitting an approach
thats why i said come in, not charging the net. if it were after an approach shot, charging the net is a good option.
 

WestboroChe

Hall of Fame
thats why i said come in, not charging the net. if it were after an approach shot, charging the net is a good option.
That’s a good point. Coming forward isn’t charging the net. Watch any good serve and volley player. They rarely charge the net. Instead the typically move forward to about the T and then do a split step. This lets you hit an overhead or continue forward if you get a floater to attack or allows you to hit a decent half volley and continue your approach to net. It took me years to learn that habit.

the alternative is to try to make it all the way to net in one shot and be forced to hit a volley with your feet moving.
 
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