I keep seeing this mantra repeated by Wegner and disciples. From what I've observed, it simply ain't true. I am a firm believer in early preparation on groundstrokes, particularly for novice and intermediate students & players. For more advanced players or for those with impeccable timing & hand-eye, the prep can be delayed a bit longer -- but still early for the most part.
Check out the following slo-mo clips of Federer, Murray and Tsonga. I've seen the same sort of thing with Nadal and other pros. In the first Federer forehand, notice that he has already started his unit turn as the ball crosses the net. His unit turn is pretty much complete by the time the ball bounces -- this is early preparation. He does not wait for the ball to bounce to bring the racket back. The bounce is not particularly deep in this first example, yet his prep is still early.
For balls deeper than this midcourt ball, waiting for the ball to bounce would certainly be too late, possibly even suicidal. Upon inspection of subsquent examples, we will often see that the racquet already starts to drop as the ball bounces.
This points out a problem in tennis instruction, how concepts are best taught to student and how once you reach a certain level, you can take risks in order to break patterns and such. Oscar Wegner's MTM is very much misunderstood, one of the reason why he has agreed to finish off six new DVDs putting it all out there in it's complete and glorious form.
Oscar claims, and I don't think he will mind me stating this, that early preparation and a closed stance forehand to beginners and intermediates are huge barrier to tennis development and yet most coaches in the USA claim the opposite. The hardest concept USA coaches appear to not get about MTM is "stalking or tracking" the ball. Since I quit teaching early preparation and "the unit turn" which I rarely ever mention in my teaching, I have very little problem getting my students to hit efficiently with open stance and excellent timing and thus looking like pros in form and efficiency if not speed. I even get 3.5 players to look like pros and to feel what it means to hit across the ball. I only get 1000 characters on here so I have to make a lot of points in a short space. Heres a couple.
Kelly Jones was #1 doubles player world ranked (with Rick Leach) and has coached players such as Mardy Fish to #17 in the world, Xavier Maliisse, and Alex O'Brien to I think it was #35 in the world. Kelly had to watch lesser athletes like Todd Martin reach top ten rankings because Martin, no speedster on the court, was ready to quit pro tennis after two years because foreigners beat him like a drum. He then hired Jose Higueras (one of my students graduated from Higueras Academy so I can confirm he teaches much of Oscar's system) and Martin, slow with the best serve and volley game outside of Sampras in the USA, switched to across the body swing and zoomed to #4 in the world. I have a recording of a speech Martin made telling his story of learning to play "the foreign way."
Anyway, Kelly was a National USTA coach and has coached players that any coach would drool to have just one of them. He quit the USTA, USPTA, and PTR a few years ago because he was frustrated with the contradictory data. He has a tennis academy LMS Institute which from my discussions with him is very MTM and he has spent time working with Oscar Wegner behind the scenes but the public does not know of Oscar's work with coaches since many don't credit him. Kelly wouldn't mine my reproducing this because they are on his site but I only have space for a few. The PTR just hired Kelly to there online training, by the way. These agree exactly with Oscar's teachings. But then, what does Kelly know? He's taken many juniors into the pro ranks and even the top fifty world rankings. He must be wrong, too.
“TOP 10 OVERUSED & OVERRATED TEACHING METHODS” by Kelly Jones
Kelly Jones: “My 12-year Professional Playing Career can be easily summarized by my determination to become a better tennis player. This constant drive to improve took precedent over titles, rankings, and money. I was consumed by the idea that there had to be a better and easier way to play tennis. I knew that my game was limited, and that I could not execute shots like other players. I could not understand why a player with my athletic ability was not able to perform what seemed to be basic fundamental tasks. Any type of adjustment, such as different tennis court surfaces and challenging weather condition, were especially difficult. Because no one could accurately understand how I felt and what it was like, I was always left feeling insecure and challenged mentally. I was told many times that my problems were all in my head. If you hear it enough, you tend to believe it.”
“I have now spent the last 11 years coaching and teaching junior and professional players. The same overused and overrated methods that challenged me throughout my career are still being taught today. It has become a passion of mine to help players navigate through all this misinformation so that they have a much better understanding of the game. By removing the myths, rules and structure from these popular teaching methods, players will have the ability to develop a much more natural way of playing tennis.”
RULE #1) GET PREPARED EARLY;
What does this really mean? Prepare your racket first, prepare your body first, or both? This concept is very confusing. It seems logical when a coach says you are late swinging to the ball, you must prepare earlier. In truth, more times than not, it is actually the early preparation that results in the awkward, rushed feeling that many players associate with being late. Preparing early can disrupt a kind of natural rhythm and flow. Instead it is more important to prepare according to the situation or to the speed, spin, height or angle of the ball.
Problems: Stroke may feel awkward and too long, your movement to the ball feels clumsy, off balance running wide for balls, struggle with short balls.
RULE #2) MOVE FORWARD INTO EVERY SHOT AND DON’T MOVE BACK:
It is amazing to me that this teaching method is still being taught. I would not have made a dime playing professional tennis if I didn’t rid myself of this #1 overused teaching method. All of the great players continually move in all directions, forward, backward, sideways, etc. It is impossible and unnatural to go forward all of the time. Using foreword momentum as a rule will cause all kinds of problems with your swing. You cannot get away with playing all offense like you could years ago. Changing from defense to offense requires great flexibility and few limitations. This method is responsible for players at all levels never reaching their full potential.
Problems: many off center hits (shanks), difficulty with deep, defensive balls, inconsistent day to day, cramped-hitting space, lack of good ball control.
RULE #3) GET THERE AND GET SET
This rule implies that you get to that perfect position as quickly as possible in order to set your feet and have your racquet prepared. The flaw with this thinking is that very rarely in tennis are the conditions perfect and allow us to be in the perfect position. It does not allow for flexibility and the ability to adjust to the wind or bad bounces or playing on the clay. Thus, it will be really hard to find any kind of rhythm with this thinking unless the conditions are always perfect . Movement and preparation needs to be more instinctive. Sometimes it will be fast and sometimes slow depending on the situation. Too much structure when it pertains to preparation takes away from instinctive decision-making. It is much better to react naturally instead of being consumed with how you are going to react.
Problems: feel stuck and cramped when you get to the ball, difficulty swinging freely,
everything feels rushed.
Rule #4) DON’T WAIT FOR THE BALL
Here in America we are taught to never let your opponent back into the court and always take time away from them. Learning to wait for the ball changed my career. Much of this philosophy is a result of playing on faster surfaces. The problem with this method is that players get in a panic mode. They will tend to rush easy put-a-way balls and often miss because of rushing. All the great players today know how to do what is called “hold” the ball. What does holding the ball mean? Well, they have essentially learned to wait for the ball. By waiting or holding the ball the players take the time to hit the right shot or take time to let their opponent make a move and then play the appropriate shot. The concept of “holding the ball” often can leave many of your opponents literally incapable of making a move for your shot. Sometimes you’ll take away your opponents’ time and other times you will deliberately hold the ball until your opponents made a move before you hit the shot.
Problems: super fast pace/panic mode, many miss-hits, don’t feel in control, bad days are really bad
Kelly must be wrong. These contradict many of the things taught on this site. Pros when they practice and depending on where they are in a match can do exceptional things because they are pros. How they got there is another matter entirely. I don't follow Oscar, I follow his results. It's interesting the USA resistance to him corresponds with our horrible tennis results. The Russians spend 300 to 400,000 dollars a year on junior development and we spend nearly 500 times that and yet their top juniors up until their teens play half the tennis our top juniors do. Another myth is that the Russians play more because they have nothing to do. I prove it on my moderncoaches.com in the NY Times Article.
