Reynolds Tennis

Sometimes the reality of being in a defensive situation is very obvious and you can start to see it happening and prepare in enough time to properly defend the shots hit at you. However, taking the neutral shots and creating or setting up offensive shots is not only valuable but very necessary to your success during matches. Often you can find yourself in the middle of the point and for some reason everything you try either goes out or sets up your opponent for a winning shot against you.

It is really not as difficult as you think to create pressure from a neutral situation. Varying the angle, ball height, spin, speed and depth can have a positive effect on your ability to get your opponents in trouble an win more points. It would be great to play every match with good rhythm and hit the ball for a winner whenever you want to. The reality is you have to create the pressure and situation to force opponent errors as they just don’t happen by mistake most of the time. If they like to hit and receive a hard ball, give them slower softer balls. If they like the ball deep, give them short shots that will pull them off the baseline. If they like high balls, give them lower balls. If they don’t mind moving from side to side for shots then hit to one side and then right back to the same side or right at them.

This reminds me of a player I was working with that had been playing smarter and was improving his winning percentage quite a lot until he ran into a player he thought he figured out, but not quite. He knew his opponent’s backhand was weaker, but he just assumed that any ball he hit to his backhand would create a weak shot and he would be able to win by that one strategy. The problem was he did not know which types of backhands he didn’t like. So when he hit hard to his backhand and came to the net he was being lobbed or the balls were coming to his feet. His theory was partially correct , but the one flaw was that with a hard ball coming to his opponent’s backhand the opponent could still redirect it to get him in trouble. He did not realize this opponent could not generate the pace himself to get him in trouble. A slow and low ball to his backhand would create the kind of pressure to easily win points. So often a simple idea that is not that hard to execute can help you to create enough pressure to put your opponent on the defensive. The weakness is not always a shot, but a situation they have trouble with. This is why it is important to experiment in practice or warm up what they can and can not do. It may be something they just don’t like to do as much and will not execute in those situations as well.

Next in Volume IV of Playing Smarter we will discuss how to stay on the attack or on offense and not be neutralized into a defensive position. Until then, keep playing and playing smarter for more wins.

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For media inquiries, contact Traci Buch

tbuch@reynoldsplantation.com

(706) 467-1687

 reynolds plantation named private facility of the year by racquet sports industry magazine

Greensboro, Ga. (February 24, 2010) – Racquet Sports Industry (RSI) magazine has named Reynolds Plantation the “Private Facility of the Year” in its 2009 “Champions of Tennis Awards” issue.  The ninth annual issue honors people and organizations dedicated to improving the sport and business of tennis.

The “Private Facility of the Year Award” considers the design, planning and aesthetics, as well as the operations and programming of the facility for the award criteria. The Lake Club Tennis Center, with its four hard courts and four clay courts and an array of programming for all ages and all levels, offers impeccable service and attention to detail. Reynolds Plantation is the only private facility chosen as an award winner for 2009.

“Since the initial year of its existence, the RSI award is one of the awards I wanted the facility I worked at to win,” said Dave Neuhart, director of tennis at Reynolds Plantation and Peter Burwash International professional.  “Because it is an award in conjunction with the Tennis Industry Association it carries a great honor to be the only private facility chosen as an award winner in 2009.  Taking into consideration all of the first class facilities in Georgia, let alone across the United States, our whole team is proud to be singled out as this year’s recipient.”

Reynolds Plantation has received multiple awards for 2009 including being selected a USTA Outstanding Facility Awards Program Winner and a Top 50 Tennis Welcome Center. Neuhart was also named USTA Georgia Professional of the Year.

To learn more about tennis from Dave Neuhart, please visit his blog at www.reynoldstennis.com.

Photo caption:  Dave Neuhart (right) accepts the 2009 “Private Facility of the Year Award” from Dave Bone, executive director of the United States Racquet Stringers Association (USRSA) and co-publisher of RSI Magazine.

About Reynolds Plantation

Named the “Best of the Best” Golf Community by Robb Report and the community with the “Best Golf” in America by the editors of GOLF Magazine, Reynolds Plantation, located between Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia, is situated along 374 miles of shoreline on Lake Oconee.  Reynolds Plantation features 117 holes of championship golf from designers Bob Cupp, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Rees Jones and Jim Engh.  Reynolds Plantation is also home to The Reynolds Golf Academy, as well as the exclusive TaylorMade Kingdom.  The community offers members a variety of dining options, swimming pools, pedestrian trails, four full-service marinas and The Lake Club Wellness Campus with its award-winning Tennis Center.  Reynolds Plantation is also home to The Ritz-Carlton Lodge, a 251-room lakefront resort and spa ranked No. 5 in the “Top 100 Golf Resorts” worldwide by Condé Nast Traveler Magazine.  For more information or real estate inquiries, call 800-800-5250 or visit www.reynoldsplantation.com.

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Kerry Minster

Reynolds Plantation

Marketing

706.467.1179 office

www.reynoldsplantation.com

Understanding the game of tennis is usually not the problem. The problem is that too many try to make it more complicated. It is really very simple. You either have to hit a ball while in a defensive position, an offensive position or in a neutral position. Decide quickly what situation you are in and then hit the type of shot that is of the best benefit from that position to either win the point or get back into the point.

Once you are in a defensive position you need to slow down the response to ball so that you can neutralize what your opponent has done to you. Often we refer to this as “Panicing Softly” (usually players panic when in trouble and that is okay, just accept it and move on) so that you are able to hit a controlled ball back that might put them in a similar difficult situation. This is called neutralizing. Once you relize you are going to be put in a defensive position it is very adventagious to keep your backswing very short, if you take any at all. This will allow you to have a greater amount of control and adjustment shots to combat your situation.

After you have gained a neutral ground then attempt a more forcing shot to move them to the defensive position, rather then going for an all out offensive shot. If you were to take an average rally of 10 balls, one or two might be offensive shots, two to three might be defensive shots and the rest, 5-7 shots would be neutral. So playing the neutral shots really consistently will help you win a lot more points as you can see that most of your shots are played in neutral situations. So don’t force the action too quickly, but play smart placement shots and maybe try to move in a little to gain angle advantages and this might force your opponent to go for too much or to hit up higher to you.

Next time in volume III we will talk about how to set up more opportunities to force opponents into a defensive position.

Hey everyone, good to be back again after a brief break. Hope to be posting more often now with being in town more often and less time on the road. The Florida trip and the Memphis event were good with some interesting upsets and solid play by some expected and some not.

I plan to begin a series on playing smarter so that all of you will have better matches, more success and therefore more fun. This time I want to discuss one of the very basic areas you can try to play smarter. This has to do with counting shots. In the warm-up try counting your opponent’s shots that successfully land on your side of the court. Usually it is between two and four but could go up to as many as three to five.

Once you have an average of the number of shots they hit consistently in the court you will have an idea of how many successful shots you need to hit before they either make a mistake or go for too much.  This is what I call their patience ratio. After a while if you find that they start keeping more balls in the court, then you can start to apply more pressure on your shots after they reach their average number of shots to try to force them into an error. Often this means their patience ratio has increased and you need to adjust to keep their ratio down to win points easier. Try it, you will be surprised how much your patience ratio increases in addition to having extra knowledge about their tennis game. Knowledge can be very powerful and helpful to you creating more wins on court.

Thanks for reading and next time we will talk about Volume 2 of playing smarter. See you then.