Hey everyone, on today's episode, I'm going to share what I learned at my doubles camp in Indian Wells, as well as what I learned from watching the best pros in the world at the BMP. So sit back, relax, and prepare to become a smarter tennis player. This past week, I ran three camps with 44 players, ranging from 3-0 all the way up to 4-5 at Indian Wells. These camps are so much fun, and I've been lucky that everyone attending has been high energy, easygoing, and super coachable.
although we had 44 players men and women all ages and all skill levels most of the players struggled with similar issues throughout the camp the first main thing i saw in one of the most consistent issues was players being far too hard on themselves Having proper expectations is key to staying motivated and relaxed, which will only help you reach your goals quicker. So in pro tennis, if you win 55% of the points, you're Novak Djokovic, the most accomplished player of all time.
If you expect to win more than 55% of your own points, you're going to be frustrated and think you suck, you're not getting it, and you're a total failure. One thing we worked on a bunch in the camp was the footwork and timing of the poach. A player would execute one perfectly and then get passed down the line or move a bit late or miss the volley on the next one. One great attempt, one failed attempt.
As a coach, I was thrilled with the 50-50 success rate after one day, but I noticed my players could get dejected at that same percentage. I've been poaching for 30 years. I consider myself an expert at the task. And I probably only succeed 65 to 70% of the time on my best days. So make sure you have proper expectations, give yourself some grace, and I think you'll find you're a lot more relaxed and confident on the tennis court.
Another key thing we stressed was the four ways a point can end. A player can hit a winner or make an error in the net, wide or long. Between the two teams on the court, each team has four positive ways that a point can end. Their winner...
or any of the three misses from their opponent. One of my biggest beliefs as a coach is that you can eliminate two of these from your own game, missing net and wide, simply by choosing the correct target. If you aim high enough, for most people it's probably about 5 feet max,
The net is just simply no longer in play. And if you aim right down the middle, wide is now out of play. And just remember, you don't hit the ball where you aim. Aiming middle does not mean you'll hit every ball middle. It just means you'll stop missing wide. and if you nail these targets now you have four positive outcomes while your opponent only has two they can hit a winner or you can miss long and yes if you take ned and wide out of play
You'll definitely miss a few more long, and your opponent might, I stress might, hit a few more winners. But they'll also miss more because of your consistency. And you'll also hit a few more winners because you're missing less as well.
So make sure you pick an appropriate target and I think you'll be surprised how much easier the game of tennis can be. The third thing I was reminded of from the players attending camp is how much extra time we need to spend on overheads and how overheads can be offensive or defensive.
I saw a lot of, let's say, interesting technique and footwork on overheads. And so we had to address that. But there's also this weird belief that you're supposed to hit every overhead hard and be offensive. When the lob is in the service box, I love that mentality. But once your opponent hits a solid lob behind the service line, it's okay to just make the overhead simple and through the middle so your partner doesn't have to chase down a challenging lob from behind the baseline.
So make sure you spend 15 to 30 minutes a week in your lessons or clinics working on overheads as it's the number one way to beat those annoying lobbers. Each day after the camp was over, we drove over to Indian Wells to watch the stadium one night matches. we got to see a ton of amazing players from our courtside seats like Carlos Alcaraz, Irina Sabalenka, Francis Tiafoe, Naomi Osaka, and Mira Andreva. These players are aliens. They are the top 1% of the 1%.
of the one percent so with that being said it's great to watch them and copy their fundamentals they get the ball in their strike zone they move well up and back they swing low to high all of these things are great to watch and you should try to implement in your own game
However, they do a lot of things that you should not copy. I see Alcaraz sliding from behind the baseline and occasionally ripping a backhand down the line. An absolutely insane shot. He's also probably going to be one of the top 15 best tennis players of all time.
he can pull that shot off. We can't. Sometimes I hear players talking about trying their own low percentage shots and they're using top pros or even just pros in general as reasons for why that's a great decision. If you can move like Alcaraz and have the backhand technique of Alcaraz,
then I don't mind you ripping backhands down the line when you're on defense. If you're the everyday 4-0 adult player, we might want to keep that shot in the bag for eternity. And the last thing my players learn while watching the pros is that they also mess up a lot.
We watched Osaka struggle and miss over 30 ground strokes in two sets. Honestly, a lot of them were net and wide. We watched players double fall at brutal times in the score. Tennis is incredibly difficult, even for the best players. Most adults I work with think they should never double fall or never miss an easy volley. And then we watch these insane pros make those same mistakes. And they're alien athletes with perfect technique. So circling back to the first point of this pod.
Give yourself some grace and remind yourself that a big reason why tennis is addicting and fun to improve at is that it's incredibly difficult. If it was easy, you'd get bored. I promise. All right, that wraps up my Indian Wells recap episode. I posted a few videos and photos from the camp and got a fair amount of comments of people who wanted to attend, but didn't even know the camps existed. I'm a decent tennis coach, but not the best marketer, but I'm working on it.
So if you want info on my camps, I'm providing the link to my newsletter in the show notes of this episode where I advertise. And I also post on Instagram when there's an upcoming camp. Next week, I'm running my doubles camp at the Charleston Open. And my next camp after that will be in New York City before the U.S. Open. Thanks again for listening. I hope you just improved attendance without even hitting a ball.