Kyle LaCroix: When you're out of position, don't be a magician

Hey, everyone. On today's episode, we welcome back Kyle Lacroix, who is one of the few to achieve the highest achievement in coaching, an RSPA master professional. We spend a majority of our conversation discussing how you can improve your shot selection. what factors you should consider and where things usually go wrong. So sit back, relax and prepare to become a smarter tennis player. All right, Kyle, welcome to the pod. Jonathan, thank you so much for having me once again.

So I want to talk to you about shot selection, which is a huge part of the game. Technique and how you hit the ball matters, but where and when and how you decide to hit the ball certain places probably matters more. So how would you define quality shot selection? So quality shot selection to me is not only about where you hit the ball and how you hit the ball.

But what's actually going through your mind when you hit the ball? Maybe for a lot of people, nothing is going through their mind, which explains their shot selection a lot. I always tell my players, when out of position, don't be a magician. So, you know, it's one of those things where you have to have court awareness. You have to be aware that's your number one job as a tennis player is to be aware. So be aware of the score.

Be aware of where you are in the court. Be aware of what your opponent's doing. So to me, quality shot selection is about what's happening internally. more than externally because the ball doesn't know what your backswing looks like. The ball doesn't know what surface you're playing on. The ball doesn't know the score.

you have to know all those things. So it's a matter of understanding, is this the best shot to hit in this situation? And if you can answer those questions, then it shouldn't be a problem. For everything else, it should be a lot more natural. And that comes through a lot of practice, a lot of repetition. That's what builds the confidence. So if awareness is key.

Do you build that by watching matches on TV? Do you build that by watching video of yourself, constantly rehashing it after the point or the drill is over? Like, how do you build that awareness of all those factors that go into it? That's a great question. So for me, I look at it as you have to put the hours in the practice court. And yes, it does help if you have video of yourself. I do find that when people... watch themselves. They actually can get a lot more out of it than watching a pro.

a numerous amount of reasons. Most people that watch tennis on TV, they're not really watching tennis. They're watching a fuzzy yellow ball go up and down on the screen. They're not looking at the footwork. They're not looking at one player isolating them. But when we start to look at ourselves on video, we can start to pick up patterns. So definitely video analysis of your own game is extremely helpful. But a lot of it is just putting the hours in on the court to where...

you're going to hit the shot enough times where you're going to start to say, hey, this shot really seems to work for the majority of the time. But again, it's one of those things where you have to be open. You have to be aware of the situation. repetition always builds confidence and I will keep repeating that. So you do have to put in the hours on the court more than anything else and you have to know what you're good at.

You know, shots that you're good at and shots that you're not good at. Well, in a pressure situation, what would you rather hit? So it's important to know your game inside and out. Just like a salesman has to know their product, you as a tennis player. have to know your game. And if you know your game that well, then the answer should be pretty easy. When you talk about knowing your game.

a lot of people will tell me about what i would consider a risky shot that they have they go oh my god i've got a great drop shot or i've got this great you don't understand i can rip it down the line and i know they can do that but i don't think they can do it consistently

and then when i watch them i go yeah you're right you did hit down the line twice today like that was pretty good you tried it 10 times and that's not consistent enough to make that a good shot selection so how can a player navigate that space where they go, yes, you can hit the shot you're telling me, but in a professional coach's opinion, you go, but that's not going to be consistent enough. What is that line between

You can do it once and then how often is enough for it to be a viable shot for you? Right. So that's always the big challenge, isn't it? Is that a player will say, oh, I love this shot. This is my shot. It's a great shot. And they hit two out of 10.

The problem is they completely forget about the eight shots they missed. And for the whole week, they'll be talking about the two shots they made. Those are the only two shots that really matter to them. And so it's hard to kind of break through that wall of... OK, well, yes, those were two amazing shots. The problem is out of 10 points, you're losing 80 percent. So, you know, when you can kind of structure to them like that, maybe a few will.

will start to open up their eyes and say, yeah, you're right, that maybe isn't the best. But at the end of the day, you can't just snap your fingers and say, okay, you're fixed. Again, it requires a lot of discipline and it's stroke discipline. Can you hit the same shot again and again and again and realize that you will never miss that shot? That's the shot that you probably want to go for.

And, yeah, of course, it's not going to make the highlight reel, but you have to understand, okay, well, if the match is on the line, am I going to go with the shot that gets me 51%? or the shot that gets me 49%. It's very thin margins, but again, a match is on the line. What are you going to go for? And the stroke discipline plays such a crucial role. And that's really the biggest difference between an amateur and a professional, right? An amateur will practice.

until what they can't get it wrong or something like that. I forget what the saying is, but it's like the amateur practices until they get it right, a professional practices until they can't get it wrong. And that's really the biggest difference is that you have to keep hitting the same shot to where it's no longer a question of, oh, I'm only going to hit this two or three out of 10 times. It's I'm going to hit this shot nine out of 10 times.

And that's the whole idea. That's why professionals are so good. It's because they spend the time practicing, right? A professional will spend, you know, six to ten times more practicing than they will playing. An amateur will spend six to ten times more playing than they will practice. So once you start to understand that, it's OK, if you really like this shot, if you think you really own the shot, then you need to own it to the point where.

It's just automatic, and you're going to be absolutely shocked when you do miss it. Whereas I think most amateurs, they'll hit a great shot once in a while, and all the other times they miss, they just forget about it. Oh, well, you know, I was off balance, and they try to make an excuse. And in reality, the ball doesn't know what excuses you're making. The ball just wants to go in the rectangle. When you talk about the percentages, 51 versus 49.

What's always helped me is, let's say, coming to the net. Typically, someone's going to win high 50% to mid 60% coming to the net. And I know that. I kind of have in my mind, off the court, a generic breakdown of what those 100 points are going to look like. So of the 65 that I'm going to win because I came to the net a lot, 20 to 25 of them will be approach shots that don't come back, whether I hit a winner or my opponent just missed a pass.

and 15 to 20 of those are going to be relatively easy volleys for me. They're going to be high above the net, maybe a slow slice for my opponent, and then maybe another five are overheads, and maybe 10 of them are actually difficult volleys that I had to come up with a shot.

And then of the 35 that I'm losing, probably five to 10 are missed approach shots. Probably five to 10 are incredible passing shots from my opponent. Probably five to 10 are me just botching a volley that looks horrible, which is part of the process. But if I have that kind of allocation in my mind, it makes it very easy for me to not overreact. So if I come in and they rip a passing shot winner, my first instinct is not, well, why did I come in? My first instinct is like, well, that's.

part of the deal if i come in a hundred times they have to hit that shot sometimes and so that helps keep me grounded when i'm using what i fundamentally know is a correct strategy Well, having remembered you from juniors and having played paddle with you, I have a hard time believing you've ever botched a volley. But I will say that the biggest difference in the mindset, especially when you're coming to the net, is realizing that...

The best volley you will ever hit is the one that you never hit. Because the vast majority of the time, the ball is going in the net, the ball is going wide, the ball is sailing long because they're trying to hit some amazing off-balance passing shot winner that...

hits the fence on the fly so you know it's it's understanding okay so if you're playing a match how many points does it take to win a set takes 24 but let's say one of those games goes to do so maybe it takes 25 points You have to be able to figure out how to win 25 points in every set. And when you can break it down like that, like you just shared with the audience.

it's really beneficial because you're saying, okay, these are where I can get points. These are where, yes, I'm going to lose points. That's just part of it, right? You're going to lose points, but it's not so much... Losing points. It's how you're losing those points. Are you losing points because they're hitting a great shot?

Are you losing points because you're not executing? You're aiming too close for the lines and you're missing them wide or long? So those are the questions that you have to ask yourself is, how can I get 25 points in every set? And once you figure that out and you can kind of compartmentalize it, it becomes a lot easier because now you're not thinking, oh, I got to win this whole set and it's going to be tons of points and this and that.

At the end of the day, it's going to come down to a few points, but how you structure those points and you look at the best players, they have their patterns and they just keep repeating those patterns. And, you know, if I'm playing and something's working.

I'm going to do that exact same pattern every time. And they can even see. They can be placed there. They can be positioned there. But if I'm hitting my serve up the tee and it's working well, I'm going to keep hitting it. Even if they try to take it away from me. I need to prove they need to prove to me that it's no longer an effective shot. And until they prove that, which most people cannot, that I'm just going to keep doing. And that's what we call stop the bleeding and cause more bleeding.

You're just going to keep poking on it and poking on it and poking on it until either one or two things happens. They either get better and they start winning points and they take that pattern away or they just completely self-destruct. Some coaches, for example, if you're way behind the baseline, they might have a general rule where...

Hey, you're going to aim six feet over the net. I know one coach who says for every foot behind the baseline is about how many feet you should hit over the net, which I think is a nice general rule. Do you have any basic fundamentals or principles?

for shot selection you said when you're out of position don't be a magician which i absolutely love is there anything like that that you have some pillars some foundation for baseline rallies that would lead generally speaking to good shot selection sure so

You know, for me, when you're dealing with the different amount of feet over the net, like if you're in... If you're behind the baseline, you're going to aim, let's say six, seven feet. That kind of goes back to the system five. System five was a teaching method. you know where there's sort of like five sections of the court and there's five heights and all of these things and it kind of goes back to that and i think that's a good general underlying principle

For me, it really comes down to the player. What type of player am I working with? I'm 6'6", as I'm sure you're well aware. I'm 6'6". When I stand on the baseline, even I can't see over the height of the net. I need to be like six, seven, six, eight to do that. So for me, if I'm working with a taller player,

You know, it's important for me to say, hey, you know what, you might not want to be back behind the baseline that far. We start to move up a little bit. For a general baseline player, though, because they can't see over the net, I just have them aim for the top line of the fence. If there's like a porthole in the windscreens or there's a top railing or there's like a court number on the fence, I try to have the name for that. And, you know, as long as I've been teaching.

and I've told people to aim for the court number or the top railing of the fence, they've never been able to hit it on the fly. They've always been able to get the ball in the court. So it's one of those things where you just need to aim higher because what happens is most people that play from the baseline, they're looking at their target, which is the other side of the court. The problem is when you look at your target.

you're looking through the net so that's where most shots are going to land is right into the net so if you just raise your eyeline a little bit and you raise your target level you know it's a little bit like playing basketball you're not shooting at the rim you're shooting above the rim and you kind of let gravity do its job. For someone who's a little bit taller, I just have them say, start looking for that short ball. And if you can start to move in a little bit, there's going to be a point.

in the court that you get to and again it's different for everyone based on their height but there's a certain point in the court that you get to in the forecourt where you can now start to see physically over the height of the net onto the other side of the court

when you have to know where that line is. Once you get to that line, you can now start to flatten out the ball so it's no longer a rainbow, but it's more of a laser beam. And so I think that's really critical. And again, it goes back to awareness. where is that line depending on your height it's going to be different for everyone but if for me that line is a little bit closer to the baseline i can get away with it for other people it might be closer to the service line or maybe some people

especially juniors inside the service line. But wherever that line is, you have to be aware so that you know what shot to hit. Because if you try to hit one of those short balls and you try to put a heavy spin on it. that ball's sailing long because now you no longer have a baseline that's 78 feet away. You might have a baseline that's only 50 feet away or 45 feet away. I want to take a quick break to highlight our sponsor, ADV.

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You know, I love the moon ball debate. Right. And people love to rip people who play with height. And yet height makes you more consistent. It gets the ball deeper. It's absolutely a weapon. I mean, it gets you short balls.

When you hit a high heavy, I just did a reel and said, hey, ask me any question and I'll answer it. And like six people immediately were like, how do I handle a high heavy ball? It's so hard for me. And I'm like, yeah, it's hard for everybody. That's why like I advocate hitting it. Put on your psychologist hat. Why are people so anti-height? Number one, for their own game, but then also a vast majority of players out there will ridicule other people who play with great height. Why is that?

Because it's uncomfortable. It makes people uncomfortable when people have to play someone like that, you know, again, people watch people watch Tennis on TV too much. So when you see these players it always looks like they're hitting the ball perfectly in their strike zone

What you don't see is all the hard work that goes into getting a ball into your strike zone every time. So people get obsessed with TV tennis. So they don't understand why at a recreational level or junior level, even at college level, why someone that can...

and hit a high moon ball is going to be so difficult. Well, again, it puts you out of your comfort zone. You're not hitting the ball in your strike zone. And then in order to play that way, there's sort of like an unwritten rule, like, oh, you know, you need to hit the ball hard and you need to drive it flat and all of these things.

At the end of the day, the ball doesn't know what you're trying to do to it. All the ball cares is it has to get into the rectangle. So I think it's sort of like an ego thing, you know, where people just want to hit every ball hard, flat. one inch over the net, close to the lines, and that's how you're supposed to play tennis because that's what I saw the guys on TV do. And in reality, that's not the case at all because the TV angle is a little bit different.

You know, I think it just comes down to ego. It comes down to pride and it comes down to I want to try to make this as easy as possible so that I look good as opposed to practicing, working really hard. so that i can make any shot look good because they put in the hours not just hey i'm coming out here to play a little bit and you know i just want things to be easy i always want my players i definitely have an ego with this and i want my players to have the same ego as

that you're so smart. Like, I feel like everyone wants to have the ego be, oh, look how good I look, how well I hit the ball. And I would, I prefer the ego. Like I love when I compete in anything and I don't look great. But I get it done. And I'm like, yeah, that's because I'm smart. I figured out the game. I solved the puzzle. And I have like, that's how I identify as a problem solver, as a winner, as someone who can get it done.

And I would love for my players to adopt that mindset with like, that's what I want to be the best at. I want people to look at me and see that I am so intelligent that, wow, he can win even though his backhand slice is horrible. Or he's got nothing on his serve, but man, this guy just gets it done. Do you think that the ego tends to shift towards the ball striking just because that's the most visible thing and it's something that most people pay attention to?

It's certainly in the most aesthetic, right? You have something tangible. You have something tactile. You can see it. You can feel the power. You can see the compression of the ball on the strings. And I think people just... naturally gravitate towards that because it is visual and most of us are visual learners. But, you know, in terms of being intelligent, and that's sort of like the gift.

Well, that's great. And chances are you're going to win more matches and someone hits the ball harder. But people can't really see that because they're not inside your head. And they have to spend a lot of time. you know, watching you play and understanding tennis in its most basic form to truly realize that. But I think there's a greater issue too, which is this competitive mindset.

Right. People are like, oh, you know, I'm really competitive. And most of the time, people that say they're competitive aren't competitive. They just want to win. And there's a big difference between wanting to win and being competitive.

was competitive. Why? Because he loved the battle more than he liked the result, right? He would win, he would lose, but you could see he loved the battle. And that's the idea is competition. If we look at... competition and we break competition down into the actual meaning of it right people get this wrong all the time because they're like oh i'm a competitive player and i'm like what does that even mean the root word of competition is compete compete

comes from the Greek word meaning to seat together. In the ancient Olympics, they never gave out medals for first, second, third place. The ancient Olympics, all these athletes came together. And they pushed themselves and they tried to push each other so they could get better results. So competition only happens when both sides of the net, both sides of the court.

are competing at their absolute best and they're giving their full effort. Competition isn't, you know, beating someone 6-1 and 5-0 and you're still pumping your fists. That's not being a competitor, that's being a dick. Right. So it's one of those things where we have to understand to be competitive. Everyone on the court has to have a full buy in. Everyone on court has to be giving their best effort. Everyone on court has to be in sync.

with pushing themselves and pushing each other that's what competition truly is and i think because of that we kind of get off on on that and say oh well you know He's really good because he's winning all these matches. He's a competitive player. If you're winning all your matches, you're not a competitive player. It's that simple.

Right. So a lot of our parents will say they want their kids to win more. Everyone wants to win more. And I get that. I want to win every time I'm out there. But I would always say when they get frustrated at losing, I'm like, well, I can.

I can have you win more. Like my 16-year-old kids, I'll look down the row and I'll say, okay, well, that's the six-year-old clinic. I can put you in there right now. You're going to win 0-0 every time. That's going to be amazing. And they're like, well, that wouldn't be fun. Yeah, you're right.

You want to challenge yourself. You want to be in that moment. And like, to me, that is the fun of the game is if I never lost, I can promise you, I would get bored very quickly unless I was making millions of dollars at the pro level. If I'm at the recreational level and I'm winning one, one.

Why would I be excited to play? There's no thrill. I'm not challenging myself. I'm not growing. And so I try to remind people that that is an element of why you like the game, that frustration you have right now. Losing is why you enjoy winning so much and why you're so excited to go out there and try the next time. You nailed it. Absolutely. That's the idea is people.

Most people that say they're competitive don't understand what competition means and they just want to win. And when I say, well, if you just want to win, then go play someone who's far, far weaker. You'll win all the time. And then they're like, well, you know, I can only get better if I play better players, which in and of itself is a complete myth. But they'll say, oh, well, you know, I need to play against better players. Well, if you're playing against better players all the time.

then that means you're probably going to lose a lot of the time and you're not going to have fun either. You have to find that competitive balance. Pressure is a huge element that factors into every match. People get nervous, people get tight. certain scoring situations there's an elevated sense of what's going on how do you find pressure affects shot selection well you know as they say pressures are privilege right so it's one of those things where when you're

When you're feeling pressure, obviously, again, it becomes internal. The ball doesn't know. The ball doesn't know you're feeling pressure. Only you do. it affects shot selection because it's going to make things a little bit tighter. All of a sudden, maybe our racket head speed isn't the same. So if our racket head speed isn't the same, do we really need to go for that same shot?

down 30, 40, 4, 5 than we did at one all 30 love, right? So that pressure affects us, you know, physically, it affects us emotionally, it affects us mentally, but... you know for the shot selection it's okay this is a pressure point i'm feeling the pressure do i really need to try to hit the winner in this situation chances are no because if you're feeling the pressure

you'll probably feel the pressure because maybe it's a big point, it's a big match. Your opponent's feeling the same thing. So by you just playing rock solid and getting that ball back one more time, you exponentially increase your chances of winning the point.

So I think you have to understand that too is, yeah, everyone's going to feel pressure, but the best players feel pressure in a different way. The best players feel pressure and they don't let it handicap them. They're comfortable with it. They embrace it. They understand what they have to do in those situations. Whereas, you know, a lower level player, an amateur player, they might.

feel pressure and they can't even take a sip of water in the changeover. They're so nervous and they're shaking. And it's just one of those things where good players learn how to embrace the pressure and they do that by understanding the margins. Okay, well... you know, feeling this pressure, I'm going to be maybe, you know, 10, 15%, a little bit weaker because my body's a little bit tighter. Maybe I shouldn't go for that line. Maybe I need to.

increase my first serve percentage right i'm i'm starting to hit a lot of second serves i'm even double faulting well the best way to not double fault is that don't hit a second serve so get your first serve in you have to take a step back and this is what i'm talking about with

being aware. You have to be aware of what's going on internally in your own system, in your own body. If you're feeling nervous, then don't put yourself in a pressure situation. The best players in the world are clutch players because they don't need to perform in the clutch because they try to avoid it if it's 30 all they're going to make that first serve almost all the time and so good players or great players

They're great pressure players because they don't put themselves under that much pressure to begin with. One of the things that always stuck with me was I read this book called Analyzing Wimbledon. And one of the hypotheses that it tested was. do better players step up in big moments? And basically what it concluded was the best players stay the same and the lower ranked players either underplay and get too conservative and too tense or they overplay.

They start ripping and kind of slapping. Hey, I've got a break point against Nadal. Oh my God, I might not get another one. I'm going to push and I'm just going to decelerate and be scared to miss. Or you can have that same feeling. Hey, this might be my only chance. I should go for a winner. So do you find that pattern to pop up in recreational matches? And if so, which one do you see happening more people overplaying or people underplaying?

Well, I'm definitely one that would overplay. I would go for that second serve. I would try to hit like the big bomb, like 135 up the tee against Nadal in a second serve. I don't care. I'm going for it. But that's just my personality. you know, at a recreational level, you know, you still see a mix. And I think that's what's really interesting is about, it's about knowing the player so well. You know, some players will kind of just push.

and they lose their racket head speed, and the last thing they want to do is play to win. And so they'll play not to lose. And so you'll have the... The moon balls, you'll have balls that are short that they come up and they kind of poke and then they run back to the baseline. And then you have certain players that are like, oh, this is a big point. I got to go for it. The vast majority of the time, though, based on the mindset.

it's going to be the former, which is they play way too conservatively, way too tentatively. But I get that. They don't want to mess up. They don't want to make a mistake. But the irony is... They're only in that position because they went for, because they messed up, because they made a mistake. So, you know, it's one of those things where you have to, you have to understand who am I as a player, right?

What's my style? What are my strengths? If you're confident in that, then that's going to give you the answer because that's also what's going to get you out of that. And so at a recreational level, you're going to see a lot of pushing. You're going to see a lot of moon balling. You're going to see a lot of, I'm going to do whatever it takes to not lose this point. As the level starts to get higher, you'll start to see the same problems, but just at a higher level.

But what will end up happening is you will get to a point where, okay, now as you get better, your mood, your personality, your tension. kind of just evens out and it mellows you know some of the some of the greatest tennis players in the world are and i mean this with all due respect are some of the most boring people right they're just sort of steady

They don't have too many peaks. They don't have too many valleys. They just kind of go with the flow. Whereas people at a lower level, they're always up and down. And that emotional toll. I mean, it does damage to you. It does damage to you physically, to your nervous system. And it's exhausting. At the end of a match, when you have a player that's up and down like that, they're exhausted. And it's like they just ran a marathon. You're like, how come you're so exhausted?

Oh, well, you know, I had this great point, then I had this bad point, then I had this great point, and then we played this great game. But then I played, and it was just up and down. Whereas the best players in the world, they're just even keel all the way through. Kyle, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Jonathan, thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right. I want to thank Kyle for coming on the show. I love his rhyme. When you're out of position, don't be a magician. It sounds simple, but think about how many times you've been on defense and made that exact mistake. Know what you're capable of, play to your strengths, and watch the smart shot choices start flowing. Thanks again for listening. I hope you just improved to tennis without even hitting a ball.