Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast, your place for free, expert, tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game. Welcome to episode number 414 of the Essential Tennis Podcast. Today we're going to talk about three Djokovic Secrets To Winning More Matches. Really practical things that you can do in your very next match, whether you are a singles player or a doubles player, we're going to apply these same principles to both
signs of the game. Really, really important principles that every tennis player should be working on, no matter what your level is. So, number one, plan is simple serve plus one. Serve plus one is kind of the commonplace phrase that coaches and analysts use to describe the plan of attack that a player has stepping up to the line to hit their serve.
Serve is such a critical shot in tennis because it starts the action and basically determines to you as the server, are you going to set yourself up in an advantageous way or are you going to set up your opponent who's returning serve in an advantageous way or is it just going to be a
wash, like 50-50? And there's a pretty smooth transition that happens between beginners where oftentimes at entry levels of the game, the returner actually has the advantage because the server doesn't have a specially developed serve, there's not a lot of paste, not a lot of power, and it's kind of just a bare minimum ability to just kind of put the ball
in the box just to check the box, so to say just to start at the point. And so the returner gets to hit a forehand or a backhand or hit a cross-quarter or hit a down, and basically just do whatever the heck they want with it because there isn't any discernible advantage that the server gets because they don't have the ability to place the ball or hit it with paste or hit it with
spin, much less all three at the same time. And then you get to kind of intermediate levels and maybe it's kind of a wash, like nobody really has the advantage because the server's a little bit stronger. Then you get up to advanced levels of play and all of a sudden the server has the ability to hit with paste and spin and placement on both first and second serves. And now all of a sudden the tables have totally turned and I would say that usually that transition towards neutral to
advantage server usually tends to happen around the 4.0 level here in the United States. And the way you can start giving yourself that advantage is to begin now today practicing putting both your first and your second serve in a location on purpose reliably and routinely. I just got back from a week of coaching in Hawaii and we have a day that we just focus on server return.
In a big part of that day we have students line up on the baseline and practice hitting their serve out wide or down the tee, meaning to the forehand corner of the box, the service box or the backhand corner of the service box. Honestly I used to break the boxes in the thirds and have students differentiate between going out wide, going down the tee and going to the body right in
the middle of the box, so breaking the service box in the thirds. And I decided just this year to let's just remove the body part of it because most players don't hit their serve big enough to where a body serve really means anything because it's not moving fast enough to actually jam the returner. That's not a statement of like judgment or condescension, just the reality of it. You have to hit the serve at a certain pace. Otherwise hitting it right in the middle of the box
actually just opens the door for the returner. So, hey, keep working on your mechanics but that's not what we're talking about today. Keep working on your kinetic chain and your looseness and your ability to generate pace on your serve so that a body serve is actually on the table and it's actually possible. But what's more important for most of you listening right now is can we just can we split the box into halves and reliably just decide on purpose to hit either out wide or
down the tee. So, to the forehand corner or to the backhand corner. And the answer unfortunately for I think a very large percentage of tennis players is just no, they just can't do that. And so, how can we ever hope to have a serve plus one strategy meaning I'm going to aim my serve here and then I'm going to have a plan for shot number two to either stretch my opponent or hit
behind them or in some form or fashion make them uncomfortable. That's not possible if we can't even just place the serve in the first place and it feels this is going to sound a little mean but it just feels to me honestly like group after group of players that I work with when I start
unpacking why it's important and we start discussing I hear is why it's so critical to place your serve and let's like practice this more and more I feel like it's just I'm kind of speaking Greek you know it's like people are just kind of like it feels like I'm kind of pulling teeth a little
bit and this is this is such of incredibly basic fundamental skill so I want to please I want you to be real honest with yourself right now if you're listening to my voice do you have the ability I don't it doesn't matter if you're singles player or doubles player or what level player you are
do you feel confident that if I put let's say a thousand dollars on the line and you have to hit a serve with confidence and conviction and acceleration and you get one try and if I were to just pick this has to go to the backhand corner or the forehand corner of the service box
can you do it more than half the time you know can you convert on that seven times or eight times out of 10 if you miss a couple out of 10 that's fine there's there's no expectation here of being perfect but it should definitely be over 50% with a confidence swing and if you don't have that
capability man is tennis going to be so much harder for you and so we're talking about a very fundamental thing here but joke of itch and everybody else you watch on TV I guess a bit a bit of spoiler here in the video by the same title three joke of itch secrets to winning more matches I
use joke of itch examples for for all of these in by the way you can find that video on YouTube three joke of itch secrets for winning more matches so I I use joke of itch real life examples for all of these different skills but every tennis player over a 4.0 level is doing all of these
things to varying degrees of precision and execution and intensity and like you know speed of shot so on and so forth and surf plus one is impossible without first placing your serve so please please practice this I'm begging you if you want to be a great tennis player no matter what your
level is or who you play against this is a critical I mean just honestly like beginner skill and if you can't do it yet reliably start practicing it and I've got some training for you if you don't know how just go to YouTube and do a search for two secrets for laser accurate serves
and you'll see a old essential tennis video pop up there's another one too how to aim your serve so you get you could search for both of those the the principles are the same those are both just free videos on YouTube and it talks about the principles of how to aim itch those drills for how
to train and this is the first step to being able to have a serve plus one so serve plus one just simply means I'm consciously deliberately either placing my serve to pull my opponent in one direction or the other or I'm deliberately targeting what I have determined to be a weakness and I am forcing
my opponent to have to hit their lesser shot neither of those things are possible until I can first pick a spot and then reliably make the ball go there so if you want to know how to do that look up those those free videos on YouTube and I'll show you step by step how to do it by the way so
the so just to like spell it out specifically and if you watch the joke of itch focused video you'll see that the specific example I show a lot of there is what a lot of professional players have been doing frequently over the last 10 15 years and that is especially on the do side for writing
hitting out wide pulling the opponent off the court and then either hitting to the open court on the next shot that's the plus one or when your opponent thinks you're going to hit to the open court hit behind them meaning go back to that same side because they're anticipating and they're
already running across the court hitting behind them means go back in the other direction that they think you're going now those are both singles specific but it doesn't take a lot of imagination and doubles to picture the same type of setups especially since in doubles you've got your
partner up at the net so I think in doubles the tactic of just picking on the weaker side and just hammering it over and over not just to set up your partner to force both both doubles opponents to hit their weaker shot and try to avoid your partner and then in addition to that surplus one
could simply mean planning ahead of time a poach meaning you tell your partner hey I'm going to hit to their backhand you cover the cross court shot meaning you're you're planning ahead of time your partner is going to cut across and cover the cross court shot and you are planning ahead of
time you are going to cover down the line so you're just you're just calling a switch that could be your serve plus one serve to the weakness switch sides mix it up so that the returners don't get into a rhythm they don't get comfortable and they don't have just a free shot cross court
which is true for the vast majority of doubles points that get played every day all across the world so this is number one out of the three strategies is plan a simple serve plus one and that all starts with being able to just hit your serve to one corner or the other corner don't
worry about the body serve until your serve is pretty hard and you can actually kind of handcuff or jam up the return of serve player if and by the way if you can't hit your serve that hard yet it's totally fine being able to place it purposefully and precisely forehand side backhand side
honestly is way more powerful it's much more effective it would it be nice to have the body serve to of course yes but if you can't hit your serve that hard yet it's okay first at least learn how to place your serves to one side or the other in those videos that I mentioned we'll
tell you exactly how to do that okay let's move on to number two the number two strategy you can use to win more matches immediately is to hit big targets on the return of serve and against somebody with a big serve especially but you know and just full honesty most of you listening to
me don't have to worry about that some of you do but most players at most levels you're not getting bombed you know off the court that you're not getting a stover and over again you're you're not having to deal with kick serves way up outside your strike zone or a hundred mile an hour you know
body serves that are that are handcuffing you some of you listening but just statistically it's less it's 5% or less less than that of those of you watching that have to deal with those types of shots for everybody else the vast majority of players it's critical that you have a target ahead
of time first of all and for doubles players obviously that's normally and mostly going to be cross-court there's nothing wrong with that especially if the net player is not super active and for singles players and what I really highlight in the jokovitch themed video if you go check
it out is how frequently he targets just right down the middle and honestly I mean that carries over pretty well in the doubles too if you're playing against a team that isn't very active at the net honestly just aiming right for the the net strap and like three feet over the top of it
is super safe you're hitting right over the low part of the net you're hitting cross-court whether you're returning from the do-side or the ad-side and you're giving yourself maximum distance and depth because you're literally just aiming for the far corner cross-court from you
if you take that center strap target and so you're giving yourself a big margin for error that's what I mean by big target lots of height over the net and lots of distance inside the lines because most points end with an error at all levels of play but especially those of us who are playing normal every day levels of tennis just like me most points end with somebody just messing up so it's a most intelligent you're gonna be playing highest IQ tennis to pick plenty of space plenty of
margin and I know that sounds scary especially to you doubles players let's start with singles players singles players you got nothing to worry about there's no net player very rarely you're gonna play somebody who's serving in volume so frankly aim high over the net give yourself four or five six
feet over the top of the net and especially against a big hard server and I show lots of examples of this in the video where jokovic is just hitting the ball literally just down the middle and if you can hit down the middle with decent depth not only can you just totally neutralize which
is your number one priority is like let's just start this point off on even ground if you can do that you've you've already won if you can take away the advantage the server is trying to gain then you've already won and of course the point then is to try to win the point
but if you can take away the advantage of the server and start most points on even ground that's a gigantic step in the right direction being able to be super successful and win lots and lots of matches so doubles players of course at higher levels when you're playing against very
active net players you don't have the luxury of being able to aim so close to the actual middle and you don't have the luxury of being able to aim so high over the top of the net because a very good very active net player is going to take those shots away and crush them right at your partner
you're not going to be very popular for very long if you hit those types of returns over and over again but rather than pivot completely and think how do I hit this low and hard and with a lot of angle now we're just stacking and layering challenge and removing actively margin for error
and increasing dramatically the odds of you just making a mistake right off the bat and giving away free points and that is like the foundation of all winning tennis is because here's the thing the vast majority of points only last two to three shots and I know you walk back to your car
in the parking lot afterwards reflecting on all the crazy points that lasted you know 20 hits 30 hits you remember the the long kind of boring rallies that the half of course happened from time to time you remember the highlight real points where there's incredible gets and incredible like dynamic
athletic hits of the ball and people are trying to hit winners and playing defense and there's the back and forth you know struggle if somebody finally puts the ball away those points are a tiny minority of all the points and if you were to take an hour of play no matter who you are what
level you are in chart out how many points last one shot how many points last two shots how many points last three shots you would be shocked to learn how high the percentage is of points that just last the serve and the return or certainly like it's definitely over 50% no matter what level you
are listening serve return and just one more shot over half of the points are just those first couple of shots which is why by the way we started out by talking about the serve and being precise and accurate and reliable and now we're talking about the return is that's it's not an
accident if you can optimize those first two shots and then win 5% or 10% more of the boring mundane points that just include the serve or the serve and the return and that's it you just bid off a big chunk of the pie that is the largest percentage statistically of all the points
you're going to play and so you're moving the needle as big as possible without having to come away with any noteworthy shots that's how you win a lot of matches it's not by trying to master you know the one inch over the net one inch inside the line slap you know forehand down the line
or down the alley if you're if you're a double-splayer those are fun you know I love hitting that that shot just as much as anybody else but we have to acknowledge that it's a tiny percentage of the overall points and so if we can if we if we focus all of our time and our attention on
mastering that little outlier shot is noteworthy as it is great and it's satisfying you know to win those points but you're still going to lose a lot of matches if you don't take care of business on the other end of the spectrum and you protect your serve and you protect your turn consistency
and precision and reliability so that's why on returns we're aiming for big targets now that doesn't mean we're hitting the ball softly doesn't mean we're being tentative doesn't mean we're being careful especially at higher levels if you're a four or a player listening or four five
a player or above you don't have the luxury of hitting a weak shot especially in doubles singles maybe you know like if it floats but at least you keep it real deep you can still get into the point no problem but in doubles you we you don't have that luxury especially when you get above the
three five level there has to be a certain level of quality pace and in placement and so so I so I get that but you still shouldn't be aiming for hero shots that's a sucker play and in the long run you're going to win many fewer matches by focusing on those types of shots so use
intelligent patterns try to exploit weaknesses as much as possible long story short this is all about a start the point mindset it's about building points it's about being patient and again it doesn't mean hitting the ball weak it doesn't mean being tentative you can hit the
ball confidently but to a big safe target and that's what your mentality should be on the return of serve is frequently as possible if you want some really specific step by step drills and kind of actionable technical things how you can develop that specifically then you can go to youtube
and do a search for essential tennis return of serve and the main video I recommend you check out is called three return of serve techniques by essential tennis that came out 10 years ago there's another kind of a updated version of that is called dominate the return of serve you'll find both
of them if you do just a simple search for essential tennis return of serve on youtube if you want to see some some technical you know practical things to improve your return of serve and specifically against different qualities of serve a bigger serve a kind of neutral serve in a weaker serve
that kind of sits there I'll show you how to be successful against each of those types of delivery all right so that's number two big targets on return of serve and those and also kind of a set up or like building the point minds mentality or mindset instead of just trying to win the point
outright right out of the gates all right number three this is big and we talked about this in previous episode of the podcast 13 ways to dominate your opponents I'm going to unpack this one a little bit more now because it's super super important idea or concept and that is change depths
of shot and this isn't just about the serve of the return this is kind of now now we're getting into the point we're trying to gain some advantage we're trying to cause our opponents to be uncomfortable and knock them off balance and most opponents and singles and doubles most tennis
let's just keep it general most tennis players predominantly practice moving laterally meaning right and left bilateral I mean parallel to the baseline and so you watch players practice you watch players drill you watch players take lessons and generally they're practicing moving back
and forth right and left forehand and backhand windshield wiper drills or like three forehands across the baseline three backhands across the baseline and back and forth and back and forth and generally the footwork patterns and the recovery that players are practicing is very right and left
dominance guess what especially you singles players playing against defensive minded opponents which everybody everybody loves to hate those like super steady consistent players changing height and depth pulls people out of that normal routine that normal pattern that normal
shift of momentum and energy that they're used to and into something much less comfortable for the vast majority of players so if you're just driven crazy by players that get to everything stop trying to hit around them right and left stop aiming and trying to like slap winners
to their forehand side and then to their backhand side and because guess what a lot of those defensive players love running back and forth and they love like I'm speaking from experience here I love chasing down balls and most of the really successful defensive style players that you play against
doubles included the more you make them run right and left it's kind of like the more happy they are and the more comfortable they are but how many players enjoy sprinting forwards to recover a drop shot especially singles players there's not a lot of singles players out there that love
approaching the net it's kind of a kind of a dine breed right somebody who is looking for opportunities to come to the net and doubles it's going to be more common because you've just got more people who are generally comfortable around the net and doubles but even in doubles
how many points are played exclusively one up one back where the server and the returner hit their first shot and then they just they just camp out and just hit ground strokes and there's nothing wrong with that you can win a lot of matches just staying in one up one back
but if if you notice that your opponent and doubles your opponents and doubles generally like to just hang out then hitting more hard shots cross-court it is probably not going to rattle them it's probably not going to concern them or take the amount of the comfort zone so key here is on your
terms if you can force them into changing depths by either hitting the ball high and deep with a lot of topspin to force them backwards nobody likes moving backwards no there's not a tennis player alive that enjoys having to go back to the back fence to retrieve a high bouncing super spinny
shot that lands close to the baseline it's it's not fun for any it's it's difficult to hit an effective shot from way back by the back fence or the back curtain and also if you can follow that up with a effective short shot doesn't even have to be a great you know drop shot per say
but if you can purposefully hit a ball next lower over the net with backspin instead of the topspin and you can effectively one to punch with those different heights and depths now you've got something really special and guess what after you hit the high deep one you push them back
and then after you hit the low short one and you pulled them forwards what's the next most obvious shot another really high really a k a lob right how many tennis players practice their overhead how many tennis players love their overhead sadly over the years I've discovered
that even most doubles players don't especially like their overhead which is crazy and so make them hit overheads right especially if you practice placing those high deep shots you can reliably let's say get it over the backhand side of your opponent with good depths when
they're up at the net after you force them to come into the net now we're we're forcing our opponent to solve a completely different problem everybody practices moving right and left forehand and backhand hardly any tennis players practice moving back and then forward
and then from forward to moving back again and you know I think ultimately the reason why is humans just aren't designed to comfortably move forward and back of course from design to move forward but forward and then backward is very uncomfortable and very unnatural for most humans
and it's very unusual for everyday tennis players to have a very athletic response to having to run forwards and like barely scrape the ball out after it bounces the first time like right before the second bounce get it back there's very few humans that can then dynamically and athletically move back quickly smoothly efficiently for a really high deep shot it's there's just very few of your peers that can do that comfortably so please you please use this pattern so that means
practicing your lob it means practicing a high topspin shot deep in the court and it means practicing your touch and practicing your backspin shots that again doesn't necessarily have to be like it I'm doing like air quotes a drop shot per se but just any ball that's going to bounce twice before
getting to the baseline that's going to force your opponent on the baseline to have to come forwards like newsflash players like the ball in their strike zone and most of your peers in addition to not really practicing transitioning forward and back forward and back they also aren't fantastic
at reading and anticipating when there's changes in depth and that's why a lot of players hit a lot of balls up outside their strike zone and a lot of players hit a lot of balls down below their strike zone and those are just the ones frequently and like on average that just kind of happen on
accident like you kind of miss hit a little bit it's like shorter than you wanted and you know the ball I'm talking about in your opponent like doesn't read that it's not going to travel and they just kind of like barely get to it like that kind of awkward shot what if you could just do that
on purpose so to develop that skill I've got two drop shot lessons for you on YouTube if you just do a YouTube search for essential tennis drop shot there's two lessons one I just published a couple months ago that features Alcras because his drop shots incredible now I go through frame-by-frame
analysis of how he does it but then there's an old one too top drop shot tip from essential tennis watch both of those and you'll learn about the principles of touch the angle the racket face how to create the backspin how to get the right touch so that the ball travels over the net but not
too far and you can learn how to develop those those technical skills you can find a lab lessons too if you search for essential tennis lab I think the lesson is called the perfect lab or something like that on YouTube then you can learn how to hit the high deep one as well and you pair those
together and man you can make your opponent super uncomfortable and by the way I'm not saying that you only change up depth like I'm not saying throw out pulling them from side to side it's just that if that's the only tool you have in your toolbox and that's the the move in pattern that
your opponent's primarily practice well you're just you're not giving yourself the best chance to make your opponents uncomfortable which ultimately is the main way that you're going to win points and win matches so step one plan a simple surf plus one and that means you have to be able to
aim your serve on purpose step two hit big targets on the return of serve keep it high margin and then step three change depths if you do all three of these things it does it singles player doubles player no matter what level you are you're going to win more matches I guarantee it
and if you'd like some additional guidance on how to intelligently position yourself on the courts and aim to make the game as easy as possible make sure to go to tennis secret dot com at tennis secret dot com where I'll show you the secret to running half as much and making
half as many errors as you normally do in your very next match just by making some really simple adjustments to where you stand on the court and where you aim on the courts to open up the game and make it easier for you and harder for your opponents go go check that out at tennis secret dot com thanks for listening today I really appreciate it having you as a listener I'll talk to you in the next one for more free game improving instruction be sure to check out essential tennis dot com where
you'll find hundreds of video audio and written lessons also be sure to subscribe to essential tennis on iTunes and YouTube where we are the number one resource in the world providing passionate instruction for passionate tennis players thank you so much for listening today take care and good luck with your tennis