How To Stop Making Errors in Tennis | Top Tennis Training

Hey everyone, Simon and Alex here with Top Tennis Training and in this lesson we're going to help you to stop making errors in tennis. Now consistency is one of the most important elements that we don't practice enough. Sure we work on our power, we work on technique, but we don't work on our consistency enough. So in today's video we're hopefully going to change that and give you ways that you can improve in your practice and essentially start winning more matches. Now make sure you watch to the end of this lesson because we'll be giving you a drill that we use in order to improve our consistency, so stay tuned. Now in order to become a more consistent tennis player it's important that we understand the two main obstacles in tennis and the first one of course is the net. Now you can hit the ball extremely hard, you can hit the ball with a lot of pace, but if you're constantly hitting the ball into the net you won't win tennis matches. So we have to eliminate the net by having good margin, so by hitting with a lot of height on our shots. That's the first step. The second step is then making sure that we have the ball to dip before the lines, so eliminating the lines by hitting with good amounts of topspin. So what exactly is good height? So if you're close to the baseline or inside the baseline you might only lift the ball one racket length, but if you're further back and if you're defending then it might have to be two or even three racket lengths and this is why Nadal is so good on clay because when he's defending he really lifts that ball, it gives him a lot of space, it gives him a lot of time to recover and he makes a lot less errors on the court. Are you tired of having your forehand breaking down under pressure? Do you want more control? Time to stop missing. Click on the link. Now it's important to remember that by lifting the ball higher over the net if you don't have enough spin to make the ball dip the ball will sail long or sail wide, so spin is that magical ingredient that will help you to hit with good net clearance but then getting the ball to dip eliminating both the net and the lines. Now before we get any deeper into this lesson if you're serious about improving all aspects of your game then make sure that you have subscribed to the channel. Now press the notification bell so you don't miss out on any future lessons from us. Now in order to have that maximum net clearance along with the topspin it's important that we have that low to high swing path and that means that before the point of contact I want to have that complete racket head below the ball level. This will ensure that I can then brush up the ball that will produce the spin but also that lift off the ball. Yes I can get spin by just brushing the top of the ball but the ball will end up hitting the net or hitting the ground on my side. I can produce topspin but without that net clearance it won't go over so I can still produce spin that's heavy spin but the ball ends up on my side of the court. So with that low to high swing that is what is going to help me to actually clear the net and make sure that I become much more consistent. So on the forehand side it means that my racket head is below that ball and as I'm hitting I'm brushing up the ball and then using that windshield wiper motion and on the backhand side for the two handers this is the same technique but with the top hand now, my left hand. So my left hand is dropping and then brushing up. With the one handers it's the same technique but instead of having that top hand I'm now doing it with the right hand. So the racket head is dropping below the ball level and I'm brushing up. So now that you're not missing into the net or on the baseline it's time to know where to hit that shot and the direction where you should be aiming. Now the optimal place to go is cross court for three main reasons. When you go cross court the net is lower in the middle. You can see a dipping so you actually don't need quite as much height through the middle as you do when you go down a line. Now when you go cross court you go down a diagonal not down a line therefore you have more space to hit into. The court is a lot longer that way. Now you also don't risk missing the ball because if you're going cross court and you miss hit and you hit the ball a little bit late the ball will stray down the middle whereas if you hit it down a line the ball will probably go out. Now when you hit cross court you don't actually have to recover all the way to the middle. You protect more angle by staying a little bit to the side so to the right of that middle. Therefore you'll be less rushed to recover after the shot and will give you more time to hit it. Now going down a line on the other hand will make you recover past the middle because you have to cover the angle that the player now has available to hit into. You're sacrificing your own space by going down a line so it becomes a more aggressive a more attacking shot and also a riskier option. So not only do you risk missing that ball but you also expose the angle that's available to your opponent so you'll have to recover a lot further. Now it may feel counterintuitive where you actually have to speed up your racket in order to slow down the ball. That speed of the racket because it's travelling from low to high you're creating rotation on the ball rather than speed of the ball travelling through the air. So don't be scared don't hold back on that ball what you don't want to do is to guide it so that the ball leaves your strings without any topspin. If you want to produce topspin what you'll need is to actually accelerate the racket more to create more of that rotation. Now the rhythm of the stroke is simply how fast or slow you go through the hit phase. Now we take the swing being the slow part of the shot as you start to go towards the ball you start to accelerate and you peak at the hit of the ball what you don't want to do is to be linear you don't want it to be the same the swing the hit and the follow through. But just because you don't hit that much topspin doesn't mean that you can't be consistent. It still means that you have to have height over the net perhaps not as much height as someone who has a little bit more topspin than you. You may have to aim a little bit lower but you also have to try and get a little bit closer into the court. The closer you are inside the court inside the baseline the less the net becomes a factor. The further back you go the more height you must give to that ball and that's where topspin is useful to bring that ball down because if you're hitting a flat ball that's high over the net you're risking it going out or you may just simply have to slow that racket head down and the ball will travel slowly and the opponent will be able to attack after the bounce. So to be effective off that shot to give a rally ball back to the opponent you either have to go closer into the net or apply topspin if you're further back. Now the closer inside the court you are the more angles you have available to you so you're also less likely to miss. That's why those short balls are such easy putaways. The further back you go the less angle you have to go for and you have to accept that you're just hitting the ball down the middle and you're trying to stay in the rally through height and length. Now we can also slice the ball and the slice doesn't go that high over the net but it's being slowed down by the rotation backwards on the ball. The slice is quite low over the net but that backwards rotation actually lifts that ball slightly and keeps it going. It also ensures that the ball doesn't bounce up for your opponent it stays low and skids through after the bounce. So it's an effective way to break tempo and to stop your opponent from attacking. Now to be consistent you have to believe that you're consistent. You have to believe that you can outrally your opponent. You want to have the ability to have a loose arm where you can accelerate freely. The tighter you are the more likely you are to snap at the ball and the ball will leave your strings quickly without too much control. Doubting yourself and indecision will actually make you miss. But in order to create that confidence in yourself you need to practice it and you need to practice having long rallies knowing that you're not going to miss with whatever technique that you're using. So this leads us nicely into our drill and now we'll work on becoming more consistent so you can bring this kind of tactic into your matches. The way we're going to do it is we're going to play points or rallies. I'll feed the ball in out of my hand to make sure that the serve doesn't come into play. Once we've started the rally we're going to work on moving each other around and trying to win the point without hitting a mistake. So we're not going for any winners, we're not going for shots that are close to the line, we're trying to get good height over the net so that the only way we can win is if the other player makes a mistake. Now this is a great drill not only for consistency but also for your fitness. Because you're running and covering a lot of ground but also the points are a lot longer you'll actually work out a little bit and you'll get fitter on the court and you'll be able to sustain longer rallies. It's also a great way to work on your tactics where you actually get to see how ineffective or effective your shots are depending on where you go on the court, whether you're going down the line or cross court and depending on how much height and depth you've got on that ball. So there you have it, how to become a more consistent tennis player. I hope you've enjoyed this video. Make sure you smash that like button. Make sure you subscribe to the channel and press that notification bell. Leave a comment under the video and let us know what you'd like to see from us in the future. Signing out, Top Tennis Training, see you soon.