I recently watched a 60 Minutes interview with Novak Djokovic that completely changed how I think about mental toughness in tennis. And I think it's going to change how you think about it too. Because what Novak revealed in this interview is the complete opposite of what most tennis players
I recently spent some time working with a solid 4.0 player on his serve, and what I discovered was eye opening. At first glance, his serve looked really solid. Good technique, decent power, nothing obviously wrong. But when we slowed things down and looked at the video frame by frame,
You know what you're supposed to do. Hit harder. Add more topspin. Split step before every shot. You KNOW all of it. And yet... you just don't do it. Sound familiar? You've taken lessons. You've watched videos. You've drilled and practiced over and over again. And somehow your game just
What if you could hit your best shots and play your best tennis without having to think about it at all? No reminders. No mental checklists. No voice in your head constantly telling you what to do. Just pure instinct and habit doing the work for you. That's what the
Getting hit by a ball in doubles is frustrating. It feels sudden. It feels unfair. And most of the time you probably think you were in the right spot. You weren't. And here's the thing. It's not just you. Professional players make this exact same mistake. I was recently watching
I recently worked with a 10-year-old girl on her backhand and what I discovered was something that every single adult competitive tennis player needs to hear. This kid is incredibly coordinated, athletic, and she has a great coach. And yet, she still has technical flaws she's working through. Right off
I need to be real with you for a minute. If you've been following Essential Tennis for any length of time, you've probably noticed things have slowed down lately. Way down. Fewer videos, less activity on social media, longer gaps between uploads. I owe you an explanation for that. You've
I get asked about tennis strings more than almost any other equipment question, and honestly, I totally understand why. Walk into any tennis shop or browse online, and you're hit with hundreds of options. Natural gut, synthetic gut, multifilament, polyester, hybrid setups—and that's before you even get into tensions, gauges,
Step across and punch is one of the most common instructions I hear players repeat back to me when they talk about volley technique. It’s also one of the worst pieces of advice you can receive at the net. I see this all the time during lessons. A player comes
I’ve been playing tennis for over 30 years, and in that time I’ve missed a lot of shots. Easy shots. Hard shots. Shots I probably should have made. But none of them were as painful or as embarrassing as one particular miss that happened during a big team match. This
