I just got back from Indian Wells, California where I spent six days running doubles strategy clinics and working with some amazing students.
And one thing really jumped out at me about the ready position and preparation that tennis players have.
Based on the tens of thousands of hours I’ve spent coaching everyday tennis players, there’s a ninety percent chance your ready position sucks.
Without checking all four critical boxes that I’m about to show you, you’ll never move around the court as quickly or smoothly as you should.
Let me explain what those four boxes are, and then I’ll show you the fascinating thing that happened when I taught these to my clinic students.
Let’s start by looking at what the pros do. I’m going to use the Bryan Brothers and Andy Murray as examples because they demonstrate these four fundamentals perfectly.
Checkbox number one is knee bend. When the Bryan Brothers come down into their ready position after their split step, look at how much their knees are bent. Think about this in terms of playing defense in basketball. If you’re straight up and down, you don’t give yourself much leverage to be able to push and turn and pivot in whatever direction the offensive player is moving.
Checkbox number two is width. Look at how wide their stance is. Professional tennis players are almost always right around double shoulder width apart when they come down with their feet.
Checkbox number three is staying on the balls of your feet. When you watch Andy Murray come down from his split step, his heels never actually touch the court. His weight stays on the balls of his feet and he maintains this gap between his heels and the court.
Checkbox number four is forward posture. If you draw a line from the balls of Murray’s feet straight down at a ninety degree angle, you’ll see that most of his body weight is on the right side of that line. That means he’s got a little bit of forward balance or lean to his posture. What that does is it keeps a lot of energy stored on the balls of his feet so he can athletically spring forward and out in whatever direction the ball is moving.
So those are your four critical checkboxes. Knee bend. Double shoulder width stance. Heels off the court. Forward posture.
Now let me show you what I saw from my clinic students, ranging from 3.0 all the way up to 4.5 level players.
The joke I was making during these camps is that most players look like somebody standing in the cereal aisle at the grocery store just kind of trying to decide which box to pick out on the shelf. This doesn’t look like somebody who’s ready for an athletic response.
Here’s what I saw over and over again. Narrow stance. No bend in the knees. Heels flat on the court. No forward posture.
Zero out of four checkboxes.
Even at the 4.0 and 4.5 level, most players were only partially checking some of the boxes. Maybe they had a little bit of heel lift. Maybe they had some knee bend. But their stance was still way too narrow, and they didn’t have much forward posture.
Now maybe you’re thinking, well Ian, this was just during short court warmup rallies. Don’t be so serious.
And there’s some partial truth to that. You don’t need to go hardcore full intensity right out of the gates. However, a lot of these players, even the high level ones, were very static. And this is just demonstrating underlying habits. To be flat, to be narrow, to be straight up and down, to not have any forward balance.
You’re not going to be a very good tennis player if this is your base response or reaction or habit.
Here’s where this gets really interesting.
I showed all these players their ready positions and split steps. We talked about the four checkboxes. I demonstrated what we’re looking for by showing the pros and demonstrating it myself.
Then I had these players practice.
Everybody did better after we talked about this and they started practicing. But here’s the thing that really jumped out at me.
Even after instruction and demonstration, their stances were still way too narrow.
Players who were super narrow before were now at about one and a half times shoulder width apart. Better than before, but still not double shoulder width like the pros.
So I started giving individual feedback. Let’s push it out a little wider. Let’s go a little wider. You’re a tall guy, let’s use that leverage.
And as players started widening their stance more and more, they finally started looking like tennis players. Like athletes ready to move.
But here’s what blew my mind.
When It Feels Too Wide, It’s Probably Right
I let my students practice coming down in their new ready positions. Then I showed them video of themselves.
Over and over again, I heard this comment from players:
“No way. This is way too wide, Ian. I was already doing pretty well and now you’re asking me to go wider and this feels like it’s totally excessive and there’s no way this is accurate.”
Then we sat down and I showed them exactly what I just showed you. Video of the pros. Video of them before. Video of them after.
And they said, oh wow. Oh, that looks like now I look like a tennis player. Now I look like a good tennis player. Like I’m actually getting ready and I’m actually athletic and I’m actually giving myself some spring to be able to push off in whichever direction the ball goes.
Here’s the question you need to ask yourself.
If a proper ready position feels exaggerated, what does that mean about the normal one you usually use?
It means you’ve probably been unathletic and slow and in a bad athletic position for your whole tennis career.
Your perception of what feels right is way off. What feels normal to you is actually keeping you slow and inefficient.
And what feels exaggerated and too wide is actually what professional players do on every single point they play.
So here’s what you need to do.
Practice this at home. These are fundamentals that make a huge difference in your game.
Work on all four checkboxes. Bend your knees. Get your stance to double shoulder width apart. Keep your heels off the court. Lean forward slightly so your weight is on the balls of your feet.
It’s going to feel too wide. It’s going to feel exaggerated. It’s going to feel weird.
That’s how you know you’re doing it right.
Film yourself if you can. Compare it to video of the pros. You’ll probably discover, just like my clinic students did, that what feels way too wide is actually still not quite wide enough.
Once you dial this in, you’ll move around the court faster, smoother, and more athletically than you ever have before.
This is one of those fundamentals that separates players who look like they’re playing a sport from players who look like they’re shopping for cereal.
Don’t be the cereal shopper. Be the athlete.
Your Coach,
-Ian
