Essential Tennis Podcast #148
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Announcer: Welcome to the Essential Tennis podcast. If you love tennis and want to improve your game, this podcast is for you! Whether it's technique, strategy, technique, or the mental game, tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player.
And now, here's Ian!
Ian Westermann: Hi, and welcome to the Essential Tennis podcast, your place for free, expert tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game.
Today's episode of the Essential Tennis podcast is brought to you by TennisExpress.com. Check them out by going to EssentialTennis.com/ Express.
Thank you very much for joining me on today's episode. I'm going to be answering some great listener questions today. Before we get to that, just two quick announcements. First of all, and I talked about this briefly last week, the Essential Tennis podcast is up for the Top Sports Podcast of 2010. Please support the show by voting. You only have today and tomorrow. Today is Mon. the 13th. Tues. the 14th to cast your vote. You can vote 1 time per day 13-14. Voting closes on the 15th. You can vote for the show by going to PodcastAwards.com.
Thank you all so much who have been voting. Hopefully we win! That'd be cool.
Secondly, before we get to today's questions, quickly Tennis Rx, the new course that Will and Yann over at FuzzyYellowBalls are putting out, is going to be going on sale on Wed. the 15th. If you haven't already checked out the free video that they have been putting out--it's 3 videos now. Those total over 1 hr. of video instruction. Go watch those before they get taken down. They're getting taken down on Wed. So again, you have today and tomorrow, Mon. and Tues., to go watch those free instructional videos. You can check those out by going to EssentialTennis.com/ Rx.

Lastly, I'm putting together a bonus for anybody who buys Rx. Again, there's no obligation to buy by going to my link. You should go just to look at the free videos. If it turns out that you're interested in the full course and you want to purchase it, that's great. I'm an affiliate for that, so part of your purchase will go to support Essential Tennis.

Also, I'm offering a bonus to anybody who purchases Rx through Essential Tennis. That is a clinic with Will and myself. It's going to be held in Baltimore. It's going to be an afternoon lawn clinic, probably 5 hrs. on court and 1 hr. or so off court, socializing with food and drinks, etc. So if you want to spend 5 hrs. on court with Will and myself--and this is a totally free bonus for the first 20 people, only 20 people who purchase Rx through Essential Tennis.

To be totally honest with you, I think Rx is totally worth the money anyway. I know Will has put a lot of time into it. The content is great. But even sweeten the deal that much more [laughter] and I'm really happy that Will agreed to this clinic with me, I'm going to throw in totally free for the first 20 people who purchase through Essential Tennis this afternoon clinic. I don't hvae the exact dates yet, but it's going to be a weekend, either a Sat. or a Sun. It's going to be in Baltimore, probably in Feb. or March, somewhere around there. I'll get specifics to those of you who are one of those first 20 people.

So again, after Wed. Rx goes on sale. Go to EssentialTennis.com/Rx. That will take you to the purchase page. And if you do decide to purchase, you'll be asked to join that clinic with myself and Will. Again, completely free! So go check it out. Get the free videos. Maybe I'll be spending time with you and Will on the court in the next couple months. If you have any questions about the product or the clinic, send me an e-mail to Ian@essentialtennis.com.
Alright. Let's go ahead and get down to business. Sit back, relax, and get ready for some great tennis instruction!
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Alright. Let's go ahead and get started with our first question today. It comes to us from Tony. Tony wrote and said: "Hi, Ian. Recently I have realized that in order to improve my tennis significantly, my next step is to improve my ability to hit dynamic shots. Meaning combine strokes with footwork together. Although I can hit some decent shots on a ball machine, my strokes tend to fall apart when I needs a hit and run at the same time. How can I improve my ability to move around the ball and set up correctly so that my strokes don't break down?"

Well Tony, that's a great question, and you're absolutely right. [laughter] There's a lot of people out there who are great at hitting good tennis shots when they're being fed to them. Or it's a comfortabl rally back and forth. Or they're hitting against a ball machine. But being able to recreate that good technique while moving dynamically around the court is really the next level. And a lot more difficult! There's a lot of skills necessary to be able to do that effectively. I'm going to talk about those. I've got a 4 part outline here. I'm going to talk about the skills necessary to hit on the run, which is going to come under 3 main headings. Then I'm also going to talk about how to improve each of those different aspects or skills needed to be able to hit effectively on the run.

So skill #1that you need to be able to hit on the run effectively is footwork, specifically combinations of bigger and smaller steps. Very often the mistake that recreational players make is they only have one size of step. They only have one way of moving around the court, and that's at one speed and at one size step. It's just not very athletic.

What you should be doing is using a combination of bigger and smaller steps. Large steps for your striding out at full stride is for top speed. To get from point A to point B in as short amount of time as possible. And then smaller steps are for quick acceleration and also deceleration to slow yourself down, get yourself in exactly the right spot, and to fine tune your positioning. Without those smaller steps, very often you would either over run your target and go too far or you wouldn't make it far enough because you only used longer strides. So you wouldn't accelerate very quickly to begin with, first of all. Then secondly, it's very likely that you'll stride right past exactly where you should be to hit the best possible shot.

You see, in tennis on the ground strokes and overheads and volleys, there's really one specific place where the ball should be in relationship to your body so that the stroke, the technique that you're trying to use, is as comfortable as possible. It doesn't mean that you have to be in exactly that spot to hit a good shot. But wouldn't that be nice? [laughter] And it's not always going to happen. Obviously! You're going to misjudge sometimes. You're going to put yourself in the wrong place. But if you could get to exactly the right spot a couple times more per set, that's going to improve your tennis big time.

And the specific pattern is basically this. As far as using the smaller steps and the bigger steps, you should be using quick little steps initially to accelerate. Think about using 1st gear on a car or on a 10 speed bike. It's the easiest gear to turn. And that's how you want to start off athletically when you know you have to really run and hustle to get to a ball. You should be starting out with small, quick little steps first. Probably your first 3 steps or so. 3-5 steps at the most. Should be quick, explosive, little steps to get your body accelerated. Then as you continue moving towards the ball--probably after your 4th or 5h step or so--you're going to want to stride out, meaning take full, long steps, which is going to help you cover the greatest amount of court possible.

Then as you get close to where you know you should be, or where you think you should be! [laughter] We're going to talk about that later. You should start using the smaller steps again to gather your balance and fine tune your positioning so that you get in the best possible place on the court. If possible. Sometimes the ball is hit so far away from you that you don't have the option of using those smaller steps in the second half of your position. So you have no choice but to continue using your longer stride, at kind of your top speed, all the way to the ball.

You don't have the choice of using the small adjustment steps as you approach the ball and you actually get set to make your swing. But if you have the option, or you have the ability, to you absolutely should be using the small steps again in the second half of your movement on the way to the ball to help adjust yourself.

So as I mentioned earlier, I mean, all of you guys have those longer strides. Everybody knows how to take a full stride and get to whatever their top speed is now. It's not to say you can't improve your top speed, and you can't learn how to get faster. But in my experience, it's the smaller steps that recreational players need to improve, or they don't have at all. In my experience as well, the best way to train for that--there's a couple different ways--but my favorite way to work on that you don't even have to be on a tennis court do this.

Is to used what's called an "agility ladder." I strongly suggest you go to Youtube .com and do a search for "agility ladder." That will bring back thousands of videos of athletes, some of them professional really high level athletes, using what's called an agility ladder. It looks like rope ladder, except usually the rungs are plastic and they're connected by rope. Not really rope. Usually a nylon type cord, I guess, between the rungs. So that creates little spaces. There's many different footwork patterns that you can practice.

Most of them--well really all of them--really specifically focusing on agility, which is the use of small steps to move your body quickly and fine tune your position. So buy one of those! You can buy one of those at a major sporting goods store. Or if you go to... I haven't looked on Amazon, but probably on Amazon.com you can get it even cheaper. And go to Youtube and check out the different drills you can do to work on your footwork. Really good stuff.
OK. So that's the first part of my outline. Second necessary skill to be able to hit on the run is good judgment of where the ball is going. This is something that's difficult to practice and improve aside from just playing a lot of tennis and really being focused on it. The best way to improve your positioning is cooperative rallies with another person. So for example, maybe a cross court forehand rally. You guys aren't trying to win the point. You're aiming for a specific spot on the court, and doing a rally back and forth with an emphasis on consistency and accuracy. Trying to keep as many shots in play as possible.

And as you do a cooperative rally like that, aiming for a specific spot, you should focus consciously the entire rally maybe for 5-10 min. on-- not that your rally is going to last 10 min. Not that you're rally's going to last 10 min.! But however many rallies you're able to get in in 5-10 min., you should be focusing on a consistent contact point. Meaning the right distance from your body width- wise, and the right height of contact. Height-wise. I mean, be really picky about it, and move your feet well enough that you consistently hit in that same spot. You won't always be able to get to that exact spot, but you should be trying to. And just be really conscious and aware of where you're making contact.

I think a lot of times recreational players do these cooperative rallies, which I condone and recommend all the time on the podcast, but they only think about their target. That's great! That's good practice. You should be doing that. Or maybe they think about technique, and they're trying to improve a certain part of their forehand or their backhand. That's great too! You should be doing that too.

But I don't see a lot of recreational players rallying with an emphasis on footwork. Very often I see rec players rally and they hit the ball from the same place on the court over and over again, even though their contact point is different every shot. As you can imagine, that causes some problems. [laughter] That cuts down consistency a lot, because you can't use the same good technique over and over again if the ball is constantly in a different place.

So I want you guys to do that. Cooperative rallies with an emphasis on your positioning. Pay close attention to patterns. What I mean by that is many, many, many rec players--when I say "many" more than once, listen carefully! Many rec players make the same positioning mistakes over and over again.

The two most common ones that I see are over running and getting too close to the ball and being jammed up. I see a lot of players who do that over and over again on a consistent basis on either their forehand or backhand ground stroke. I also consistently see players not judge the height correctly, and the ball ends up being too high in their stroke zone or too low in their strike zone. So they don't judge the width and they overrun. They don't judge the height correctly. Usually the high ones is what I see rec players struggle with the most. And simply, they just don't back up far enough! Either because they didn't know it was going there, or they don't know any better [laughter] and they just back up to get to a better spot. So they have to make contact higher than what's comfortable, and that results in a shot that's not as good.

So go out there and rally, and pay close attention to these patterns and make conscious changes. When you find out that you're consistently close, when you find out the ball is consistently too high on your backhand side, make an adjustment. Make a change. Very often that's just due to poor judgment. If you're judging the all incorrectly consistently, start trick yourself. Go back farther than you think you have to. Or give yourself more space than you think you need. Make some kind of change on purpose, consciously, to get yourself out of whatever pattern you've been in that has put you in the wrong spot to make the best stroke possible. Really important stuff! [laughter]

OK. Halfway through outline here. Thirdly-- and this is the third general skill that you need to be able to hit on the run effectively. That is just general athleticism and coordination. The judgment is super important, but once you know where it's going, you also need to have the coordination and athleticism to put yourself in the right spot. Just be a good enough athlete to move your body effectively and quickly, and go to the right place. Specifically, coordinating your upper body and lower body together while on the run can really be tough. This is what Tony is talking about.

I would bet that Tony is physically getting to a lot of these shots. Probably most of them. His problem is probably not the actual speed necessary to get to the ball. But where things are probably breaking down for Tony is just being able to coordinate together his efforts with his lower body along with still trying to make a good swing. That's much more difficult than people think. It's not easy.

The good news is this is something that you can improve and develop. You can! You can train your body to be more coordinated. [laughter] Otherwise, there wouldn't be any hope for any of us, would there? You can do that through practice and repetition. Just be aware that it probably will take some conscious effort, and it will take a bunch of repetition--unless you're lucky enough to be really blessed athletically, which most of us are not! We've talked about this before on the show. We're all blessed in different areas. Even athletically. We all have different skills. Some people are better than us in other areas then others, so this just might not be an area that you're particularly strong in naturally. If you're not, you can still improve it.

One thing that's really important is to remember to be be controlled and calm with your upper body, even if your lower body is in emergency mode. Not frantic, but just going full tilt, and you know that you've got to go full speed or you're not going to get to this ball in time. Or you're not going to get there in time to be in an ideal position with the ball. It's difficult to remember. And some of you are going to have to literally remind yourselves of this as you practice, that even when your body from the waist down is working super hard. Your legs are pumping. You're taking small steps and small steps and big steps. Or maybe just all big steps and you're barely getting to the ball. You're going 100% out towards that ball.

It's very easy to have your upper body go along for the ride and get totally out of control and out of rhythm, and just swing wild. At the ball. Because that's what your legs and feet are doing, is just moving really urgently and really intensely towards the ball. You have to remember to relax your upper body, and allow it to move smoothly and freely. And you've got to remember to use good technique, s good as possible, even when your lower body is working super hard. There's no way around it. This just takes a lot of practice, or a lot of natural athleticism to be able to do this well. Don't feel bad if at first you feel really awkward when you're practicing this, and it just doesn't feel coordinated. It's difficult. If it feels natural right away, then God bless you! [laughter] You're lucky. If it doesn't feel natural right away, it's OK. You can practice it.

That brings me to the final part of my talk here about hitting on the run. That is the specific practice. How can we practice this to get better? Just have a couple of thoughts here.
#1 which I mentioned earlier was cooperative rallies with a strong emphasis on positioning and balance. As I mentioned before, maybe a cross court forehand rally, or down the line rally. Your forehand, your partners back hand. Aiming past the service line. Trying to hit a solid deep ground stroke, and emphasize to yourself you're consciously focusing on trying to get to the ideal spot in relationship between yourself and the ball over and over again. Just make that your focus for like half an hour. [laughter]

You'll have no choice but to improve your footwork! Because you're not going to automatically put yourself in just the right spot, unless it's something you've worked on. Or again, unless it comes really naturally for you. In which case, I'm happy for you, but a lot of other people hate you! [laughter] If anything comes that naturally.

So that's #1. Cooperative rallies with emphasis on positioning and balance. Then #2: feeding drills or ball machines. And put yourself on the run on purpose, or put yourself really back on the base line on purpose. Start in the middle of the base line, or even all the way on the opposite corner. Have a ball machine of a friend feed you shots completely on the other side of the court. And practice just going full speed across the base line, hoping having time to make small adjustment steps. But even if you don't, being calm with your stroke, making a good technical swing, and aiming. Make sure you have a target and go for accuracy. Do this over and over again with either ball machine or partner. Again, focusing strongly on your positioning and your balance. Just do it again and again.

As my 3rd point under How to Improve These Things is it will just come down to repetition and awareness. Keep your focus on what it feels like to make the swing. Keep your focus on what exactly the position is with the ball. In relation to your body. And keep making little adjustments as you do it again and again. Put in the repetition. Be really conscious and aware of what you're doing. Be purposeful about it. And practice it! This is what high level players do. This is what a tennis pro is going to do for you if you go and take a lesson. They're going to force you to work on something you might not be great at and make you do it again and again while really being focused on whether or not you're doing it correctly. If you have enough focus, if you find a partner or a ball machine who also has enough focus to be able to do this, you can improve this part of your game.

OK. So Tony, that's it, man. Again, the 4 different sections were a combination of bigger and smaller steps to move your body efficiently. That's really important. #2 good judgment of where the ball is going. I know that sounds basic, but a lot of people make judgment mistakes, and the same one over and over again. So be aware enough to figure that out and make a change. #3: general athleticism and coordination. You can improve that! And #4: you can improve those different areas through repetition and through focused practice.

Hopefully that's helpful to you Tony and everybody else listening. Go get an agility ladder that will help you with those small steps. Find a partner or a ball machine who's willing to help you work on this, and you can improve it. You really can!
Good luck, Tony. Hopefully you can improve this part of your game in the near future.
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Alright. Before we get to our second question, really quickly I want to remind you guys about the official sponsor of the Essential Tennis podcast. That is Tennis Express, the best online retailer you can go to when it comes to customer service and selection. Go check out what they have. Whatever you want, most likely they've got it, exactly what you're looking for. You can get free shipping for orders over $75. Go check them out by going to EssentialTennis.com/ Express. When you do that and make order, a small portion of that order goes back to supporting EssentialTennis.com. It's really a win-win! You get great selection, great pricing, great service, and you support the Essential Tennis podcast at the same time. Thank you very much for your support, and I thank Tennis Express as well for theirs.
Alright. Let's go ahead and get to our second question today. It comes to us from Adam Artinez in the Bay Area, California. He's a 4.0 player. Writes and says:
"Social issues aside, does playing with a much lower skilled player-- say more than a 0.5 USCA ranking, NTRP ranking--hurt my tennis game other than obviously lost practice time that could be spent with players more at my level? Are there ways to make the play more interesting or conducive to improving my game when I am in these situations?"

Well Adam, really good question. [laughter] I like that you say "social issues aside," because that can definitely be part of it. Especially it you're a member member of a club, etc. But this is something that every tennis player, if you put in the work and effort to go out to local courts and try to work on your game, this situation is going to come up. It has to eventually. Because everybody is looking for somebody to practice with, and of course everybody wants somebody to practice with who's going to be the best use of their time. Which for most people, they want to hit with somebody at least at their level, if not better, to get the most bang for their buck when they're out there on the court.

Now a couple of different things I want to talk about, Adam. We'll go through this relatively quickly. First off, in general I think tennis players need to be more open about who they practice with. I'm not talking about you here specifically, but I just want to talk to tennis players in general. Everybody wants time with somebody better than them. Of course! That'd be great wouldn't it? If you go out there to your local courts and somebody who is .5 NTRP better than you to always push you, always gave you a challenge, and to help you improve your game was just sitting there waiting for you to show up. [laughter] You went out and you practiced for 2 hrs. every time that you walked out with this great player.

Unfortunately, that's not reality. You're always going to be surrounded by a wide variety of different abilities, different skill levels. If everybody [laughter] held out for somebody who was a little better than them to practice with, nobody would ever have a practice partner! So be open, be generous about your practice time with others. Try to subscribe to the Golden Rule. I know that sounds really corny, but if you help people out, more than likely you're going to find other people who are willing to be open and help you out as well. At least that's the general idea. [laughter]

I know it doesn't always work out that way, but try to be generous with your time. More than likely, the people that you're helping out who are a little bit weaker than you--or a bunch weaker than you--are really going to appreciate it at the very least. And maybe try to help you out in the future when you need a hand. Maybe get something to feed you, etc. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself.
But in general, I just want to tell you: be generous with your time. Don't be super picky about who you practice with. Be nice. [laughter] That's #1. I'll get that out of the way.

#2: When hitting with a lower level player, we're going to talk specifically about when this does happen. Because you will spend practice time with people who are just not as good as you. That's fine! And yes, you can still get benefit from that. When you are hitting with somebody who's not as good as you, what's not a good idea is to do a bunch of cooperative hitting drills. Which I advocate very strongly here on the podcast. Setting up a drill where you're hitting x shot to y target. And your partner is hitting x shot to their y target. You're trying to create a rally that's conducive to repetition and practice back and forth. One of my favorite ways for players to practice and get better.

Unfortunately, this is not going to work well when there's a wide difference between the players, because the rallies are not going to last that long. When you have one player who's significantly better and another player that's weaker, the rallies are probably only going to last 2-3 shots each, because the weaker player can't handle the pace or the spin coming from the stronger player. It's not going to end up being good practice. So unfortunately, that's not going to work out well.

But what can work out well, and two different things that I really think you should be focusing on, Adam. When you are working with somebody who is definitely weaker than you, keep this in mind so that you can get the most out of your time on the court. #1: Feeding drills. I alluded to this earlier. You can help each other work on specific strokes, or combinations of strokes, through feeding. You can just set up a simple feeding drill with a specific target and where one player feeds to the other player. Tries to give them specific shots to work on.

Of course only one player at a time is really working on their game in this scenario, but you can trade off every 30 min., or every 15-20 min. Whatever. You can say, "OK, I'm looking to work on my forehand approach shot." So the other player feeds you forehand approach shots. You hit those for 15 min. Feeding players is alright.

I've been working on my returning serve. So you hit some serves, or hit a couple of serves from the service line to help the other person work on the return serve. Whatever! You can coach each of yourselves through specific types of shots. You can really be definitely working hard on your game through this. It can definitely be a benefit to both of you.

Now of course if you only have one can of balls, then this becomes not as good. You need a hopper of balls, or at least a can of balls, to make this worthwhile. So if you don't have that, then this isn't going to work out terribly well. But if you do have access to a hopper of balls, then this can still be great.

The second thing that you can do when there's a difference between player levels is competitive games. At this point in the show, everybody needs to listen to me very closely. This is the second time today that I'm going to say something that everybody needs to hear and needs to listen. You need to practice closing ot and beating lower level players. I know you might think that's a waste of your time when somebody is .5 NTRP below you, or their technique is not as good, They don't look like as good of a player, so you feel like it's a waste of your time. Please don't have that attitude!

I can't even tell you how many times I've seen somebody lose to a player who they think is not as strong as them because they don't look as nice on the court. Their technique is not as refined. And yet they find a way to win. And yet the player who lost will not practice with that player, because they consider them to be lesser of a player than them. Even though clearly they need to work on beating exactly this type of person, because they lost to them! Please don't have an attitude like that. Don't be a tennis snob. Please don't be like this. You can benefit even if the person is clearly not as strong as you.

And even if you tend to win easily, it's good practice for your mental confidence. For your stroke confidence. If they give you weak shot after weak shot, if they tend to just push the ball back, great! How many people complain about pushers? This is an opportunity for you to work against that type of player: somebody who's not as strong as you, who's just pushing the ball in play. It's a great opportunity for you to work on your mental confidence and your stroke confidence to be able to play against somebody like this. Don't be bashful about beating them by a lot! If it does turn out that way, that's fine. Be realistic. Be honest. And play full out. If it wasn't helpful for them, then they probably won't ask you to hit with them again. And that's totally fine! You can move on to somebody else.

I'm not saying be mean about it either. Be a snob the other way and say, "Yeah, I'll play with you," and then crush them. [laughter] And then laugh at them about it. That's not what I'm saying. Be gracious about giving them your time, and work on your own strokes, your own confidence, and putting away players that aren't as good as you. Because when you go and play competition, you're going to play people who are not as good as you. It's a whole separate skill, beating people who are clearly not as good as you. Many players struggle by getting nervous. Getting worried. "Ah, I can't lose to this person. They're obviously not as good as me." Then the better player starts hitting down to the level of the other player. Anybody who's played competitive tennis knows exactly what I'm talking about. You should be practicing against that type of player to get better at.

Even if you consistently win 6-1, 6-0, or whatever, playing aggressively and you're feeling confident that's great. You can still get use out of this time by working on something new. You can work on technique. Maybe even work on hitting with more top spin on your forehand side and practice. And you're not confident enough yet to use it during a match that really counts, or in a match you really want to win.

But again, some player who's not as strong as you, you can go ahead and cut yourself some slack. You can give away some more points. Go ahead and work on something new that you've been practicing. Or work on a new type of tactic. Maybe you don't usually like to come to the net, so against this lower level player, you can come to the net every single point! Just practice that. You can work on specific little parts of your game that you want to add into your game in general that you normally wouldn't do against a player who's as good as you or better than you. Practice that against this lower level player, even if it means giving away more games than you normally would, or even giving away a set or a match. Be humble enough and have an open enough mind to realize that you can still practice specific things, get good practice out of it, and have it be worth your while even if it needs practicing something new or something different that you're trying to learn or get better at.

Alright. So Adam, that's my feedback. Good question. In review, yes, it can be beneficial. Don't be a snob. [laughter] Be a nice person. Be generous with your time. You can still find things to work on, whether it be feeding practice or competitive practice. Working on something new. Working on your confidence putting away lower level players, etc. You can always find things to work on. I encourage you to do that. Alright. Thanks very much for being a listener, Adam. I appreciate it. Take care. Good luck with this.
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Alright. That brings Episode #148 of the Essential Tennis podcast to a close. If you're listening, thank you very much. I appreciate you being a listener of the shows. Supporting the show by downloading the file and listening. I really hope it's been helpful to you, and I've give you some things to think about and maybe some things to improve. It's always my goal here on the podcast. Sometime--or hopefully early this week--two things. You've got two pieces of homework.

Go to PodcastAwards.com if it's before the 15th, Wed. Vote for the Essential Tennis podcast. I would really appreciate that. And #2: go to EssentialTennis.com/Rx if it's before Wed. Go there very quickly so you can get those free instructional videos. Over 1 hr. of instructional video. If it is Wed. or after, check out Tennis Rx, the full course for sale.

Again, if you do decide to purchase, if you're one of the first 20 people, you will be eligible to spend 5 hrs. on the court with myself and Will in an exclusive clinic for Rx purchases. Again, to be able to get that offer, you have to purchase through EssentialTennis.com/Rx.
Alright. That does it for today's show. Thanks everybody. Take care, and good luck with your tennis.
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