(Inspired by the podcast episode #72: “It’s the Player who makes the Coach” w. Magnus Norman on The Adam Blicher Show — Dissecting High Performance in Tennis)

Many times, when I watch juniors or even less high ranked players nowadays warm up then after 5 minutes 25 balls are already sitting at the net. That for me, is not acceptable.

When training starts the focus has to be there from the first minute. If there are 25 balls in the net after five minutes, I think you’re probably playing over your limits. So, then you need to start a little bit slower.

Younger players are thought in a different way, but there’s a lot of shots out of nowhere. There’s a lot of hard hitting because perhaps they’ve been watching highlights on YouTube or stuff like that.

Tennis at its very core is a lot about movement, about having strong legs and not missing.

Then the next step will be to try to force an error from their opponent. But you cannot start with all the highlights shots. You need to start from the base. The best players that I’ve been coaching, even at the younger ages, they’ve been very safe from the back of the court. Keep the ball in between the lines, over the net with high margins and play deep.

You can get a long way with that. I don’t want to mention any names, but there are

Top 20 players, that have come that far with being able to play crosscourt more than the opponent, playing deep, playing on the spot, not missing a lot and moving really, really well.

So, you can come so far with that kind of game as well.

Playing like that is obviously not so much fun to show on Instagram. It will never make it to the highlights or be the shot of the day, but it’s very very effective.

I get the question sometimes, what is the difference between when you were playing and now? And my answer, 10 out of 10 times is the way players are moving. They are much, much faster. They are playing closer to the baseline. If you look at highlights from fifteen years ago compared to now, you can obviously see the difference. When I was playing twenty years ago, you had one player who was the attacking player and the other player was the defensive player. Now, the same player can from one second to another be going from playing defence to all of sudden turning the rally around and playing offensive. The next stroke the same player might be back in defence. Look at Djokovic and you have the best example. The flexibility that he has, the quickness around the court. It’s incredible.

They don’t have any weaknesses anymore.

When I was playing, you could play, someone where you knew that if you just put it on his backhand there was a good chance to win the point. Now, you don’t have those players anymore. Everybody’s good at everything, basically.