Recently I was watching some students practicing their serves. It seems that they were just serving balls after balls without thinking much of their errors.

So I stopped them and asked them a few questions. I said,

"Sharon, (one of the student's name), do you know the percentages of your serves?"

She thought for a while but could not answer me.

"Yu qing, (another student's name), how many serves went to the net?"

She thought for a while but could not answer me.

Seeing that they have no idea what I am driving at, I gave them some instructions,

" Each of you get 10 balls to practice your serves again. Out of these 10 serves, I want you to note the percentage of shots that goes into the right service box. For those serves that are not successful, I want you to see what kind of mistakes are they.

Are they all going to the net? Are they all going out of the service box? Which direction are the shots going? Extremely out wide or to the other service box?"

They went back to their practice. This time round, they are more focused. After 10 shots, they came back to me.

Yu qing said, " My percentage is 60%. Those shots that are not successful all went to the net. "

Sharon said, " My percentage is 40%. Most of my shots went out and towards the fence.

So I asked them, "What should you do to correct those mistakes?"

Yu qing said, "Aim higher... brush the ball higher.." and Sharon replied," Adjust the racket ball more to the centre... add more spin to keep them in..."

Without saying much, I asked her to try again for another 10 shots.

To cut the story short..both girls improved their percentages. They are happy with their progress and keep striving to better the percentages.

I did not give them any technical details to improve their serves. I merely asked a few simple questions and got the students to be more focused in their practice.

And they improved instantly!

What about you? If you are training a particular stroke or technique, do you practice with a purpose?

Paused a while.

Think.. how to improve your tennis..

Recently I have created a very simple survey where you only need to answer 2 questions. It will only take you 1-2 minutes of your time.

Remember, your response will help me to help you.

Click here to access to the survey now.

Committed to your tennis,

Joel

Founder, www.improve-your-tennis.com