One of the greatest weapons that “lefties” tend to use is a hard-hitting forehand shot that often pulls “righties” clear off the court. This forces you to extend for a long “strrrrreeetch” with hopes of just making contact with the top of the racket.

Needles to say, your left-handed opponent will be in a great GSP (good shot position) to easily capitalize on your weak return. So, how do defend against it?

Know that this shot is likely to come your way. Be prepared! If you’re able to mentally ready yourself ahead of time, you’ll be able to…

Well, it appears as if Andre Agassi is the Jay-Z of competitive tennis. The thirty-eight year old is jumping back into tournament tennis after nearly three years away.

Some may wonder why Andre, who had once spent over one hundred and one weeks with the ATP’s number one ranking and helped the U.S. win three Davis Cups, would want to pull a Michael Jordan and dive back into a world that he helped create only to find out that he has been overtaken.

You need to develop a ritual. And by ritual, I mean a series of mannerisms or body movements that you do EVERY single time you step up to the service line.

It’s been proven to dynamically boost consistency of performance in the sports world for ages.

You see it in basketball when players are at the free-throw line, when the quarterback is getting ready to hit his receiver for a touchdown, and in baseball right before a strike out. Why? It works! And it’s the same for tennis.

Why are the pushers so successful?

It’s easy. They’re on the attack! No, they’re not attacking you with powerful strokes, but they’re penetrating into your game plan, the spot where you’re the most comfortable.

They know you love balls that have nice pace so you can find your rhythm, but they’re not giving you any of them.

So, what do you do? Attack them back! Hey, it’s the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s only fair…

Tennis is a game which heavily depends more on your what’s going on in your head than anything else.

Now in some sports, technique wins points, but in tennis, simply having the right technique isn’t going to cut it. You really have to be mentally sound.

It’s your ability to mentally overcome your opponent by generating a superior mental plan that’s really going to do the job.

And one of the quickest and most important ways to obtain great mental preparation is to run through a quick mental check list of everything that you have to do and what you’d really like to avoid. (see example below)

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. –
Mardy Fish became the first top seed in the 17-year history of the Delray Beach International Tennis Championships to win the title, beating Russian qualifier Evgeny Korolev 7-5, 6-3 on Sunday.

Fish endured a wind and a rain delay of about an hour, then converted his fifth match point to earn his third career tournament championship.

I just came from a tennis match that a good friend of mine was involved in. It was some pretty exciting tennis, but her
opponent was one of those types of players that make so many of us cringe. Oh yes, she was a PUSHER!

It was hard to watch my friend run around like a rag doll out there. I mean, she was trying to use her solid ground strokes
to overpower “the pusher” but nothing was working. It looked so incredibly frustrating. And it is, trust me.

So after seeing this match and reliving quite painful memories , I felt compelled to address this issue with you so you could
avoid a major headache.

The serve is one of the most important, if not the most important shot, in the entire game of tennis. It’s a tremendous factor in determining the tempo over the course of the match.

When you fail to hold your serve, you place yourself under a lot more pressure and it becomes much more difficult to win the match. That’s why this one concept is so important.

Yes, I see players with beautiful “looking” serves that go in. But to be honest with you, those same players aren’t the ones winning on a consistent basis. And the reason why a lot of players find it difficult to hold their serve consistently is because…

Being able to play at the net is incredibly important. If you can’t, taking advantage of points that could be easy winners for you will be far and few between.

When you can come to the net and execute efficiently and effectively, you’ll allow yourself to become a multi-dimensional player and a great volley warrior.

Nothing is worse than being “stuck” with only one plan of attack. You’ll quickly become predictable, and predictability is the last attribute you want to be associated with.

In order to establish a proper volley strategy, the #1 thing you should be concerned with is…