Hi, everyone, welcome to the park. Hope your having a great summer and playing lots of tennis.

Well the tournament season is in full swing now and I must say I'm doing quite well. Hope you are too. I Thought we might talk about the 10 min. warm up we all do before the match.

Most players only practice in the 10-minute warm-up right before the match begins. Thus, whatever their weaknesses are they are not going to get any better. Typically, opponents will hit ground strokes for a majority of the warm-up time, then they will force themselves to hit a few volleys and very few if any overheads. With this type of practice you can see why some players never improve their mid-court and volley game.

What should you do to warm-up? During the 10-minute warm-up before your match try some of these:

• Hit the ball back to your opponent, remember the match has not started yet and you only have 2 or 3 balls. Do not spend all your time chasing them.
• Spend more time concentrating on watching the ball, finding your point of contact on each shot and breathing with each shot.
• Hit a few of all your shots, do not ignore your net game.
• Do not assume your opponent will play the same way in the match as they do in the warm-up.
• Do not assume you will play poorly if you receive a terrible warm-up and vice versa.
• Remember that the warm-up is to loosen you up for the match, not for practicing your shots.
• If you cannot feed the ball correctly, it is your job to practice that until you can. Players sometimes are weak at feeding their opponent a lob so they can hit a practice overhead.
• Do not hit angle shots in the warm-up, it just wastes your warm-up time.
• Do your practicing before the match, not in the 10-minute warm-up.

Tommie Ray

If you have any questions or comments please email me :-)