by Laurence Heads

Created on: March 23, 2009   Last Updated: March 25, 2009

Improvements in sport can be broken down into three aspects: Physical, mental and technical. The order of importance of these aspects is often misconstrued. Technical improvements come down to things such as shot selection: When it is appropriate to play that shot. Here are some key areas of advice that, once practiced so that they are embedded in your game, will bring drastic changes to your results:

1) Imagine that there is a washing line two feet above the net and never hit under it. You should always allow room for error with height and spin over the net. This goes for aiming at the line as well: Never do it. Always look to place the ball with a large enough margin for error. Aggassi used to say that he never tried to hit a winner, he only tried to place the ball where is opponent would give him an easier next ball.

2) Once you are on the attack, remain on the attack. Do not hit an aggressive shot and stand further back in the court, prepare yourself to move forward.

3) If you are struggling in a rally, just think I am going to try and make my opponent hit one more ball every time to are moving to play your shot.

For a player over the age of about 12, I'm sorry to say, is not going to be able to improve their technique drastically. This is simply because it is extremely hard to "un-learn" a certain technique that you have practiced so profusely previously. The best that you are going to be able to do is compensate with this technique in order to use it to the best of your abilities.

However, for those thinking of giving up on their desired tennis improvements, do not loose faith. There is a great magnitude of things that you can improve that will raise the level of your game drastically. The physical aspect of tennis is the second most important element that you can improve to benefit your overall tennis capabilities. To do this you will first need to build up a strong aerobic base. This can be done by extended jogging with your heart rate at about 170, with intervals of 180. You should aim to jog for a 45 minute period, and within this period jog for two five minute sets at a heart rate of 180. After doing this three times a week for a month you will be ready to engage in more tennis specific fitness. This will consist of sprints. You should be running sprints at a work to rest ratio of 3:1. So if you sprint for ten seconds, you rest for thirty seconds before you start again. These sprints should be incorporated into a regime of swimming and skipping. This

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