How to Hit an Overhead Smash in Tennis

You've probably often heard that, to hit an overhead smash, you should immediately point up at the ball and cock your racket back in a throwing position while you move backward under the lobbed ball.

But have you ever seen anyone do that? Have you ever seen the pros who tell you to do this do it themselves?

I know the answer to that question, so be honest now.

Here's Andy Roddick hitting powerful overhead smashes at Roger Federer during Wimbledon. Is he following conventional wisdom?

Now here's Pete Sampras hitting a couple of overheads. Is he doing it?



No and no. They both keep both arms down while maneuvering into position under the ball. They don't raise their arms untill it's time to swing.

Premature preparation doesn't make you swing sooner. You can be posed pointing up in the air with your racket cocked back from the evening of the day before and still probably swing late.

More important, it's clumsy to move (especially backward) with both arms up in the air. When you try to do so, you are way out of dynamic balance and fighting a whole array of backward-balancing reflexes.

Try this tip. I promise you'll like it ;-)

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Tennis Confidence - A Kind of Magic - Not

All tennis players know that confidence is everything. When you play with confidence, you play well, and most of your shots go in. The opposite of confidence is diffidence. When you play with diffidence, you play poorly, and most of your shots go out – simply because you fear that they will.

It is no wonder then that players get superstitious about confidence. They view it as a kind of magic.

Success builds confidence, and failure erodes it. So, how do you gain confidence when playing badly?

In other words, how do you make yourself believe in yourself when reality seems to contradict that belief? Stating the question in these terms shows how akin belief in yourself is to a religious belief, which often likewise seems contradicted by observable reality.

The problem then becomes a question of how to maintain this belief in the face of facts that constantly challenge it.

Many people resort to manufacturing an artificial confidence, convincing themselves that they have this mysterious magical power despite all evidence to the contrary. It's a kind of self-delusion, a psyche job. Though it negates reality, they call it "positive thinking," which it ain't.

Since tennis is head-to-head competition, they forget that this "magic" is simple confidence and view it instead as some kind of inherent superiority to their opponents.

Delusions are powerful. They can work. As Bill Tilden said, you can impress belief of your inherent superiority on your opponent = make him or her feel inferior and psychologically dominated.

But the problem with delusions is that they are constantly assailed by reality. Therefore, it's a struggle to maintain them. You must keep brainwashing yourself and repressing self-doubt as it threatens to surface to consciousness and break the spell.

Sooner or later, it will. Then it's like you lost your mojo, and your game falls apart.

Venus and Serena Williams are not the only pro players afflicted with this superstitiousness. So are Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin. In fact, many players are. It can make you a flash in the pan, but it will desert you someday so that you don't build a career like Pete Sampras did or Roger Federer is doing.

What's more, when your mojo is gone, your opponents come out from under the spell of inferiority, as Brad Gilbert did when John McEnroe tried to make sure he got the message in their 1984 match: "Gilbert, you are the worst! The f***** worst! You don't belong on the same court with me!" Gilbert smelled blood and went on to win. McEnroe immediately took a sabbatical from tennis and never won another major tournament after he returned to the tour.

Unbelievable. John McEnroe, the guy who gets mad at himself for every error. Never won another major tournament. That is gross underachievement for a player of his caliber. It happened because he became dependent on his mojo and didn't think he could win without it = that he couldn't beat an opponent who thought he could win. Baloney.

So, you see this artificial confidence is no substitute for the real thing – a realistic level of true confidence in your ability, true confidence that isn't undermined by every error or sent skyrocketing by every great shot. A stable, tranquil self-confidence that nothing can shake. One based on an accurate perception of the facts. One that disregards whatever your ego is yakking at you.

During the early part of the decade Venus and Serena dominated women's tennis, largely through psychological warfare that upset the other women, most of which was waged off court – in the locker room, on the practice courts, and on the tournament grounds.

Over time though, the other women caught on. They recognized the contemptuous haughtiness as a mind game and stopped letting it get to them. Venus and Serena have not dominated since.

I bet they never will again. But that is no reason to think that they aren't good enough players to still win their share of tournaments. Serena, especially, just needs to lose the superstitiousness and replace it with Andre-Agassi style modesty and hard work.

In the midst of all the gobbledygook and conflicting messages she sent during her presser yesterday, Venus said this in answer to the shark who asked "If people start talking about the Williams era being over, what would you have to say to them?":

I've been a champion. I have full expectations and aspirations to continue to play high-quality tennis and to continue to be a champion.

And she should have. Her track record proves that to be a realistic appraisal of her ability. She needs no self psyche job to achieve it.

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Sampras Beating Federer

Some folks just can't let things happen the way they happen. Via the Dysfunctional Tennis Blog: Federer Lets Sampras Win.

Oh, so Pete can't win, can he? Because even if he does win you won't let him have won. So he either loses or doesn't win, right?

Here he is at 36 years old and has has just beaten the best player in the world, and you have to deny him his victory. That sucks.

Sure, the series was interesting to watch, fun to speculate the “what ifs”, but as I’ve said before, the only thing this it proves (or proved) is that both Federer and Sampras like the cash.

Wrong. The series proves that Sampras' game and Federer's game match up pretty well against each other. Wouldn't it be great if they were closer in age so we could see them compete against each other in major tournaments?

But some folks are driven on the winds of change like weathervanes. Sampras was around for only six months when they all pontificated that he was the GOAT. And then and he wasn't gone for six months months before the stampede turned and started pontificating that Federer is the GOAT.

Jeez, they all sound like caucus of crows darkening the trees in the fall. Guess what, folks? These know-it-alls don't know what they say they know. They never saw Bjorn Borg, Stan Smith, Rod Laver, Jack Kramer, Fred Perry, or Bill Tilden play, but they think they know who the GOAT is. Yes, I know I'm supposed to pretend I never thought of that.

And like who really cares, anyway?

But I digress. Let's look at that again:

Sure, the series was interesting to watch, fun to speculate the “what ifs”, but as I’ve said before, the only thing this it proves (or proved) is that both Federer and Sampras like the cash.

Fully bake that thought. Do either of these guys need the cash? It makes no sense to say that Pete Sampras and Roger Federer go all the way to China to play an exhibition match just for the cash. When have we seen them chasing cash?

Yes, their track record. Always check out the target's track record before you accuse them of something. How Pete and Roger have behaved in the past is relevant. They are among the last players you could accuse of chasing cash. And people who've never chased cash before don't suddenly become different persons and start doing it overnight. So, that is an accusation that just won't stick to these two men.

Then Randall torpedoes his own assertion by continuing:

Federer has to be some sort of glutton for punishment. He really does. By losing last night he’s now opened himself up to even more vomit-inducing press questions in the coming months on the Great Debate.

Exactly. Thanks for winning my case by giving him a huge motive for wanting to win that match.

Roger had powerful motive to refuse to even play Sampras. This is hard to explain as anything other than a fine sense of sportsmanship in Roger, in taking on the challenge. Pete has nothing to lose in losing but Roger does.

So just what was the motivation behind Federer deciding to lose the finale, and lose in straight sets? Simple. It’s good for business.

Where is all this omniscience coming from these days? Is God passing it out to his favorites so they can be just like him, able to read minds?

Sampras beat Federer. Repeat it 99 times. It won't kill you. This is no great surprise, because the previous match had been very close.

You're accusing Fed of fraud. On what grounds? What evidence? Just divining, that's all. It is wrong to ever puposely lose a contest like a tennis match. But most people are too thoughtless to think a minute and realize that these days.

Roger Federer ain't one of them though. And Pete would rightly be insulted by Roger throwing the match.

What's more, people were betting on this match. That's match-fixing you're accusing Roger of. You say he did it for money and that he lost because it would be "good for business," like some pool sharp who throws a few games to sucker big betting.

Federer doesn't deserve such wild accusations. There is zero REASON or EVIDENCE for believing these things about him. He just lost a tennis match. That's possible, you know.

This is getting like politics, where everything that happens must prove your firmly held beliefs or you will twist the facts until it does.

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