Finding the ‘Magic-Portion’

Compiling an effective training team becomes important to professionals, as they climb up the rankings. Their needs change, so, forming a compatible team is a complex process.

At year-end, professional players plan for the next year. If they have done well, the team stays, if not, they change it. What they are looking for is the ‘Magic-Portion’. This they often find it in a good immediate past player, who can hit the ball well, to give ‘effective tactical match play’- the magic portion. For this reason, World No.1 Naomi Osaka has recruited Jermaine Jenkins into her team. He was with Venus Williams until last year.

To win, a player has to transform his/her shots from technically weighted strokes to tactically effective strokes. Without this, many juniors become ineffective in Open-Tennis. In the professional world, a much needed ingredient for this is a ‘good playing partner’ as coach. These coaches must have recent competition experience. Why recent competition experience? Tactical strokes, speed, the array of shot selections to conduct tactical play, which won in 2010, is not the same in 2019. The game is ever evolving.

Jermaine Jenkins was a wellknown college Tennis player, taken into player development in USA before he joined Naomi Osaka in February. His brother Jarmere is with Serena Williams, who is on her comeback spell.

-Working smart-

‘Hard’ practice sessions do not make a good player, but ‘smart’ sessions will. Long and strenuous training can take a player to the threshold of injury. Unwantedly, it could surface under stressful match conditions. This is a common scenario. Training, if not designed appropriately to an individual’s capacity, causing injury is inevitable. This is true.

I believe, Simona Halep was subjected to stress injuries in the last few years. She too, has broken up with her coach. She played the 2019 Australian-Open without a coach. Now there is speculation that she has recruited Thierry Van Cleemput, who was with Belgian David Goffin until end of last year. There are not many coaches with the label to make the player work smart. All the known ‘smart coaches’ have been past players. What a player learns in a match cannot achieved outside match play. This why professionals prefer a past player as their coach.

-Coaching drama-

Only a ‘fully developed player’ on the court wins matches. When half the players are outside the court, thinking for the player giving signals and instructions, for the player's concern, it is a picnic for the player on the court. Such players will not last. Dynamics in a match is ever changing. Good coaches know this and train their players to accommodate it and not instruct during matches. This is why a coach can be a Magic-Portion to a player.

Practice sessions will have to get smart. Most of the damage to the body, it is believed, come from over stressed sessions. ‘Whacking the ball and wreck- ing the body’ is a way of describing unproductive training sessions. Professionals cannot accommodate this error.

‘Stroke training’ is a poor substitute for ‘set play’ in player development. Base for good sport performance is Muscle memory, an aspect that will develop through repetition of the ‘actual’ game situation. In a game such as Tennis, the variants are so many that only good repetitive match play can cover all the aspects. In playing Sets, players add tactical value into their strokes. For this, past players as coaches is the magic portion.

-European Arena-

Professional Tennis, after Melbourne Grand Slam, moves to warmer regions of the world. Southern California, Mexico, Middle Eastern city-states and South Eastern European countries, filling the gap until the biggest Tennis showdown, the European summer events.

Tennis, along with other sports, is getting cleaner, with the stringent testing methods employed by WADA, the powerful and independent anti-doping body. It is depressing to know the extent of sport doping in the past. Is it still there? May be it is.

-What wins-

In the formula to win, 1st Serve will have to be around 70% in certainty. Nearly every woman and man in the top 50 of the World, achieve this. This being so, the shot that is making a difference is the Return-ofServe. The Serve can give an advantage. The purpose of Service Return is to neutralise the Serve advantage of the opponent.

When it comes to Return of Serve, in Men, Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Del Potro among the professional veterans and in the New-Gen players list Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev, Borna Coric and David Theim have a Return that can bring down the confidence of the Server. In Women, experienced William sisters, Simona Halep, Petra Kvitova, Karolina Pliskova, Angelique Kerber and Caroline Wozniacki, and among the new blood Naomi Osaka, Elina Svitolina, and Madison Keys Return very effectively.

Service is a difficult stroke. To win, players must get it right 70% of the time. Still it is personal. Return of Serve, on the other hand, is extremely challenging, in sighting the direction and to accommodate opponents Service speed. Which, now, is consistently over 160 km per hour in Women. It is much faster in Men. In this situation, reacting for good contact is another magic. Coaches must give this Magic-Portion also to players.

George Paldano, Former int. player; Accredited Coach

of German Federation; National coach Sri Lanka &

Brunei, Davis-Cup, Federation Cup captain/ coach-- contact 94 77 544 8880

geodano2015@gmail.com -