Few years back, I bought a course from Craig O’Shannessy called 25 Golden Rules of Singles because I wanted to help my students have better strategies on the serve. Also, because Craig has worked with Djokovic, Andy Murray, and Coach Dick Gould of Stanford, and so many more that the list would take up this whole post…
And also, because I’m a numbers guy, I like poker. And when it comes to poker when we play the percentages, we come out on top. Don’t play when you have a 2,7 off suit, play when you got AK suited.
We can apply those strategies to our own tennis games which will help us come out on top in the big picture.
So here’s what I learned from Craig.
First, we have to seperate the service boxes into 8 different areas…
On the first serve…
Serve to position 1 and 8
When Craig analyzed Roger Federer’s serve targets during the 2010 Australian Open this was the pattern that was used the most.
Here are the benfits of hitting this way.
- It’s a high percentage serve to hit – slice dominates over power.
- The return is nearly always weak, even though it’s to the forehand.
- It opens up the backhand for the next shot (primary pattern).
- You can also go behind the player on the next shot (secondary pattern).
So what should we be working on to improve our 1st serve game?
Practice hitting your wide serves!!!
There’s a whole another strategy when hitting your 2nd serve so you should probably go check out Brain Game Tennis and buy his course 25 Golden Rules of Singles. It’s like $50 bucks, that’s a bargain. Think about how much you spend on a private at your club. And Craig has worked with the best. You’re getting Craig for half the price of some coach that didn’t make it past the high school level. Don’t get me wrong… if your coach has paid for Craig’s courses or seen him live then he’s a good one cause she knows that we don’t have to be the best tennis players to be the best coaches, we just have to keep on learning.
Speaking of seeing Craig live, he’s coming to Chicago for a special 2 day event at XS Tennis Center April 26-27. Friday will be doubles strategy and Saturday will be singles strategy. There will be a limited amount of tickets to keep it initmate, so don’t sit on this when the details come out. It will sell out.
Have a wonderful day on the tennis court and talk soon…
with love and gratitude
Greg
P.S. if you’re into checking out Craig live leave your name and email in the box below and we will send you details. There might be a special discount code for those that leave their email in the box 😉