Marcin Bieniek

Tennis fans are lucky because every year we have 4 major tournaments that gather the best players in the world to compete against other participants. As always new year starts with the first of them, Australian Open, so right from the beginning we can not only have entertainment but we can also learn important things to improve own game.

This tournament in Australia was a little bit different than usual. Big fires, lots of damage and animals in danger were reasons why tennis players did what they could to raise some money to help in this tragic situation. It was great to see how people can quickly put the same goal in front and resign from own goods to help others. But tennis tournament was going and players had to focus on own work too.

Every tournament provides new knowledge about tennis improvement. Every match guarantees lessons that all spectators can use to improve own level of play. Competitors have great shots and make smart decisions while playing for ranking points, money and fame but their abilities were not given – they worked for them for many years to be able to play at the level where they currently are. Being able to watch their matches is a great opportunity to see what these players do to increase quality of performance while being under pressure.

There is no doubt that we all have own favorites to win the tournament before it starts. We love to watch our idols and cherish every great ball that they play. Unfortunately too many times tennis players and tennis coaches watch tennis matches just for fun or they play games on their smartphones at the same time. Watching a tennis match has the same value as doing practice session so the proper approach has to be taken to make sure that own performance can be improved even while sitting on a sofa. There are many aspects related to different areas of development but without focusing on specific details it is impossible to discover them.

During this year’s Australian Open I was watching many matches and I saw some important aspects that I would like to share. Knowing that a lot of juniors make basic mistakes over and over again that cost them many points and lost matches, it is important to learn from the best in the world to do simple things consistently and keep their own game at the highest possible level. Below I would like to point out 3 areas that I believe are really important over the course of the match that top players showed consistently in Melbourne:

Take time between first and second serve

A lot of juniors make double faults because they rush. They don’t have routines that they can execute after missed serves. They don’t bounce the ball few times to prepare the next shot. They act on emotions and generally these emotions are rather negative after hitting another first serve into the net. At the Australian Open, top players acted differently. Rafa Nadal, the master of routines, was taking from 8 seconds up to 15 seconds to get ready mentally for the second serve. You don’t need as much as 15 seconds but taking at least 5 seconds between serves will give you good physical, tactical and mental preparation to make the second serve in.

Never give up

What a tournament it was. Garbine Muguruza lost the first set of the tournament 0/6 just to achieve the score that probably nobody was expecting few weeks ago. Roger Federer almost lost to Millman while losing 4/8 in super tie-breaker and did it again against Sandgren while saving 7 match points. The same Federer was leading 4/1 40:0 against Djokovic just to lose this set 6/7 and the whole match in straight sets. The lesson that comes from these matches is clear – no matter how bad the score is you can always win the match. That’s tennis. One ball can change everything but without full physical and mental commitment, you will never bounce back in difficult situations.

Be offensive

Tennis is a great sport because it allows players to use any style they want. There is nothing wrong with the defensive or counter-punching approach but we have to be honest. Nowadays top tennis players get to the final rounds of the tournament because they play offensive tennis. They look for opportunities to constantly put pressure on the opponent – starting from the serve and going through the rally shots, top players hit most of the balls with high velocity to make sure that they play on own terms. If you want to get to the top you have to start developing weapons that will let you win points with some risk. Safe play is good enough only on lower levels so there is no point to practice something that you won’t use in the future.

Australian Open 2020. Great tournament, great matches, great lessons. Every Grand Slam tournament is an opportunity that can’t be missed by players who want to improve. Learn from this proven actions of Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and Garbine Muguruza and maybe you will be the one that others will learn from in the future!

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