Ball Control Tennis
"Introduction: Initially, a vacuum exists in a child's mind for a way to hit a tennis ball with a racket. Once this vacuum is filled, it would be difficult to change it's content, which is an extremely intricate pattern of mental images of how to hit a ball. This difficulty to change grows with age. Over the age of ten, the non-control stroke, which is mainly consisted of momentum transfer through collision, will be very difficult to convert to the controlled stroke, which is achieved through accelerating the racket at a precise moment. Thus, teaching children or beginners to hit a ball without control could actually be detrimental to their future in playing tennis. Ball control coaching for adults is mainly to dissect for the adult students the movements of the ball control stroke of the champion, who must have control." (Click here for more ... An ideal Long-Term Plan Of Parent & Child Tennis, Computer & Investment Classes)
(7) Ball Control Stroke (The correct practicing form):
1. Start the forehand or backhand stroke at a relaxed position with the racket head raised above the trajectory of the incoming ball. The racket should start from close to the body to reduce angular momentum in the swing.
2. Swing steadily toward the incoming ball with the racket face perpendicular to the trajectory of intended OUTGOING ball. This is a flat hit, not using shear force (topspin or slice).
3. Accelerate with the entire kinetic chain (fingers, hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, waist, torso, legs, feet, and toes) at the moment of impact (precisely, when the ball is still in contact with the racket moving outward at the same velocity as the racket surface).
4. Move the racket surface forward following the intended direction of the outgoing ball until the ball completely leaves the racket. The racket makes a U shape rather than a circular shape.
5. Close the racket with a topspin (turn the racket surface so that the surface is above the outgoing ball) before the ball completely leave the racket in the follow through.
6. End the stroke with the shoulder (upper arm) touching the chin due to acceleration.
7. The eyes should be on the ball starting over 5 feet from the point of contact to the point of contact. A mental image of the stroke is formed about 5 feet before the collision. The collision and the contact are controlled by the mental image, which has a time resolution in the order of milliseconds. The eyes should follow the mental image and remain at the point of contact after the stroke.
8. The player should return to a neutral position after hitting depending on the position of the opponent and the next expected stroke.
9. For spin, overhead, serve, block, volley, or half volley ball control strokes, start from the point of contact and modify the strokes with the twist of the arm to fit the situation.
(9) Safety Rules (Safety First: To be discussed before the actual playing starts):
a. Before swinging a racket, make sure no one or no object is within the radius of your arm plus your racket.
b. Do not walk behind a person within the radius of the arm and the racket when the person is swinging a racket.
c. Do not hit a ball into an area where there are people.
d. . . .
(25) In addition to the known fast and slow muscles, ball control introduces the speculated jumpulse muscle (or a sequentially fired nerves) for sudden change of acceleration needed in ball control and touch.
(27) Follow-through stroke is represented by 1, 2, and 4, without 3.
(36) Ball control coaching tries to achieve the ball control stroke, in which the ball and racket establish an optimal prolonged contact during impact, and which is exhibited and possessed by all tennis champions. If the ball control stroke is not done perfectly, it turns into a very effective accelerating stroke, still allowing good control of the ball. If the timing of the acceleration is completely off, the stroke degenerates into a safe follow through stroke. An advanced ball control stroke can incorporate in it a topspin lift during the long contact time before closing the racket. The stroke lifts the ball from low to high and allows a higher probability of making the shot or a stronger shot. Thus, the accelerating stroke can be considered the professional stroke, and the ball control stroke, the championship stroke.
(37) Ball Control Tennis is a good way to learn about ball control for other sports, such as golf, baseball, table tennis, or even bowling, basketball, and handball, where the hand acts as the racket.
(2) Warm Up Exercise (First Day Homework): Put a ball on the racket, throw it up, and catch it without bounce. In catching the ball without bounce, the swing, part 1, should come down with the falling ball to decrease the relative speed of the falling ball and the racket. The throwing up motion strengthens the accelerating muscle of the player.
(3) Explain the advantage of ball control: A non-ball controlled flat block shot (with 1. Swing and 2. Collision only) will generally reflect a ball coming from the left to the right, a ball coming from right to the left, a ball rising up from the ground high, a ball at the peak of the bounce flat out, and a ball falling from the peak downward. A ball control stoke will move in a direction closer to the direction of the acceleration and will allow the player to add power and spin to the ball. Ball Control Tennis will allow a player to use low tension string. Because the string returns 90% of the incoming speed and the ball returns after the bounce about 50% of the incoming speed, the low tension string racket produces more power than a high tension racket. Also, a low tension racket reduces injury.
(4) Seven Stages Of Drill (To be repeated as a self-coaching routine):
1. Start from the easiest: Take a ball in bare hand and throw it over the net on the forehand side. [NOTE: The ball should be throw from the forehand side for forehand instruction, from the backhand side for backhand instruction, and from overhead for serve and overhead instruction.]
2. Next easiest: Put a ball on the racket and throwing it over the net. This is 3 and 4.
3. Easiest full ball control stroke (1-4): Hit a dropped ball on the ground over the net with double hitting, which has been made legal 1982 after the publication of the book on ball control. Double hitting indicates the player is accelerating the racket.
If double hitting cannot be achieved because of habitual excessive back swing , drop a ball on the ground, catch it on the racket without bounce and immediately throw it over the net with double hitting.
4. Hit a dropped ball with the ball control stroke with or without double hitting from the service line (middle of the court) aiming at a target (such as a red colored ball) placed at the T of the service line.
5. Hit cooperatively and softly against a player or the coach with ball control strokes over at least 10 times. A goal of ball control is to achieve never miss in cooperative soft exchange. For beginners, the easiest exchange is to have four players to play half of a court with each player guarding one rectangle of the court. Do the same for the four types of strokes, ball control hit, slice, topspin, and block.
6. After achieving never miss soft exchange, hit against a ball machine to achieve no missing over 30 shots.
7. Compete in games.
(5) Do (4) also for backhand and overhead.
(6) Homework For Second Day: Shadow stroke ball control forehand/backhand/overhead 100 times a day. When shadow stroking, call out 1, 2, 3, 4, emphasizing 3 where a jumpulse (a sudden increase of force) is applied (In actual games, a ball control player grunts on 3).
(7) Ball Control Stroke (The correct practicing form):
1. Start the forehand or backhand stroke at a relaxed position with the racket head raised above the trajectory of the incoming ball. The racket should start from close to the body to reduce angular momentum in the swing.
2. Swing steadily toward the incoming ball with the racket face perpendicular to the trajectory of intended OUTGOING ball. This is a flat hit, not using shear force (topspin or slice).
3. Accelerate with the entire kinetic chain (fingers, hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, waist, torso, legs, feet, and toes) at the moment of impact (precisely, when the ball is still in contact with the racket moving outward at the same velocity as the racket surface).
4. Move the racket surface forward following the intended direction of the outgoing ball until the ball completely leaves the racket for a flat hit. The racket makes a U shape rather than a circular shape.
5. Close the racket by twisting the arm and wrist with a topspin (turn the racket surface so that the surface is above the outgoing ball) before the ball completely leave the racket in the follow through. Or open the racket for a strong ball control topspin.
6. End the stroke with the shoulder (upper arm) touching the chin due to acceleration.
7. The eyes should be on the ball starting over 5 feet from the point of contact to the point of contact. A mental image of the stroke is formed about 5 feet before the collision. The collision and the contact are controlled by the mental image, which has a time resolution in the order of milliseconds. The eyes should follow the mental image and remain at the point of contact after the stroke.
8. The player should return to a neutral position after hitting depending on the position of the opponent and the next expected stroke.
9. For spin, overhead, serve, block, volley, or half volley ball control strokes, start from the point of contact and modify the strokes with the twist of the arm to fit the situation.
(8) Footwork Exercise For Ball Control Tennis (Homework For Third Day, 10 to 30 time for each daily):
(Growth hormone is secreted when a person sleeps, is hungry or exercises. Jumping will help a young person to grow taller than the normal height.)
a. Reverse jumping jack for forehand and backhand stokes: Starting in a 45 degrees forehand position, jump up kick two feet together and land in a backhand position.
b. Kangaroo leap for serve leg muscle building: Starting with the feet together, jump up with the two feet together and kick back until they hit the butt. Land with the two feet together, as in the staring point.
c. Scissors kick for overhead shots: Starting with the feet together, jump up with one foot moving forward and the other foot moving backward and land with the two feet together, as in the staring point.
d. Side way shuffle for the volley: Starting with the two feet crossed, jump up with the two feet moving out to two sides of the body simultaneously, and land with the two feet apart. Jump up again with the two feet moving inward and across each other to the starting position, but with the original front foot and back foot changing positions,
e. Victory kick after winning a point (To be learned after the legs have been strengthened by the other footwork exercises): Starting with the two feet together and body slightly leaning to one side, jump up with one leg and click the two feet on the side opposite to the jumping leg.
(9) Safety Rules (Safety First: To be discussed before the actual playing starts):
a. Before swinging a racket, make sure no one or no object is within the radius of your arm plus your racket.
b. Do not walk behind a person within the radius of the arm and the racket when the person is swinging a racket.
c. Do not hit a ball into an area where there are people.
d. In group lessons, students should be restricted to hit only from one same side of the court, except in game situations.
e. Always keep your eyes on the ball when the ball is in play or when you are in an area where the balls may be hit.
f. Wear protective gears, such as hats, sun glasses and heavy cloth, if you have to move around in areas where the balls may be hit or if you have to face the sun.
g. Use suntan lotion for long exposure to the sun.
h. Tennis elbow and other similar injuries should be reported to the coach for appropriate solutions.
i. Do not continue to play when injury is suspected. Many major injuries occur after minor injury has weaken the body. Click here for the full set of safety rulesand click here for group lesson procedure
(10) Two-handed backhand is also a good starting point to learn ball control, especially, for very young students (Click here for an advanced discussion of two-handed backhand for adults) (Click here for a discussion of the use of the non-primary hand) to get sufficient power in accelerating the racket. Two-handed backhand has the same reach as one-handed backhand, as the reach is limited by the backhand arm.
(11) All the ball control shot should be hit flat. Generally, the vertical angle from the incoming ball can only have a maximum of 5 degrees, except for a slice shot. Closing the racket in a ball control stroke is the general and the desired form. Closing the racket in a ball control stroke can prevent the ball from leaving the racket at too high an angle. Click here for advanced topics on Spin, Style, and Strategy Homework for wrist twisting exercise in spin: 1. Balance the ball on the racket, 2. Slide the racket horizontally to bounce up the ball by the edge of the racket, 3. Turn the racket quickly to catch the ball on the other side, 4. Balance the ball on the other side of the racket, 5. Slide the racket horizontally in the other direction and repeat 2. and 3.
(12) Use the trophy pose to hit an overhead ball with ball control; point one's no-hitting hand at the falling ball before hitting the overhead.
(13) Use the kinetic chain (leg, torso, hip, shoulder, arm, and wrist) and raise up to generate the maximum racket speed for the serve with ball control. The motion should be relaxed before the impact. Most serve should be hit flat out or even slightly upward. A serve hit from a height of 11 feet (body + arm + racket: 32 inches) at a speed of 120 mph can have a downward angle of just 3 degrees. Most players can not reach 11 feet. Also, because of the angular rotation and the upward force generated by the kinetic chain, the server's body generally leaves the ground during the serve.
(14) Volley the ball with ball control at the net; punch the volley with slice.
(15) Half volley the ball at the service line with a final ball control push. Half volley is a good way to practice the block.
(16) Topspin the sideline shot with the ball peaking in one's own court.
(17) Slice a drop shot with the ball trajectory peaking in one's own court and hit the ball at as low a point as possible; hit a soft shot realizing that the trajectory is always parabolic.
(18) A no-spin incoming ball loses 40% of its forward velocity (changed to rotational energy) after a bounce (For an demonstration of the effect of this loss in forward velocity, click here to understand the Federer and Nadal Rivalry). A slice shot sees a lower gravitational force, and bounces lower than a no-spin ball after the bounce, which changes the backspin to a topspin. A topspin shot sees a higher gravitational force, and bounces higher after the bounce if its topspin is reduced or unaffected by the bounce.
(19) Slice a approaching shot finishing with a volley. The ball travels slowly to the baseline and gives a player enough time to run to the service line and beyond.
(20) Serve and volley. This is the attacking style in tennis and requires fast running speed; otherwise, tennis is basically a defensive game based on control, not power. Speed is the most important winning factor in tennis.
(21) Block shot. The racket is about six times heavier than the ball, which is 2 oz. The minimum swing speed of the racket in a block shot should be about 20% of the speed of the incoming ball.
(22) For beginners, play games with multiple players each guarding a particular rectangle of the court. Optimally, for beginners, eight players each play the ball dropped in his of her quadrant.
(23) Explain the meaning of facilitation: Repetitive movements to wake up the brain and nerves. [NOTE: In neurophysiology, the effect of a nerve impulse acting across a synapse, resulting in increased postsynaptic action potential of subsequent impulses in that nerve fiber or in other convergent nerve fibers.]
(24) Lecture on Ball Control Tennis:
a. The stroke is actually made up of four parts: 1. Swing: Increase (or decrease in catching the ball without bounce) the relative speed between the incoming ball and the racket, 2. Collision: Transfer momentum, 3 Contact: Suddenly increase force to prolong the contact, and 4. Follow through: Indicate a consequence of ball control (In follow through tennis without ball control, follow through is used to compensate for missed timing, while ball control compensates for both mis-timing and mis-hitting of the racket).
b. Start from full ball control: 3. Contact and 4. Follow Through: Putting the ball on the racket and throwing it over the net involve just the third and fourth parts of ball control.
c. Achieve optimum balance between power and control: 1. Swing and 2. Collision: To adjust the power of the stroke, the player adjusts the swing. The stronger the swing, the harder is to keep the ball in contact with the racket. One should adjust the swing to produce the optimum power and length of contact. The collision must stop the incoming ball before the prolonged contact starts. Therefore, the collision force sets a lower limit on the force of the swing. At the moment of impact, the whole body accelerates to achieve the longest contact time.
d. Within five feet of the player, a incoming ball is a blur. Based on some recent scientific research, that a player has the ability to keep the eyes on the ball or to react to the contact of the ball is a fallacy. Ball control stroke should be executed from a mental image formed from five feet away until the moment of impact. A player should keep the eyes on the ball to plan for the mental image to take over during the stroke. The reaction time is about 50 milliseconds, and the rebounding time without ball control is from 3 to 5 milliseconds. The two periods differ by an order of magnitude. Therefore, the execution of ball control must depend on a well-trained mental image, acquired through sufficient drill; it must be in auto-pilot. Ball control with jumpulse (acceleration) can lengthen the time of contact to, say, 10 milliseconds, which is sufficient to control the ball for a fraction of an inch. The precise calculation is difficult, but possible, because the ball speed could be from zero to over 100 mph during the impact. Ball control is an instability; the prolonged contact allows increased time to execute ball control and, thus, reinforces or feedback on the initial prolonged contact.
e. Low string tension can be used in Ball Control Tennis to allow longer time duration for applying jumpulse, a sudden change of force. For follow trough tennis, which requires faithful response of the racket surface, the string tension should be from 55 to 70 lb. For Ball Control Tennis, the string tension should be from 30 to 55 lb, with 45 lb and up, being a recommended starting point. Because of the uneven surface, all shots must have ball control.
f. A bounced ball returns about 50% of the initial energy, and the string returns 90% of the energy of the incoming ball. Most energy will be returned by the string with low string tension, which can also help avoid injury by reduce the impact shock from the ball.
g. A ball loses 40% of the speed after bouncing on the floor. Thus, for a high-tension stringed racket, an incoming ball contributes only 30% of its original energy in a returning shot. To maintain a 100% exchange in practice, a player has to contribute 70% of the energy after the short shot.
h. And for a low-tension stringed racket with a ball control stroke, an incoming ball contributes 50% of the original energy in a returning shot.
i. In sum, a ball control stroke is generally about 20% more powerful than a follow through stroke. The big advantage is that Ball Control Tennis enhances both steadiness and power with reduced possibility for injury.
(25) In addition to the known fast and slow muscles, ball control introduces the speculated jumpulse muscle (or a sequentially fired nerves) for sudden change of acceleration needed in ball control and touch.
(26) Ball control block, for returning serve or a strong hit, is done by stroke 1, 2, 3.
(27) Follow-through stroke is represented by 1, 2, and 4, without 3.
(28) In coaching Ball Control Tennis, the mind controls the body. For the adults, they uses their own minds, and for the children, the coach provides the mind. Adults are generally easier to coach than children, but children can advance much farther than adults both mentally and physically (Be patient).
(29) The ball control stroke is like a dial in the mind with minimum and maximum power at two extremes, corresponding to maximum and minimum control.
(30) First Goal of Ball Control Tennis: Never miss soft cooperative exchange. The stroke to be used is a ball control stroke with very little swing. The balls should drop in the right or the left rectangle between the net and the service line and should be hit 1 to 2 feet above the net. This is one of the main requirement in Ball Control Coach Certification.
(31) The advantage of tennis to woman players:
a. It turns out that tennis could be providing one of the best exercises for women.
b. The tennis game is designed mainly based on the strength of men not those of women or children, but this disadvantage actually creates accidentally a big advantage for women who choose tennis as their main exercise.
c. The tennis game draw out the maximum physical effort from woman players and forces woman tennis players to use their full body strength. In particular, because their relatively weak upper body strength, they have to play with their middle and lower part of the body.
d. The result is that tennis sculptures the body of the woman tennis player into a natural perfection better than almost all other sports, which are unbalanced in their effect on the human body.
(32) Ball control coaching often involves programming and deprogramming. Beginners, especially, children without prior experience actually learn ball control much easier than tennis players who have already used to their strokes without ball control or to their follow through strokes, which is taught by most professional coaches.
(33) Tennis strokes of coached tennis players generally can be separated into three categories: 1. Follow through stroke, 2. Accelerating stroke, and 3. Ball control stroke.
(34) Players with the follow through stroke can improve their tennis by add some ball control acceleration into their follow through strokes without changing their original form, but Ball Control Tennis and follow through tennis are basically different. For example, Ball Control Tennis generally should use low string tension to achieve, in addition to steadiness through a long natural period of interaction for easy ball control, a high coefficient of restitution, which indicates the ratio of the incoming and rebounding velocity, and to have a low chance for injury due to hard impact on high tension strings.
(35) Ball Control Tennis can also be considered never-miss tennis. A Ball Control Tennis player should never miss under an optimal cooperative hitting condition.
(36) Ball control coaching tries to achieve the ball control stroke, in which the ball and racket establish an optimal prolonged contact during impact, and which is exhibited and possessed by all tennis champions. If the ball control stroke is not done perfectly, it turns into a very effective accelerating stroke, still allowing good control of the ball. If the timing of the acceleration is completely off, the stroke degenerates into a safe follow through stroke. An advanced ball control stroke can incorporate in it a topspin lift during the long contact time before closing the racket. The stroke lifts the ball from low to high and allows a higher probability of making the shot or a stronger shot. Thus, the accelerating stroke can be considered the professional stroke, and the ball control stroke, the championship stroke.
(37) Ball Control Tennis is a good way to learn about ball control for other sports, such as golf, baseball, table tennis, or even bowling, basketball, and handball, where the hand acts as the racket.