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Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

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It Starts with Tennis and Goes From There.

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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast,

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With that said, let's get started

with 10 Minutes of Tennis.

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Right now is 10 Minutes of Tennis.

With world renowned tennis pro Australian in Puerto Rico,

Justin Yeo, he is on location today.

He was on the court.

He now looks like he's driven his golf cart

on the court that we'll figure that out later.

But Justin, thank you so much for making time.

We are talking about time.

You're making time.

How do we take away time?

How do we gain time?

What does that mean in today's modern game?

Today's modern tennis game is all about time.

Justin, what are we talking about?

Yeah, so we've already talked about this

once before about time.

Learning how to take fall earlier, take fall in the rise,

take time away from your opponent.

We've talked about this,

but the one thing we haven't talked about

is the game has increased in speed

between racket to racket.

And people still aren't doing enough of understanding that.

And by doing that, you start to identify

whether when you should come in,

when you can't come in,

what kind of ball you need to give yourself enough time

to get to the net.

And what we have to identify is foot speed as well.

But the one other thing that we haven't talked about,

I'm going to cover both of these,

is the second one is watching the racket

to give you more time to process faster,

make an earlier decision,

get your preparation earlier,

and still meet the ball early

to take away time from your opponent.

So there's all these factors that, again,

come from reading from the eyes

because eyes have to be told what to do.

If you stand there, you think you're watching,

but you're actually just watching the ball come over the net.

By doing that, you're actually slowing things down

and you're not giving yourself processing time

to be able to prepare early enough,

make a quick decision and then go.

So a lot of pros, the reason why they look like

they've got plenty of time is 'cause they're reading

the person by the time they turn their body,

position if they strike the ball,

they've already seen all the way you're going

before you strike the ball.

So that had given them time, all right?

So that's where all players could do more of

is watching the player, watching the racket.

I always say watch the racket because that's at least the start.

If someone's watching the player too much,

commonly the ball will come back

and they'll hit the ball right back to the player

'cause that's the last thing they looked at, all right?

So the best thing is to watch the racket

and you start to identify spin more,

you start to identify depth,

you start to identify power or speed

because the racket's going slower or faster.

So there's all these factors by watching the racket,

you're getting a little bit of processing time earlier

that allows you to prepare earlier

or maybe even take advantage.

So that's one factor, the second factor

that I wanted to talk about is the time

between racket to racket.

That has sped up in the last few generations

and we all think that we're like,

yeah, yeah, I want to hit a ball faster,

I want the ball faster and I can hit the ball faster.

Yep, but that also takes away time.

And when that takes away time,

it takes away better decision making

or rushing of the contact point

or not being able to get to the net,

what the hell happened to my volley?

Well, there's nothing wrong with the volley.

It's just you haven't got as much time

from baseline to service lines

you used to have two generations ago.

Great, great, the great, big break

and brought this up many years ago

that we have to get rid of the split step

in the middle of the court

and work on a reaction step,

which is one foot then the second foot.

And that's going to compensate for the less time we have

to be able to get to net,

especially in singles or you're just trying

to attack the net in doubles.

You're baseline to the service line

because we've lost time from racket to racket

with power rackets, poly strings,

the ball coming faster.

All of that, we only have a certain amount of foot speed

from baseline to service line.

If you split step there,

you're going to be stuck on the next volley

because you're not far enough into the court

to get to the second volley.

So what he proved is that you can come in

and split step on one foot,

direct that foot and drive into the next ball

standing on the next foot

and still be on the net by the second volley.

And he's the one that created that made people realize

because we lost time from baseline to baseline,

racket to racket.

He showed that the players are between 0.9

and 1.2 seconds between racket to racket.

All right, so when that happens,

that's how much time you've got to get in.

But the players doing it now,

and if you want to watch them,

you'll see they don't split too often

anymore two feet in the middle of the court.

They literally are running one step, two step

and they're on top of the net.

And the dial was famous at that one.

So anyway, that's all being correlated around time.

And people don't understand why they can't get to the net.

A lot of that's because of the time between racket to racket.

So you're saying the pros have less time

between racket to racket?

Does that translate down to you and me

and then also across?

100% amateur player.

Are you saying the amateur player also has less time

because of the new technology

and because of how things have changed?

100%.

The players are only just faster at processing things

in a short space of time.

This is thus as amateur, we need longer time, right?

So they're faster at running from corner to corner

and recover and still making decision making

and doing all of that stuff.

They just faster at it than what we are.

Their processing time is faster.

So it's all still the same amount of stuff.

We still have to move to the ball,

make a decision strike, recover,

and then get ready for the next one.

So they're just faster at it.

So again, if we talk about time,

you're talking about processing time.

Their process isn't just so much faster

than the amateur player.

But in that case, they're processing faster.

They're hitting it faster.

They have the same problems we do.

It's just at a different speed.

100%.

That's why we have a level of 2.5, 3035, 4045.

Right.

Most people always ask me what the difference

between 4045, but keep saying it's one more shot.

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Sure.

It's the easiest way to look at it.

If I'm a 40 player, do I have to hit full harder to be 45?

Actually, no.

You just need to be able to hit one more shot.

Make one more ball.

And if you can have some good one shot,

maybe you're on a winner at full five.

That makes sense.

That makes sense.

So wrapping it up, I want to go back to one of your first statement,

because we get the time between rackets.

And there's not really anything you can do about that

without more experience at just getting used to that time

and practicing those things.

But the question of watching the racket,

that's what I want you to finish me off with the racket

that I'm watching.

So what I've got to do is I've got to watch the racket hit the ball.

I've got to keep my head down on contact.

So I'm losing sight of the ball.

Now, as the ball crosses the net,

you want me to look up and watch my opponent

and watch the racket to the team.

That's all I'm talking about.

What they're about to hit the ball, to try to learn what they're

about to do, which means I'm not looking at the ball.

As soon as they hit the ball, now I've got to start moving.

Is now the time finally, when that bumper sticker tennis coach

says, keep your eye on the ball?

Yeah.

Am I now finally actually looking at the ball?

Is that advice going that bumper sticker going away?

OK.

Let's make something very clear.

When a ball is covered towards you,

you're looking at the damn ball.

The ball is not stopping.

You have to focus on.

Right?

So the ball is not something you have to focus on.

You focus on the racket.

If you do, you already pick up on what the ball is doing.

OK.

And then when the ball is coming, you're automatically

making processing your decisions quickly in your feet,

deciding your tactic, making the decision

or committing to a target.

There's all of those factors that are

having milliseconds faster because you watch the racket.

And you will always see the ball.

I mean, that whole thing of the bumper sticker

focusing on the ball.

When a ball is being straked as a tennis player,

you're just looking at the ball.

I'd like a bumper sticker to say, see the court, see the ball,

see the court, see the ball because most people

don't see the court and see the ball.

Right?

And they don't look for the broad vision and the narrow vision.

Right?

They're looking for the court.

Now they lost the ball.

Right?

Well, they're watching the ball, and they

have no target because they can't see the court.

See?

So the bumper sticker should be see the court, see the ball.

Right?

But see the racket first to save you time.

Well, there you have it.

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