You can check back often and either ask a tennis strategy related question or share your tactical tips and what worked for you.

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1. What's new?
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Maintaining full concentration through the whole match is not an easy task. In fact, it's almost impossible to prevent the loss of concentration now and then, but you can learn how to raise the level of concentration when needed.

You'll find 3 ways of bringing your concentration level up to 100% during a tennis match:

How to Maintain a High Level of Concentration during a Tennis Match

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2. Tennis Thoughts Blog
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Quick reactions are the key to playing tennis at higher levels. They also come into play at club level tennis doubles where there are volley exchanges at a close range.

How to Improve Reaction Speed in Tennis

A reader asks why he freezes when he is about to hit the ball. The problem with that is that his shot is short and the opponent can easily attack that ball.

Why You Freeze When You Are About to Hit the Ball

Another question is very similar and it's about playing short balls under pressure. I believe both problems have the same cause...

How To Avoid Playing Short Balls Under Pressure

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I thought this Q&A with one of the readers might also be an interesting read for you:

Q: Why is it that none of my coaches have ever paid attention on antidotes to mind issues in tennis? They all recognise it but are unable to take a holistic approach by taking the full individual into account. They concentrate on shots and techniques notwithstanding my questions on why do I do what I do.

A: Why the coaches don't see the connection between mind and body? Hmm, good question.

Let me think of some reasons:

1. We, coaches, are bombarded with instructional material online, at seminars and in books. You can analyze and break down every stroke and every move to the tiniest detail.

This makes you think that you know what's going on and you try to correct the technique with these detailed instructions.

Most coaches don't naturally question all that is being taught and they simply follow the old path.

2. You need to know quite a lot about how the mind works. Unless a coach has read many books on psychology and the mind, he has no clue what may be going in the mind that causes certain technical or tactical mistakes.

3. Not many people have this persistant WHY question running in their heads as I do. ;) When someone misses a shot, I ask myself "Why did she miss that?".

And when the obvious answer may be: "Because she was too late at the ball." I ask again:"And why was she too late at the ball?" The obvious answer may be:"Well, she was slow to react." So I ask again:"Why was she slow to react?"

Now we are slowly getting to the real reason. She may be slow to react, because she is not focused enough, not alert enough or didn't split step at the right time.

With this "Why" digging I keep getting deeper and deeper to the real reason of the mistake and in most cases I end up with a mental rather than a technical cause.

All the best from Thailand,

Tomaz

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Zivjo,

Na Tajskem se je nepricakovano shladilo tako da sedaj ni vec 37 stopinj ampak samo okrog 30. ;) Zjutraj in zvecer je vcasih samo okrog 25 stopinj. Kar mrzlo...

Nazaj na tenis - vabim vas da si preberete clanka o koncentraciji:

How to Maintain a High Level of Concentration during a Tennis Match

in kako izboljsati reakcije:

How to Improve Reaction Speed in Tennis

Na Tennis Thoughts blogu je seveda se vec novih clankov, predvsem kot posledica vprasanj bralcev in mojih odgovorov.

Ce imate kaksno tenisko vprasanje, kar na dan z njim!

Pozdrav iz Tajske, Tomaz

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