I am back to Slovenia, where is everything is so nicely green and fresh. I've already enjoyed 1 hour playing on clay courts - it felt great!

I've finally uploaded all the videos to Youtube so let's see what kind of tennis drills have me and Poonky been working on...

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1. What's new?
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a) Young players like Poonky don't have the perfect ball judgement skills yet so they are often late in the preparation. The brain doesn't have enough data to initiate the swing so it waits. You'll see how I train the early preparation...

Another drill we did with Poonky was learning to use more body rotation when hitting groundstrokes. The progression is very quick and most people can feel the power of the body rotation in just a few minutes of doing this drill...

Tennis Drills For Juniors - Training Poonky, Part II

b) In the second set of drills, we worked on the throwing motion for the serve, getting used to the slice serve, working on the ball control and footwork and eventually playing a set where Poonky can actually beat me. ;)

Slice Serve Drills and More - Training Poonky, Part III

c) There were two very interesting submissions from the readers this week. Russell explained how having a sense of purpose helped him play much better.

Great advice Russell, you've won the Strategy ebook!

And Wild Bill shared what he noticed when watching good players and how you can improve your skills too by observing carefully what good players do when they hit the ball.

Thanks for the story, Wild Bill - the Mental Manual is your prize!

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2. Tennis Thoughts Blog
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Dealing with match pressure is the main question from one of the readers. Although my answer is not that long, I suggest you check the link at the and of that article which will take you back to TennisMindGame Q&A where Ken DeHart and myself shared some good advice to a touring pro.

Dealing With Pressure in Tennis Matches

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I've just attended a great coaching seminar here in Slovenia where the main guest was Louis Cayer. Loius shared great drills and ideas for training footwork and tactics and this will come very useful in the near future, when my friend and me start working on the tactics DVDs.

You can listen to the interview that Kevin McClure had with Loius. Very interesting podcast!

Enjoy your game!

Best, Tomaz

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