Thanks for voting in the survey in the last newsletter. There were 90 people who voted yes, meaning that they would be interested in online coaching.

I also received your comments so I'll respond to some of them here:

1. I think it may be a worthwhile idea overall, but I would probably not choose it because I think you would need to watch me (any player) play several matches to be able to see what changes are most necessary for me. (I'm a 46 year old man, USTA NTRP 3.5 player who plays/practices 3-4 x/week from Apr-Oct, less during the winter.)

Yes, that would the ideal scenario. The next best step is if you can describe me the situation and I can share my ideas. I have answered over 100 questions on this site and on my blog without seeing the player and have been able to help in some way.

2. I'm not sure how effective this can be without seeing the person play... I suggest having people post videos.

My idea for online coaching was for mental training and possibly some tactical advice. You are probably thinking about technique coaching which I wasn't planning to do. But yes, I might offer you to send me the video and share my thoughts on how to improve the technique.

3. At age 54, I don't expect to earn any money playing tennis and, therefore, my tennis-related expenditures are kept to a minimum. I'd expect you to charge a fee for your service and I'd expect the amount of your fee to be outside my budget. Ocassionally I do pay a pro for on-court demonstrations, observations and advice to improve my game; however, I don't perceive on-line coaching to be useful or helpful to me. I do value your writings and audio/video presentations. Based on what I've disclosed to you, in what way would you perceive on-line coaching to be an asset to me?

The best value you'd get from such online coaching would be if you explain to me the problem you have in the match - which is tactical or mental based.

Something like: how do I play against a left-hander, why do I miss easy shots amd how to prevent that, how can I handle gamesmanship and so on. All these and many more can be discussed over the phone and solutions can be found based on your type of play and personality traits.

-------------------------------

I will prepare the online coaching option in the future and am looking forward to helping you out in the mental, tactical and technical part of the game!

--------------------------------
1. What's new?
--------------------------------

a) You might have heard TV commentators talking about risk in the game, but I am pretty sure they missed the point in most cases. There are actually 2 risks you need to be aware of...

Winning The Risk Game In Tennis

The article also includes a link to the Federer-Nadal article on the blog...

--------------------------------
2. Tennis Thoughts Blog
--------------------------------

Follow this interesting Q&A article about singles and doubles differences. I've also included the first part where the player shares come useful lessons he got from the strategy ebook...

Mental And Tactical Differences Between Tennis Singles And Doubles

---------------------------

I am not working on any articles right now so if you have a question or a problem you'd like me to write about, just reply to this email and let me know!

Talk to you in 2 weeks!

Best, Tomaz

-----------------------------------------