10 Minutes of Tennis: The FIVE Elements of Tennis

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Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

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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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Hey, good morning. This is Shaun with GoTennis! Atlanta.

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And as always, Justin noticed in my May the Courts be with you, shirt.

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And we want to say good morning to Justin Yeo, world renowned tennis coach,

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Ozzy in Puerto Rico. And we today are going to talk about the five elements of tennis.

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And so I'm going to say, Justin, what are the five elements of tennis and why is this interesting?

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Yeah, I mean, again, like we broke down every week, we've got better and better breaking things down

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and making people think about things, which is what we're here for 10 minutes.

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The five elements are, you know, conditioning, which is either physical, mental, emotional,

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technical, tactical. And they all go hand in hand to make a tennis player.

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When we're talking about a guy that when you're getting in a day where you're in the zone,

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all five will work and well for you.

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Sometimes one's not working and you have to figure it out.

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And that's why it's really easy and good thing to practice with the five.

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I find sometimes when people are practicing, they challenge themselves that they put enough

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intensity so the five don't really get affected. You're really just working a technique or

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a certain tactic for the day. You know, it was interesting. You know, I just talked about it before,

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but you know, 90% is really mentally and emotionally. We've heard this all the time. 90% of the games

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between there is. And between your ears can actually control the emotions. So they go sort of hand in hand

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and you have to learn to control and manage those. You manage them. It makes it easier than to

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on your body and on your technique and on your tactics as well. It makes you think more clearly about

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all of them. So mentally, emotionally, you know, you can also argue the point that if you're

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technique yourself, you're off. But at the same time, the game is the game. So you're going to try to

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survive on whatever you survive. Every player has a few physical constraints. We've talked about, you know,

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jogging their chair by says, jogging their jogging. If you're watching here and there, usually does have

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tape on the leg or he has something going on. And if he's got a little physical thing that he's

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mental and emotional, it's got to make sure he's making up for his physical constraint. And, you know,

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jogging or it's same thing. He always says, you know, on the worst day the champions still find a way

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to win. You know, and that's again, mentally and emotionally as far as I'm concerned. So we've been

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talking about juniors to amateur players. Junior development, I say, coaches are listening right now,

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they're in massive academies. I would literally try to always and all Matt, all drills or coaching sessions

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or academy sessions, you're trying to use all the elements. You're trying to always temper them. You're

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trying to challenge them. You're always trying to make it harder on them because as they get all

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done after they get to the best leagues, that's when they're going to need them the most. A violent

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mental made a very good statement back in the days. He said, "Juniors was his best year and the

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easiest year because once you play 18 or 18 and 16 and 14 and 12, you're only playing two age groups."

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He said, "It was fantastic." He said, "Once I got in the goal over 18, I was playing 30 and unders."

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So he's like, "I had 18 years gap, but it's two years gap." You know, so, you know, it's a very big

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deal as a junior to, you know, capitalize and challenge them for as much as possible in them.

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Now I can jump in. If I can jump in with a question about that academy to say all five, we do a lot of

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work high level academies just down to beginners, down to club players, and we say, "Okay, today we're

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going to work really work on the technique of the forehand." Is there a way as a coach that I can add

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in a little mental aspect to that or a little emotional aspect? Is there a way that I can start

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adding? Maybe I can't work all five at the same time all the time. But then I add in some other element

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whether it's score keeping to add pressure or are there other examples of say, "Hey, we're going to

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work on technique and we're going to do windshield wipers. You got to go out. It's going to be physical

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conditioning." And this and this, you're keeping score. You got to keep track intellectually.

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And I'm going to yell at you and make you upset. Okay, what should we put all those things together?

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Yeah, I mean, you can challenge your kids to think of positive-guy affirmations. They may be a very

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negative kid. And so every time they hit a crappy shot, you've got to give me a positive word.

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Say something good right now. And there's just like, "I just want to say that." And it's like,

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"No, we can't do it. Come on. Give me a good word or we're not even able." So that they challenge

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themselves to change their mental state to stay in the zone or stay more positive. You can give

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them different areas of the court to hit with the correct technique. And sometimes as we all know,

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if you don't move correctly and don't position your feet, well, it's always harder to hit a certain

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part of the target. So there's so many elements that you can challenge them in those five things

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on every single aspect. I say golf. I mean, tennis is not golf. So no kids should be standing still

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working the strokes. It just doesn't work. It's never going to happen in a game. So it should never

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happen on a tennis court. So, you know, you know, you're not talking about this. My Brails

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whole system is to get them playing as quick as possible. I agree because they have to be moving.

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They have to learn to hit. They have to learn to keep the ball going. They have to learn

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attention span. All of those things are so critical. Sometimes which I have to say,

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before technique, because you can have the most beautiful technique. But if you don't learn to get

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all those other things, your technique breaks down anyway. So, you know, it's a combination of it all

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meant, you know, all five of them to really, really make a tennis player. And when we go to an amateur,

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have a good look. Are you coach or just analyze yourself? There's so many great apps. There's so

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many great things, if there's, have you a girlfriend or your wife sit and chat you on some things that

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you think you need in the game and have a good look at your stats? That way you can start to figure

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out out of the five. Do I have them all? Which one do I need to work on? You know, did I break down

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mentally? Did I win on the forehand and the next point I lost? And then they'll win again and

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did I lost. We used to graph out kids to show them that, you know, how many points they can catch

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together. That's really, really important to learn how to, you know, another ball and another ball.

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But it's your system. You want to break, but it breaks any worth of hold. If you don't hold,

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the break wasn't worth anything. There's so many things that an amateur player can become better

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in those five elements. Mentally and emotionally, I keep saying, if you're not in the right state

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and you're not believing in what you're doing, you're already going to be stiff. So you're going to

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be wasting any good. Your technique isn't there. You're not going to be looking at the player and

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trying to find a way to break it down because you're too looking about yourself. You know, you know,

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I've talked about this too, that internal external internal thinking external thinking internal

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thinking is away from the baseline. When you address the board, you should be thinking about what

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you've got to do to beat that player. Last week, we talked about A, B and C. You should be thinking

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about A, B and C on this point. And then the next point, and if you find a gap, we find something that

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hurts them. You never let go. So they figure it out. You know, so, you know, there's a lot in those

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five elements that people can learn from junior, so even adventurer. And then as the 10th player becomes

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really good, junior wise, you've got to put them in all uncomfortable situations to then help them

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to be a jug of inch or a Alparez or a golf or a Williams sister. You know, Serena's story was

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wonderful. She was put in a situation where she got no attention, so she created the attention.

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You know, if anyone watched the movie, you can see it in a model way. Venus was the highlight,

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and Serena was nowhere, and then she was like, I don't like being in the shadows. And look who had

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the big career. I mean, pretty simple, you know. I think that cover will fight a little bit.

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Is that all you got all five? So, so, name them. Go through them again. One by one. Give me a quick

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little explanation. So it's physical. Physical is just your conditioning. You gotta learn to be

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conditioned. And, and I mean, Alparez is the enemy of that right now and Jonathan, the Jedi's age,

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another ability. Girls, some of them are really fit. I'm not going to compare, but I can just say,

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those two guys, especially just ridiculous athletes as far as I'm concerned. And that as well,

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but he's got some different styles, game-wise. Those two specifically are pressing.

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So physical, technical, technical is very, very important for his efficiency and for

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stroke efficiency and being able to make sure you hit certain parts of the board.

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Some people just don't have a right technique. So because of that, they're limited in their

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strokes and are limited in their tactics. Tactics is the next one. You know, you're going to understand

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your tactics. You've got to know your toolbox. If you know your toolbox, you're trying to use

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your tools against the other guy's tool. But he's got more tools than you. You gotta find a way to

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break down his tools within your tools. If you try to play outside your tools, good luck,

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mentally and emotionally. You know, so, there you go. That's all of them. That's all of them.

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All right. So, a little wrap up. Good luck mentally and emotionally. There at the end after

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you've got toolbox issues. Then you're going to have an intellectual and some emotional problems.

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Stay away from the cell phone. It's the worst thing in the world you can do before we match.

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There you go. I love it. Great final advice. Justin Yeo, thank you so much. We'll see you next week.

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Absolutely. Cheers, mate.

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Well, there you have it. We want to thank rejuvenate.com for use of the studio. And be sure to hit that

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