Ten Minutes of Tennis: Know Your Tennis Toolkit and How to Expand it

Speaker: 00:00:00

Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast, powered by GoTennis!

Speaker: 00:00:08

While you're here, please hit that follow button.

Speaker: 00:00:10

And after you listen, share this with your friends and teammates.

Speaker: 00:00:13

Also, let us know if you have questions or topics you'd like us to discuss and we'll

Speaker: 00:00:16

add them to our schedule.

Speaker: 00:00:18

With that said, let's get started with 10 minutes of tennis.

Speaker: 00:00:21

Hey, hey, this is Shaun with GoTennis!

Speaker: 00:00:27

And today I am talking to Justin Yeo, and our topic is know your tennis toolkit and

Speaker: 00:00:33

how to expand it.

Speaker: 00:00:35

So Justin, let's jump right in.

Speaker: 00:00:38

What is the definition of a tennis toolkit?

Speaker: 00:00:41

Let's start there.

Speaker: 00:00:42

Yeah, good morning, everyone.

Speaker: 00:00:44

Yeah, I would just say it's mainly understanding all the research that you're having today

Speaker: 00:00:50

and also making sure that they apply to some kind of tactic.

Speaker: 00:00:57

I think a lot of people don't understand the mix between technique and attack people very

Speaker: 00:01:03

well.

Speaker: 00:01:04

So once they start understanding that a bit more, they understand the toolkit.

Speaker: 00:01:08

So technique versus tactic, you said.

Speaker: 00:01:12

So tactic, being like a strategy, technique, being how I hit my forehand?

Speaker: 00:01:18

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: 00:01:20

Some people get caught very regularly getting down the line and it's mainly because of either

Speaker: 00:01:24

the Newman Patents or style of technique and they can't seem to get it back across court.

Speaker: 00:01:29

So commonly, you need to sort of fix, you need to decide what tactic or what game style

Speaker: 00:01:37

you'd like to play more of and then make sure you design your technique around one.

Speaker: 00:01:42

Because otherwise, you know, you tool boxes, you tool box, you could be just a variety pack

Speaker: 00:01:47

of everything.

Speaker: 00:01:48

But you're actually looking to say, well, I'd like to play more aggression, which is going

Speaker: 00:01:52

to take the ball in the rods.

Speaker: 00:01:54

So pretty hard to be aggressive.

Speaker: 00:01:56

All right, so the toolkit itself is what I have in my toolkit.

Speaker: 00:02:01

So if I have a forehand, but that's not, everybody's got a forehand.

Speaker: 00:02:06

The toolkit is more about do I have an aggressive inside out forehand or do I have a forehand

Speaker: 00:02:13

drop shot and forehand inside out drop shot?

Speaker: 00:02:17

So we're talking like which golf clubs are in your bag kind of thing, right?

Speaker: 00:02:21

Yeah, well, golf clubs are a little bit different though, because we bury a golf club for a

Speaker: 00:02:26

different shot.

Speaker: 00:02:27

We don't bury the racket.

Speaker: 00:02:29

So no, it is really understanding, trying to understand the game.

Speaker: 00:02:34

I've spent probably 30 plus years profiling plays first in my first set of lessons to understand

Speaker: 00:02:41

what their function, what the movements are, whether they're athletic, whether they've

Speaker: 00:02:46

slightly had to work harder if they've let us in.

Speaker: 00:02:50

Then you actually sort of find out what kind of style of play they are.

Speaker: 00:02:54

And then also then talk about personality, but I've seen a lot of people that are very,

Speaker: 00:02:59

very, very aggressive, very intense people, but they're counter punching all day because

Speaker: 00:03:04

their toolkit just doesn't allow them to be that aggressive.

Speaker: 00:03:08

So toolbox is really understanding what you are, what you're about, what your game style

Speaker: 00:03:15

is.

Speaker: 00:03:16

I hope you've been doing it for 20 years the same way.

Speaker: 00:03:19

And then whether you'd like to flip the switch a little bit or add something to it and

Speaker: 00:03:25

it changes things up a little bit and whether you're by your last at two and you're game

Speaker: 00:03:28

by that.

Speaker: 00:03:29

So you've all kept an eye to change.

Speaker: 00:03:33

I say that over and over again.

Speaker: 00:03:35

Now I'm 50 now and I've had the adjustment serve from my body, still cramping, you know,

Speaker: 00:03:42

on 20 mile per serves just purely by adjusting the toolkit where I need to make sure I still

Speaker: 00:03:48

get the outcome I'm looking for.

Speaker: 00:03:51

But in that case that sounds like, in that specific example, that sounded more like a technique

Speaker: 00:03:56

adjustment to keep the toolkit functional, right?

Speaker: 00:03:59

So that if the toolkit includes like, I don't have a one twenty first serve that's just

Speaker: 00:04:03

never really been part of my game.

Speaker: 00:04:05

I need my kick serve working or I will lose.

Speaker: 00:04:09

So in that case, as I get older, I might adjust the technique to keep the toolkit in play.

Speaker: 00:04:15

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: 00:04:16

I mean, it's been very clear with what RAPFY 100 has done in the last few years.

Speaker: 00:04:22

No vac change in the third or two, yeah.

Speaker: 00:04:24

He's playing a variety of first serve and people don't understand he really adjusted the

Speaker: 00:04:29

serve.

Speaker: 00:04:30

He spent six months mentally believing that he can have been like change the first serve

Speaker: 00:04:36

up versus just going bang first serve.

Speaker: 00:04:39

And then into a second serve.

Speaker: 00:04:41

So he's created that and worked hard at trying to mix up the first serve to allow him to

Speaker: 00:04:49

penetrate on the third shot.

Speaker: 00:04:51

So that's been very obvious in the last few, at least the last couple years.

Speaker: 00:04:56

So it just shows that guy too has evolved from nine feet, ten feet back on the baseline

Speaker: 00:05:03

to two feet in the front of the baseline.

Speaker: 00:05:06

But does anyone that's evolved to pit is RAPFY 100?

Speaker: 00:05:10

So yeah.

Speaker: 00:05:11

And we watched the younger guys coming in.

Speaker: 00:05:14

You watch somebody like Alkaraz who is able to take what Nadal has done and learn from it

Speaker: 00:05:19

ahead of time and his coach.

Speaker: 00:05:21

And a lot of this is the coaching, right?

Speaker: 00:05:23

So you've got somebody as phenomenal as Ferraro to be able to say, all right, let Nadal

Speaker: 00:05:28

took six, eight years to figure out how to go from clay to actually being really, if not

Speaker: 00:05:35

really competitive, the best RASCord player in over a couple of years.

Speaker: 00:05:39

But he did this.

Speaker: 00:05:41

These are the adjustments he made.

Speaker: 00:05:42

And a guy like Alkaraz is making those adjustments even sooner.

Speaker: 00:05:47

Right, right.

Speaker: 00:05:48

He used to have upgrades a ton of looking still to become dominant for what he can be.

Speaker: 00:05:55

But just understanding it's okay means you can actually row your toolkit.

Speaker: 00:06:00

I think RAPFY 100 is just a perfect example.

Speaker: 00:06:03

And Carlos, more you came in, sat with Uncle Tony and took basically, hey, how do we shorten

Speaker: 00:06:09

the time on the court to prevent the injury so the ton of, you know, RAPFY can be played.

Speaker: 00:06:14

So he doesn't have to retire at 30 years old, yeah.

Speaker: 00:06:16

And that's what they did.

Speaker: 00:06:17

And the guy reduced the 2020 to 30% of his court time by taking the ball more early.

Speaker: 00:06:24

And the runs away said, "Bolly was one of the best until he learned to move up."

Speaker: 00:06:29

There was no way he was going to use the ball.

Speaker: 00:06:32

Now means a volume machine.

Speaker: 00:06:34

So, but that takes time.

Speaker: 00:06:37

It took him like two years of sacrificing what he likes to play versus where he has to play.

Speaker: 00:06:43

And that's a perfect example of changing the toolkit and staying within his range still.

Speaker: 00:06:49

Still the same forehand, still the same backhand.

Speaker: 00:06:52

We just haven't learned the timing difference and adjust what he had to do to get a better

Speaker: 00:06:57

outcome.

Speaker: 00:06:58

Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker: 00:06:59

And if I'm making that adjustment, so from a toolkit point of view, you're not using

Speaker: 00:07:04

a doll as an example, but is there an example of somebody removing something from their

Speaker: 00:07:10

toolkit to say, "Hey, Medvedev, maybe you should not come to the net ever for a couple

Speaker: 00:07:17

of years until you figure this out?"

Speaker: 00:07:19

I wouldn't say that because the game is all about taking time away, right now.

Speaker: 00:07:26

Taking the time forward, taking time away, otherwise we're just going to see robots going like

Speaker: 00:07:30

this or that, like, let him do it.

Speaker: 00:07:34

And it's not that game anymore.

Speaker: 00:07:36

So, Medvedev is going to have to force him to do it.

Speaker: 00:07:39

This February, it's the same.

Speaker: 00:07:40

These tall, big guys that have great leveraging, great height, it's just not taking the ball

Speaker: 00:07:46

early enough to be able to come in and hurt the players.

Speaker: 00:07:49

And one of the things I have to understand is the players that are coming out, I learned

Speaker: 00:07:53

this comes in there, getting forward and taking the ball on the right.

Speaker: 00:07:57

So, there's going to be a whole strip of kids coming up that if they don't learn to come

Speaker: 00:08:03

forward, they're not going to don't want, they're going to keep getting long, long, long rallies

Speaker: 00:08:07

and get dominated.

Speaker: 00:08:09

And so, food speed is part of that, too, obviously.

Speaker: 00:08:12

So, we're going to see some incredible athletes in the Alcoraz, taking the whole thing

Speaker: 00:08:17

up another notch.

Speaker: 00:08:19

Well, let's assume I'm not Alcoraz and let's assume I'm the club player.

Speaker: 00:08:23

I'm going to say, "Okay, I've got to go to my coach tomorrow."

Speaker: 00:08:27

And say, "Okay, I saw these guys on YouTube and they were talking about my tennis toolkit."

Speaker: 00:08:33

What do you suggest?

Speaker: 00:08:34

Say, "Okay, club, Joe tennis player, go to your coach, talk to them about this and see what

Speaker: 00:08:41

you can add, see what you could maybe even subtract if you need to, but there's some patience

Speaker: 00:08:47

involved because there's going to be some lessons and some work and maybe even some

Speaker: 00:08:50

technique to get me there, right?

Speaker: 00:08:52

But, yep, I wouldn't subtract.

Speaker: 00:08:54

I would just give...

Speaker: 00:08:55

My two tips would be the first one, the majority of the time to increase speed, watch the

Speaker: 00:09:01

plays rapid, watch the plays rapid and read the ball better.

Speaker: 00:09:05

You'll be amazed how much faster, how much quicker your split step and how much faster

Speaker: 00:09:10

you can get to the ball without having to go do 50,000 sprints.

Speaker: 00:09:16

I don't see that focused enough on the...

Speaker: 00:09:19

I don't know if that higher level, I mean, Jockovich, you see him like this all the time.

Speaker: 00:09:23

You know, you're looking and looking because he's trying to make sure he sees that time and

Speaker: 00:09:28

get those milliseconds that the process is faster, the movements faster, the perceptions

Speaker: 00:09:33

faster.

Speaker: 00:09:34

So, that's my first tip.

Speaker: 00:09:36

Second tip would be understand what your body type can do because I wouldn't subtract

Speaker: 00:09:42

or I wouldn't add it until you know what your body type can do.

Speaker: 00:09:46

We cannot...

Speaker: 00:09:47

If you're... I'm 50, there's no way my shoulder development will allow me to come down under

Speaker: 00:09:52

the ball like the play is sitting out there.

Speaker: 00:09:54

My shoulder development internally rotate, won't happen.

Speaker: 00:09:58

So I'm more of a tape that's up for him and it's always going to be good.

Speaker: 00:10:01

So understand your tool pit and then work with that because you can always grow.

Speaker: 00:10:06

I like it, Justin Yeo.

Speaker: 00:10:08

Thanks for...

Speaker: 00:10:09

I appreciate it.

Speaker: 00:10:10

Well, I'll come back.

Speaker: 00:10:11

See you next week.

Speaker: 00:10:12

Well, there you have it.

Speaker: 00:10:19

We want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio and be sure to hit that follow button.

Speaker: 00:10:25

For more tennis related content, you can go to AtlantaTennisPodcast.com.

Speaker: 00:10:30

And while you're there, check out our calendar of tennis events, the best deals on technic fiber

Speaker: 00:10:35

products, tennis apparel and more.

Speaker: 00:10:38

If you're a coach, director of any racket sports, or just someone who wants to utilize our

Speaker: 00:10:42

online shop, contact us about setting up your own shop collection to offer your branded

Speaker: 00:10:47

merchandise to the Atlanta Tennis World.

Speaker: 00:10:50

And with that, we're out.

Speaker: 00:10:52

See you next time.

Speaker: 00:10:52

[MUSIC]

Speaker: 00:11:02

[BLANK_AUDIO]