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

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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with GoTennis!

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

how to expand it.

So Justin, let's jump right in.

What is the definition of a tennis toolkit?

Let's start there.

Yeah, good morning, everyone.

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

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

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

well.

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

So technique versus tactic, you said.

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

Yeah, absolutely.

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

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

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

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

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

of everything.

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

to take the ball in the rods.

So pretty hard to be aggressive.

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

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

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

drop shot and forehand inside out drop shot?

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

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

different shot.

We don't bury the racket.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

is.

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

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

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

by that.

So you've all kept an eye to change.

I say that over and over again.

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

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

get the outcome I'm looking for.

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

adjustment to keep the toolkit functional, right?

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

never really been part of my game.

I need my kick serve working or I will lose.

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

Yeah, yeah.

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

No vac change in the third or two, yeah.

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

serve.

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

up versus just going bang first serve.

And then into a second serve.

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

penetrate on the third shot.

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

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

to two feet in the front of the baseline.

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

So yeah.

And we watched the younger guys coming in.

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

ahead of time and his coach.

And a lot of this is the coaching, right?

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

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

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

But he did this.

These are the adjustments he made.

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

Right, right.

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

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

I think RAPFY 100 is just a perfect example.

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

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

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

And that's what they did.

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

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

Now means a volume machine.

So, but that takes time.

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

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

Still the same forehand, still the same backhand.

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

outcome.

Yeah, that makes sense.

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

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

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

of years until you figure this out?"

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

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

this or that, like, let him do it.

And it's not that game anymore.

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

This February, it's the same.

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

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

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

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

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

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

and get dominated.

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

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

up another notch.

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

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

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

What do you suggest?

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

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

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

technique to get me there, right?

But, yep, I wouldn't subtract.

I would just give...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

faster.

So, that's my first tip.

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

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

We cannot...

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

the ball like the play is sitting out there.

My shoulder development internally rotate, won't happen.

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

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

I like it, Justin Yeo.

Thanks for...

I appreciate it.

Well, I'll come back.

See you next week.

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