It's US OPEN TIME

It seems like an eon ago since Wimbledon.

I personally find the hard court summer season fairly boring. I view it as exhibiton type tennis gearing up for the US open.

And, I don't put a lot of importance on the results. You've got tournaments in back to back weeks so there's no way that a Fed or a Nadal will compete hard each week.

This means that there will be breakthrough winners and unusual guys reaching semis and finals. Look at Frank Dancevic in Indianopolis. Djokovic wins in Montreal and then checks out early the following week. He's too smart to kill himself 2 weeks in a row with matches almost every day in these non-slam events.

But the Open is interesting. And here are some of my thoughts having watched one of the semis and the finals of the Masters event live in Montreal.


Fed is Fed and, unless someone really steps up, he will be there again. The guy I think who can give Fed trouble on hard courts is Djokovic not Nadal. Djokovic's game is better suited to hard courts than Nadal's. He serves better ,and his two handed backhand is so solid that he dominated crosscourt backhand rallies against Federer in the final in Montreal.

Nadal is struggling and I don't see him having a great tournament. Part of Nadal's game is to break you down physically. New York can be steaming hot during the day but can cool down at night and I don't think cool conditions are to Nadal's advantage.

Roddick has to play Fed in the quarters. Goodnight Andy. Blake is on a roll but his game style is so risky that I don't think he can pull it off for 7 matches.

So I'm picking Federer and Djokovic in the final.

Until next time,

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Insider Tennis Strategies Tennis Strategy Tactics And Ideas To Help You Improve Your Game guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
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Wimbledon Final 2007 - Part 2 -Should Nadal Serve Wide More In The Deuce Court?

If you closely watch Rafael Nadal's serving patterns, you'll notice that he rarely goes wide in the deuce court.

I've charted Nadal's serving patterns for most of the last 2 French finals and the last 2 Wimbledon finals.

As I've noted before Nadal often basically lets you know where's he's going to serve. His reasoning must be that his slice serve is good enough to get a relatively weak return that will allow him to begin to dominate the point with his forehand.

You can't really argue with his results. You could possibly say that this serving strategy is less suited for tiebreaks where free points on the serve are much more important than in regular games. Ergo, he lost both tiebreaks to Fed and his tiebreak record is not all that hot.

Nadal is quite capable and fairly confident, in my opinion, in serving down the middle in the ad court. If you cheat too much to take away the wide serve, he can burn you with smoke down the middle. He did this repeatedly in the latter stages of last year's Wimbledon finals.

As you recall Nadal got smoked at the beginning of the first set of last year's Wimbledon and was down 5-0. I charted his serving pattern and he had served 11 out of the first 13 first serves to the backhand.

I believe that last year Federer received so much grief in the tennis world stemming from his inablity to return the Nadal serve at the French Open. People like Wilander were basically saying why not just stand further to the left to cover the slice and make him beat you by going the other way if he can. Federer may have used this strategy to return at Wimbledon and was giving Nadal trouble.

Near the end of the first set in the Wimbledon final last year, Nadal started serving down the middle in the ad court and he continued this for the rest of the match. He served almost 50 % of his ad points last year in the second set down the middle and he won 80% of the points.

So, I believe that Nadal is quite capable of mixing it up in the ad court.

Where I think Nadal has trouble is in the deuce court. He rarely serves the wide serve in the deuce court. This of course the serve that Fed, Sampras, and McEnroe all had mastered. ( I'm talking about the Fed and Sampras wide serve in the ad court and the Mac serve in the deuce court since Mac was a lefty like Nadal). These great servers serve wide and get the ball a few feet up the line making the serve almost unreturnable.

And, by being able to serve this wide, they force the opponent to alter the return position, making the serve down the middle more effective.

Look at Nadal's starting position in the deuce court and then compare it with the starting position in the deuce court of other lefties like Mac, Rusedski, Leconte, Gomez, Martina.

All these other lefties stand a few feet away from the center line. Nadal hugs the center line when he serves in the deuce court. I believe this gives him an even better angle for the serve down the middle but hurts his angle for going wide in the deuce court.

You can't argue with Nadal's results but I'd like to see what would happen if Nadal moved a few feet further away from the center line in the deuce court like the others and improved the wide serve.

If I were his coach and he struggled this year again on the hard courts, I'd experiment with this idea to see what happens.

Until next time,

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Insider Tennis Strategies Tennis Strategy Tactics And Ideas To Help You Improve Your Game guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
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Wimbledon Final 2007 ---Part 1

What a final it was. A classic!The Wimbledon final of 2007 will go down in history as one of the all-time bests.

Compare it to the Wimbledon Final of 2006 and you can see that Nadal has closed the gap with Federer on grass. This was an even match.

Both guys have played each other enough and adjusted enough that the matches between them are no longer about patterns. No one is clamoring that Federer should slice more or hit down the line backhands.

It came down to pure tennis execution.

The one area where Federer is clearly superior to Nadal is in hitting aces and unreturnable first serves. Notice that I didn't say his serve is better.
Look at how often Nadal holds serve and you can begin to appreciate his serving strategy. He hits his lefty slice most of the time and makes righthanders block back a weak return into midcourt.

From there, Nadal dominates points with his forehand.

The problem with this strategy is that it's not that effective in tiebreaks where getting free points on your serve is key.

And, if Nadal had been able to split the 2 tiebreaks with Fed, we'd be looking at a new Wimbledon champion.

Let's hope the Wimbledon Final of 2008 is just as good.

Next time I'll talk about Nadal's serve from a technical point of view.
Until next time,

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Insider Tennis Strategies Tennis Strategy Ideas To Help You Win More Matches guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
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Rafa The Warrior And Is Federer Even In The Tournament?

The legend of Rafa the Tennis Warrior continues to grow. And is Fed even in the draw?

The Soderling match, the comeback against Yhouzny. Who wouldn't love the competitiveness of the young Spaniard?

And as for Roger Federer, he's only played a partial set in the last week.

Wimbledon is becoming a bit of a joke with all the rain delays. It changes the dynamics of all the matches.

First of all, rain delays can remove fitness as an issue. Players like Nadal and Agassi work players over physically so that as the match goes on, their opponents start to get beat up physically.

But, with all the rain delays, a player like Soderling never had to worry about fatigue.

Secondly, the courts play so differently depending on whether the grass is dry or wet. No other slam has this discrepancy to such a degree except maybe the French where the clay can play much more slowly if there's been rain.

Thirdly, all the postponements completely destroy the rhythm of a fan. Imagine Federer has only played a partial set all week. Unbelievable!

So, bring on that roof so that we can enjoy a proper Wimbledon tournament.

Until next time,

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Insider Tennis Strategies Change Your Tennis Strategy To Win More Matches guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
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Listen Carefully To What Darren Cahill Says

This year's coverage of Wimbledon includes Darren Cahill in the commentator's booth.

Cahill is one of the top coaches on the tour and has worked with players such as Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi in the past.

His observations are those of a professional coach and not just a fan like a lot of the others in the booth.

He'll remark on what grip a player is returning with and how this should affect where a server goes. He'll lay out tactical plans for players to follow.

In other words, you get a glimpse of the way a top tactical tennis mind works.

How many of you out there notice what grips your opponents are playing with and adjust your strategy accordingly.

So, keep listening to Darren Cahill and learning.

Until next time,

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Insider Tennis Strategies Change Your Tennis Tactics To Win More Matches guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
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Nadal Looks Good So Far On the Grass

Not every tennis expert on TV thinks that Rafael Nadal can repeat his success this year at Wimbledon.

Remember, Nadal shocked the tennis world by reaching the final last year and giving Roger Federer a tough match in the final.

Nadal started this year's tournament by having to face Mardy Fish,a hard-serving American who should give Nadal trouble on grass.

I have to admit I only saw the first set but I was impressed at some of the changes Nadal has made to his game to improve on grass.

Nadal's backhand is a much better shot than it was in years past. He can now really drive it and take control of points with it. He knows that all the other guys are going to try to make him play backhands so he's really worked on improving it.

His return of serve is also much more agressive. He seems to be standing in closer and taking the ball earlier. I don't think you'll see Nadal standing way back to return like he does on clay.

Nadal is also serving with different patterns on grass. As I noted last year, Nadal will vary his serve placement much more on grass. Specifically, in the ad court, he will go down the the T on grass whetreas on clay he almost always just sticks with the slice serve wide.

In the deuce court, he still likes to go mainly down the T on both grass and clay. In fact, I think this is an area for him to work on. If he could hit a consistent serve wide in the deuce court, I think he would be almost unbeatable on hard court and maybe even grass.

Until next time,

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Insider Tennis Strategies Different Tennis Tactics For Different Opponents guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
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How Bjorn Borg Got So Good On Grass

Today is the first day of Wimbledon.

For 2 weeks the tennis world gets to watch the game of tennis played on a unique tennis surface. And, as we all know, the transformation from the clay courts of Paris to the grass at Wimbledon is no walk in the park.

I've just finished reading a book called Borg Versus McEnroe. This book is a delightful recollection of the world of tennis circa 1979-1981.

The author describes how Borg prepared for Wimbledon after his customary win at the French Open.

Instead of playing warmup tournaments like many players do, Borg worked out at a private club in London called The Cumberland Club. Apparently, Borg was so bad the first few days, that many members joked that they thought they could beat him!

It was here on the private courts that Borg got his grass court timing down and beefed up his serve to the point that it was considered quite a weapon.

Working out with his coach Lennart Bergelin and some practice partners, Borg hit ball after ball spurred on by his incredible work ethic. And, at the end of the day, Borg could often be found in the clubhouse with the other members having a snack.

Today's great champion Roger Federer has a game well suited to grass so it's no great transformation for him. But for the modern day Borg, Rafael Nadal, the 2 weeks in betwen the French Open and Wimbledon are his only opportunity all year to change his clay court game for the grass courts.

So, let the grass court games begin.

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Insider Tennis Strategies Different Tennis Tactics Work On Grass Than On Clay guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
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