How Long Does It Take to Get Fit Again? | NYT

When it comes to cardiovascular fitness and muscle strength, the adage is true: Use it or lose it. While regular exercise can improve heart health and increase strength and mobility, taking weeks or months off can reverse many of those benefits.
That’s not to say that rest days are not important. In general, short breaks can help you physically and mentally recharge, but whenever possible, you should avoid extending your time off for too long so that hopping back on the wagon doesn’t feel too daunting or miserable.
“Your body adapts to the stimulus you provide,” said Dr. Kevin Stone, an orthopedic surgeon and the author of the book “Play Forever: How to Recover From Injury and Thrive.” “Your muscles become used to the stress and the testosterone, the adrenaline and endorphins — all the wonderful things that circulate from exercise. When you take that away, the body initiates a muscle loss program.”

What does it mean to lose fitness

To understand the phenomenon of fitness loss, it is helpful to think about how activity and, therefore, inactivity, affects your cardiovascular system and muscle strength. Because regular exercise helps your body to deliver oxygen and nutrients to tissues in a more efficient way, one of the first things that declines when you become inactive is your cardiovascular endurance, said Edward Coyle, a professor of kinesiology and health education at the University of Texas at Austin.
After just a few days of inactivity, the volume of blood plasma circulating in your body decreases, Dr. Coyle said, leading to a series of other cardiovascular changes. After 12 days, studies show that the total amount of blood the heart pumps every minute decreases, along with the amount of oxygenated blood available to muscles and other cells — measured as the VO2 max.
If you return to the gym at this point, you will only notice slight differences in performance, Dr. Coyle said. Your heart rate may be a little faster and your breathing may be heavier as your body works harder to pump blood and oxygen to where they’re needed.
Scientists have found that it is around the three-week mark that people experience the biggest changes in their ability to get through a workout, as energy produced by mitochondria for muscle cells drops off significantly. “That means that exercise will be more fatiguing,” Dr. Coyle said.
Strength declines less rapidly than cardiovascular health. After eight weeks, inactivity finally starts to affect the size and strength of your muscles. For weight lifting or strength workouts, the maximum amount you are able to lift decreases, as does the number of repetitions you could manage, Dr. Coyle said. You are also more likely to experience muscle soreness a day or two after working out.
The extent to which different people experience a decline in fitness depends on age, genetics, lifestyle, diet and prior level of fitness. Studies show that older adults lose fitness at nearly twice the rate of 20- to 30-year-olds. And while people who work out consistently for months or years may experience fitness loss at the same rate as recreational exercisers and weekend warriors, athletes who start out at a higher fitness level “have more to lose in absolute terms,” Dr. Coyle said.

What can you do to keep fitness loss at bay?

While the cardiovascular and muscular changes that occur after a long break may sound dramatic, the good news is that most people do not cut out all activity in the same way that participants are often instructed to do in an exercise study.
If you have to travel or stay in because of bad weather, doing something is still better than nothing, Dr. Coyle said. Swap dumbbells for body-weight exercises. Try smaller “exercise snacks” throughout the day, take the stairs as much as you can, or better yet, set a goal to do a few short high-intensity interval workouts.
“If you spend just a few minutes a day doing interval training, that’s sufficient to keep blood volume elevated and mitochondria relatively high,” Dr. Coyle said.
If you’re a competitive athlete, tapering the intensity or frequency of training right before or after a big race or game can actually be beneficial, as long as you are intentional about it. For example, many athletes plan for a two- or three-week taper in order to give their bodies time to restore their glycogen fuel tank and allow muscles to recover.
Those who need to take longer breaks can try cross training or switching to a different sport, like skating or swimming. Or perhaps focus on improving balance instead, through aerobics classes or dance to keep the same muscles active in different ways.
“Overall fitness is a combination of many factors,” Dr. Stone said. “It’s not just muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness.”

How long does it take to make a comeback?

If you haven’t been physically active in a while, don’t despair. Just like off-seasons are a regular part of any sport, working to get back in shape is possible — and easier — for regular exercisers, too.
Research shows that even though extended breaks significantly reduce fitness, most exercisers’ levels remain above those who have been sedentary their whole lives. For instance, while muscle fibers can shrink during long breaks, they don’t completely disappear and they do retain a molecular “muscle memory” that can help them bounce back months after you stop exercising. In other words, you are already set up to regain strength and endurance much faster than when you started the first time around.
“You can regain approximately one-half of your fitness in 10 to 14 days with moderately hard workouts,” Dr. Coyle said.
After this initial period of retraining, the amount of time it takes to get the rest of your fitness back to prebreak levels can vary depending on how much catching up you have to do. One study found that older adults needed less than eight weeks of retraining after a 12-week break. Other evidence suggests that competitive athletes may need to train for two to three times as long as the time they took off.
When rebuilding your fitness, start by setting a goal of working out for a certain length of time each day, without worrying about your strength or intensity, Dr. Coyle said. Once you can comfortably walk or jog for 30 minutes a day for two or three weeks, you can start increasing your pace to a run. If you want to return to lifting weights at the gym, start with a lower load and then gradually add more.
Many personal trainers recommend amping up by no more than 10 percent every week. But rather than following an arbitrary number, tweak your routine based on how your body feels.
If you cannot afford several weeks of retraining, or simply want to get back in shape faster, you can do more intense workouts or incorporate interval training to speed up the process. “The higher the intensity,” Dr. Coyle said, “the faster the rebound.”
By Knvul Sheikh, NY Times
Published Jan. 30, 2023

MLTC Newsletter 2 Feb 2023

 Manly Lawn Tennis Club Newsletter – 2 Feb 2023

In this newsletter reminders for signing up for Club Champs and Badge. Trivia Night, Members’ survey.

Aged Club Championships – Entries close 12 February. Entries are slow for the ladies, so please enter.

Saturday February 18 Noon. Womens 40+ Singles Mens 40+ Singles Mens 60+ Singles

Sunday February 19 9AM.  Womens Combined 100 Doubles Mens Combined 100 Doubles ( Hilton Mace Trophy)

Saturday February 25 Noon. Womens 40+ Doubles Mens 40+ Doubles Womens 60+ Doubles Mens 60+ Doubles.

Sunday February 26 9AM. Combined 100 Mixed Doubles

 

Badge – If you are wanting to play badge this season get your nomination form in asap, less than one week left to nominate. The ladies selectors will be at the courts the next two Saturdays and putting some ladies doubles on from 1-3pm.

https://www.manlylawn.com.au/2023/01/05/badge-2023-entries-now-open-web-sign-up/

Trivia Night – Friday 3rd March at the Clubhouse 6.30pm

Cost:$15 per person

RSVP by Wednesday 1st March

Upon arrival you will receive a complementary beer, wine, cider or soft drink of your choice from the bar. Pizza will be provided. For seating purposes, teams of 8 should be arranged between yourselves and advised prior to the evening at the following email; [email protected]

If anyone requires vegetarian or gluten free pizza please advise. Mobile phones are not permitted while Trivia is being run.

Hope as many members and partners can join us with what will be a fun filled night while getting to know new and existing members better.

Look forward to a great night
Cheers
Michelle – Social Secretary

Members Experience Survey
Please help us improve the club and your membership experience by completing the attached survey. It’s only 10 quick questions and the more people who complete it, the more helpful it is. If you’d like to give additional feedback anytime, please email [email protected] with your ideas and suggestions. Thank you!
Click here to start the survey – https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3BLH6CS

Best wishes,
Virginia
MLTC Secretary

www.manlylawn.com.au

 

Core Values that Tennis Teaches | ATP

It may be the oldest question about sports… Does tennis teach character or reveal it? 

Some would answer both or even neither, but after coaching for more than 40 years now. I have come to a conclusion based on more than 65,000 hours of teaching tennis on the court.

Tennis CAN teach character, but only if it is intentional. The coach needs to have character as one of the pillars of his teaching philosophy.

Studies show that sports participation does NOT in and of itself teach character. In fact, studies show that  the more time and energy athletes put in to becoming elite, that more likely they may be in justify cheating.

Just looking at the professional world of sports and you can see many examples of this happening from using illegal performance enhancing drugs as an obvious example.

Today we have a multitude of players that feel like they are failures because they don’t win as often as they think they should. A big reason is that players have been taught by peers, parents, and coaches, that winning is the ultimate goal.

Instead, we need to realize that tennis is a nearly perfect vehicle to teach players the many life lessons that are so important for all champions to learn.

Below is a list of these core values that tennis COULD teach, if the coach is intentional:

1. CHARACTER: Through the responsibilities each player has to call the lines on their side of the court, keep score accurately, and give the opponent the benefit of the doubt, tennis offers a great opportunity for players to build character.

A player’s character can also be seen in the way they keep score during a drill or even by their line calls while they drill. Good coaches can be very helpful if they can get the players to realize that their self-worth as a person has nothing to do with how well they strike a little yellow ball.

2. COURAGE: Tennis gives players the opportunity to play through tough times. The one-on-one style of competition certainly requires the guts to put it on the line. Few other sports require as much courage from their youngest athletes as tennis does in this area. Another example is when players find it necessary to confront or question someone that is cheating them.

How many times have we seen players avoid that uncomfortable job, only to wait until the match is over to tell the entire world how their opponent was the biggest cheater on the planet? Think of it, aren’t those skills the exact ones that will best serve the players in their adult life? It’s all about how you look at the situation.

Some will think this is an awful burden that no young player should have to endure, while others recognize it as a great opportunity to teach an important life lesson and skill. 

3. HONESTY: Tennis is one of the only sports where the players make calls on each other’s shots. Can you imagine a Little League game where the batter calls the balls and strikes? Although this huge responsibility in the hands of immature competitors can and has caused problems, no other sport allows for the development of honesty like tennis does.

Parents and coaches can facilitate the development of this core value if they seek out opportunities to compliment players when the players get it right. 

4. SPORTSMANSHIP: Like in other sports, tennis players will play opponents that are jerks and try to cheat. In the short run, this is uncomfortable for players and parents, but it does give young kids the chance to start to develop coping skills with these kinds of people.

I know many competitive junior players are mature beyond their peers in this area simply because they have had more chances to practice these skills than non-tennis players. Parents should view these episodes as opportunities and resist the urge to get involved and “save” the child. 

5. INTEGRITY: More than any other sport, tennis has the potential for “retaliatory” calls because it allows for your opponent to make calls that directly affect you. There will be times when people get cheated, whether on purpose or by honest mistake. How a player reacts to these times offers the player a chance to test and prove their integrity.

Will they get even, or will they do the right thing despite the opponent’s actions? Refusing to retaliate will teach players that they should avoid situational ethics by refusing to get even “because he did it to me first”.Players that succeed in this area can have a profound sense of satisfaction even if they lose the match, but only if a coach or parent is dedicated to looking for and rewarding their successes in this area. 

6. COMMITMENT: Reaching the highest level of tennis requires a great deal of commitment on the player’s part. The lessons of self-discipline and delayed gratification are great life lessons that will surely serve the player later in life.

Even within a player’s game, they will need to make decisions to try new techniques that may hurt them in the short run. Commitment to these new techniques is critical for future tennis success and teaches a valuable life lesson that players will surely benefit from as adults. 

7. HUMILITY: Through competition and partaking in drill classes, players soon come to realize people do not look upon arrogance very highly. Tennis offers players the chance to learn the difference between arrogance and confidence.

Team settings and class settings are the best arenas for players to learn this. Parents and coaches can not shun their responsibility to tell players when they are acting arrogantly.

8. EXCELLENCE:  I believe the practice court is the best arena to teach players to strive for excellence. Many players find it difficult to practice with the proper level of intensity after a long day at school.

These challenges are similar to the ones they will have in college, and ultimately when they enter the workforce and become parents. The ability to work hard when you don’t feel like it is a major life lesson in the area of striving for excellence.


If we can produce players that strive to excel in these areas and look at tennis as a vehicle to become a better person, then they will have learned valuable life lessons and in the process experience less stress in competition.

This is because they will no longer view the “win” as the ultimate goal. Instead, they will be aiming at a more important target. Almost every tough loss in tennis can be a victory if the player is tuned into the life lessons that tennis offers.

Jorge Capestany, USPTA Master Professional

Inside the Battle to Control, and Fix, Tennis | NYT

Walking the grounds of Melbourne Park, where the Australian Open is in full swing, one could easily believe that all is well and peaceful in professional tennis.

Stadiums are packed. Champagne flows. Players are competing for more than $53 million in prize money at a major tournament the Swiss star Roger Federer nicknamed “the happy Slam.”

Behind the scenes though, over the past 18 months a coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for disruption in a sport long known for its dysfunctional management and disparate power structure.

The figures include Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager and hard-core tennis hobbyist who built a tennis court atop his office tower in Midtown Manhattan. Ackman is funding a fledgling players’ organization led by the Serbian star Novak Djokovic. The group is searching for ways to grow the sport’s financial pie and the size of the players’ slice. In their ideal world, one day there might even be a major player-run event akin to a fifth Grand Slam tournament.

Earlier this month, the group announced its core tenets, which include protecting player rights, securing fair compensation and improving work conditions. Players have about had it with matches that start close to midnight, end near dawn and put them at risk of injury, like Andy Murray’s second-round win in Melbourne that ended after 4 a.m. Friday. The group also announced its first eight-player executive committee, which includes some of the top young men and women in the game.

There is also CVC Capital Partners, the Luxembourg-based private equity firm that has been working for months to close a $150 million equity investment in the WTA Tour that it views as a first step to becoming a prime player in tennis.

Then there is Sinclair Broadcast Group, the American media conglomerate that owns the Tennis Channel, which wants to expand globally and has been trying to entice the people who run tennis to embrace that effort.

All of them see tennis as uniquely positioned for growth, as a new generation of stars tries to take up the mantle of the last one, a story Netflix highlights in the new documentary series “Break Point.”

Read more —> https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/sports/tennis/business-australian-open.html

WHY TENNIS IS THE WORLD’S TOUGHEST SPORT!

We often tell our players at the club that tennis is the world’s toughest sport.
In the beginning, they think we are kidding, but after reading the reasons laid out in this post they grow to appreciate just how tough our sport really is.  Below are 15 reasons why tennis is the most psychologically demanding sport.
1) TENNIS IS AN INDIVIDUAL SPORT.
In tennis, you are all alone on the court. No one shares in the glory or the blame. There is no teammate to pass off to if you are playing poorly and you cannot be taken out of the game for a while you recuperate from your poor play.
2) NO COACHING IS ALLOWED.
Tennis is one of the only sports where young players are not allowed to receive any coaching. Except for a handful of exceptions like HS tennis, Zonal teams, or Davis Cup, nearly all tournaments do not allow for coaching. The no coaching restriction is unusual in sports and clearly forces young competitors to deal with the pressures and problems of playing on their own.
3) INTENSE PRESSURE AT A YOUNG AGE.
Many successful professional players have reported that the stresses of junior tennis were the greatest of their entire career. For example, Chris Evert has reported that she felt more pressure during her junior career than she did at any other time as a player. The junior player must deal with the same frustrations during tournament play as the adult, but with fewer resources and life experiences to handle them.
4) TENNIS PROVIDES NOWHERE TO HIDE.
Tennis players must remain in full view of spectators, regardless of how they perform. They may desperately wish to hide from the world but they cannot due to the structure and rules of the game. Embarrassment, discouragement, anger, choking, euphoria, they’re all there for everyone to see. Some players dislike this aspect of tennis while others embrace it. Either way, tennis provides little shelter for the emotions that accompany such an exciting game.
5) NO SUBSTITUTES / NO TIME-OUTS.
Many sports allow players to regain their composure or get back on track through the use of substitutions and time-outs. This is not the case in tennis. Players must stay in the game, regardless of how bad or uncomfortable things may get. This is particularly difficult considering that matches can be two or three hours in length.
6) ONE-ON-ONE COMBAT.
Tennis is similar to boxing. You have a real one-on-one opponent that you must defeat to emerge victorious. A match can quickly become a personal confrontation between opponents, especially if an opponent resorts to gamesmanship tactics. Such direct competition can fuel intense rivalries and threaten friendships in powerful ways among young players.
7) THE ACCURACY OF LINE CALLING.
Completely objective, professionally trained linesmen make mistakes all the time. And they are motionless and concerned only with one line. Expecting players in a match to call the lines with the same accuracy is at best unrealistic. Balls traveling at speeds over 50 miles per hour with fractions of an inch separating “out” from “in” provide distinct opportunities for conflict and controversy. Recent studies show that players are actually legally blind at the moment they land on the court when running, this is added to the fact that many matches can be dramatically changed with only one bad call, makes mistakes unavoidable and it is easy to see why tempers can flare. (Imagine what would happen if the batters in little league baseball were responsible for calling balls and strikes against themselves)
8) THE “HONOR” SCORING SYSTEM.
Unlike most other sports, in tennis, a player can take a point that is rightfully their opponent’s by deliberately calling a shot out that had fallen within the lines. The point can be the most important of the match, yet the call stands. There is nothing a player can do about it. Pressures associated with being cheated or being accused of cheating can place tremendous psychological strain on young players.
9) TENNIS REQUIRES TOUCH AND FINESSE.
Tennis is primarily a fine motor skill sport, meaning that it is comprised of many precise movements requiring “feel”. As such, these movements can be influenced significantly by subtle changes in emotion. Anger, fear, frustration, embarrassment, and other such emotions can be very disruptive to the delicate motor control needed in tennis skills such as serving and volleying
10) CONSTANTLY CHANGING CONDITIONS.
Changing temperature, wind intensity of light, court surfaces, balls, altitude, indoor/outdoor play, and equipment add to the depth of the competitive challenge in tennis. Players are forced to deal with changes such as these, many times within the same match. A player’s responses to these situations can provide an indication of their level of mental toughness. Those who are not affected by changes in conditions are often the ones who win.
11) LENGTH OF THE BATTLE.
Few sports require kids to concentrate and perform for as much as three hours at a time. It is not uncommon for 12-year old players to be required to compete in two singles matches and two doubles matches on the same day. Mental toughness and physical fitness become critical if a player is to become successful.
12) THE UNIQUE SCORING SYSTEM IN TENNIS.
The scoring system in tennis adds to the pressure a young player experiences. Unlike many other sports, there is no overall time limit. Play continues until one of the players wins two out of three sets. Consequently, there is no room for coasting on a lead or waiting for time to run out. Each player is always just a few points from a complete turn-around, and a lead is never safe. In contrast, if a basketball team is ahead by 30 points, they will almost certainly win, because their lead is too large to overcome within the time of the competition. In tennis, a player can be ahead 5-0 in the third set, lose two games, and immediately have reason to fear a loss and a huge comeback on their opponent’s part because there is no time clock to run out.
13) JUNIOR TENNIS RANKINGS.
Junior tennis establishes a clear pecking order very quickly through an intricate system of sectional and national rankings. For some young players, rankings become synonymous with self-esteem. They develop feelings of expectation, hope, and failure surrounding rankings, seeds, and titles. This can lead to a great deal of unhappiness if the player’s enjoyment is tied to winning and losing. If you’re one of the best players in 12 & under baseball players in your state, you still won’t ever be ranked so that you know if you are the 1st or 5th best player. But in tennis, you will know exactly where how you compare to your peers and friends.
14) “BIG vs. LITTLE” and “YOUNG vs. OLD”.
Another dimension of tennis is the fact that a nine-year-old child can successfully compete against a 14 or 15 year-old-teenager. A young girl of 14 may be capable of beating a seasoned veteran on the pro tour. Small can beat large, and young can beat old. A 12 year-old boy losing to a 9 year-old or a 6’3” boy losing to someone half his size can be extremely stressful.
15) TENNIS TRAINING CAN BE EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE.
Tennis training for the competitive player can be a very large expense for a family. Many times the pressures from these expenses can add additional stress to the young player who feels guilty if they are not winning because of all the money his parents are putting into his tennis.
Parents can quickly lose sight of what is important and begin to expect a “return” for their investment. This issue is one of the most frequently mentioned by families with players competing at the high national levels.
Despite all these difficulties, tennis is still the best sport for a child to play. It is the only sport that challenges players on the physical, strategic, and psychological levels. It is no coincidence that so many junior tennis players are the best students in their classes. The goal setting and work ethic needed to be successful in tennis are life skills that will help all players as they get older and enter society.
Even the difficulties experienced in junior tennis like dealing with an abusive or cheating opponent, are opportunities to learn life skills that will be an important advantage later in life. Few other sports offer as many of these types of learning opportunities.
Parents and coaches often make the mistake of wanting to get involved or “fix” on-court problems when they happen. The best thing to do is to recognize those episodes as opportunities to learn important life lessons. Children who develop the skills to deal with difficult people at an early age are usually far more successful.

MTC Ladies Competition Term 1

MTC Ladies Competition

Entries for Term 1 Close 27 January.

Enrolments are now open online for Friday’s Term 1 comp.

Ladies Competition starts Friday 3 February.

Reserve players always welcome.  For more information, please contact or email Scott.

Sign up on the web links above.

Scott Blackburn
MTC Tennis Director & Head Pro

MTC Night Competitions Term 1

MTC Night Competitions

Entries for Term 1 Close 27 January.

Enrolments are now open online for Term 1 comps.

Night Competitions start:

  • Tuesday night 31 January
  • Wednesday night 1 February

Reserve players always welcome.  For more information, please contact or email Scott.

Sign up on the web links above.

Scott Blackburn
MTC Tennis Director & Head Pro

Seven Basics of Tennis Strategy | ATP

Craig O’Shannessy is a well known tennis statistician.  He recently republished the stats below in the context of the Australian Open.

Our Tennis Whisperer attempts to explain the WHYs underlining Craig’s stats in simple terms of the three primary skills underpinning every tennis stroke: ball watching, balance and rhythm . [See WHY comments in these brackets].

These are the seven basics of tennis strategy and, as always, they will be the key to winning at this year’s Australian Open.

Lesson 1: Forehands and Backhands 

Nine-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic has arguably the best backhand in the world. But who cares.

When Djokovic last won the “Happy Slam” in 2021, he struck 98 forehand winners and 45 backhand winners. That’s why you see players running around backhands to hit forehands. They desperately seek to upgrade.

The forehand is the sword. The backhand is the shield. The sword accounts for about two out of every three winners from the back of the court.

Forehand and backhand winners

M/W Forehand winners Backhand winners
Men 70 per cent (3228) 30 per cent (1386)
Women 64 per cent (2236) 36 per cent (1247)

[Whisperer: The NADAL VARIATION creates more extreme angles because of the racket position in relation to body.]

Lesson 2: Tennis is a game of errors

The Australian Open features the best players on the planet, who rally back and forth ad nauseam on the practice court with precious few mistakes. Then matches start, and errors flow.

Winners and errors

M/W Winners Errors
Men 34 per cent 66 per cent
Women 30 per cent 70 per cent

Winners are rising at Melbourne Park, jumping from 30 per cent for the men in 2015 to 34 per cent last year. In the women’s game, there was a jump from 27 per cent in 2015 to 30 per cent in 2022.

Because errors are so prevalent, it’s much smarter to make opponents uncomfortable and force mistakes than chase winners. Obsess over the bigger pool of points.

[Whisperer: Minimizing errors by staying in the point has always consistently won more points. ]

Lesson 3: Eight ways to force an error

There are actually eight ways to make the opponent uncomfortable and extract an error.

 [Whisperer: WHY explained in Where column of the three primary skills in any stroke: ball watching, balance, rhythm—strength is NOT necessarily the key.]

Eight ways to force an error

# 8 ways Where
1 Consistency Court:  Watching
2 Direction Court: Balance
3 Depth Court: Balance
4 Height Court: Balance
5 Spin Ball: Watching
6 Power Ball: Rhythm 
7 Court Position Me: Balance
8 Time The clock: Rhythm

These eight elements are the holy grail of tennis. If a player hits a shot that contains just one of these eight, such as depth, they will have gained the upper hand in the point. 

If their shot includes two or more qualities, such as power and direction, they will be standing inside the baseline hitting with authority when the weak ball comes back.

If they combine three elements – such as height, spin and court position – the ball doesn’t come back.

Lesson 4: Rally length

Winning the short rallies is the best way to walk off court with a victory. The study of rally length started at the 2015 Australian Open and shook the foundations of the sport because of just how many short rallies occur.

Rally length

Shots Men Women
0-4 70 per cent 66 per cent
5-8 20 per cent 23 per cent
9+ 10 per cent 11 per cent

[Whisperer: Impact of powerful racket technology and advantage to server.  Corollary: get into the point as much as possible. Use typical Djokovic/Medvedev strategy of deep returns to put server off balance to nullify server advantage.] 

Rally length is predicated on the ball landing in the court, not hitting the strings. So a double fault has a rally length of zero as the ball didn’t land in, and a missed return is a rally length of one as the serve went in and the return was missed.

Seven points out of 10 are contested by players hitting the ball a maximum of two times each (four-shot rallies) in the court. 

The data also blew the doors off the myth that winning long rallies equated to winning matches. There are, typically, not enough long rallies to make a difference.

Lesson 5: Mode

The mode simply means the most common value in a data set. We can predict with certainty that the most abundant rally length at this year’s Australian Open will be the same as last year, and the year before that.  One shot in the court. No more. No less.

Ask someone which rally length is the most frequent, and the typical answers are from four to eight shots.  You can tell them that Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray thought they played more four-shot rallies than anything else. They were very surprised, like all players, that they play more one-shot rallies than any other. That equates to a made serve and a missed return.

2015 Australian Open men: Most common rally lengths

Rally length Percentage
1 shot 30
3 shots 15
2 shots 10
5 shots 9
4 shots 8

As you can see from the table above, one-shot rallies are incredibly frequent in a match (30 per cent). The next closest rally length is three shots at 15 per cent.

Notice that three-shot rallies occur more than two shots, and five-shot rallies occur more than four shots. That’s because of the halo effect of the serve, or how long the influence of the serve lasts before things become even in a rally. 

[To repeat. Whisperer: Impact of powerful racket technology and advantage to server.  Corollary: get into the point as much as possible. Use Djokovic /Medvedev strategy of deep returns to nullify server advantage.] 

Lesson 6: You win a higher percentage at the net than the baseline

The baseline seems like a safe haven for players, while the net seems a risky place to win points. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The baseline as a safe haven?

M/W Baseline win percentage Net win percentage
Men 47 67
Women 48 66

If you rally from the back of the court, you are lucky to win half of your baseline points. 

[WHISPERER: Volleys are an ESSENTIAL stroke for any serious tennis player, and particular for junior development,  not an afterthought. Moving forward to the net (from GHOSTLINE) wins about two out of three points.]

The net has always been a fun, prosperous place to win points and nothing has changed statistically to think otherwise.

Lesson 7: Serve and Volley works

No tennis strategy has been more maligned and misunderstood than the serve and volley. Pundits say it belongs to another era and is too difficult to employ in today’s game. It’s simply not so.

Serve and volley works

M/W Played/won Percentage won
Men 709/1053 67
Women 36/57 63

Both men and women won about two out of three points serving and volleying at last year’s Australian Open. 

That is a far superior tactic than serving, staying back and trying to eke out a living from the baseline to hold serve.

[WHISPERER: Enhances probability of winning the point because of the geometry and physics of relative court positions of each player]

Tennis Whisperer

Source: Craig O’Shannessy, SMH

MLTC Newsletter – 15 Jan 2023

Manly Lawn Tennis Club Newsletter – 15 Jan 2023

Friday Night Doubles 

The club is trying this as a new initiative for the next 3 months – hopefully a chance to practice doubles for badge, get some good tennis and socialise too. Last Friday of the month – 6.30pm to 8.30pm – Jan/Feb/Mar. Bar will be open. We’ll then review based on feedback whether to continue is as we move into badge/winter.
Max 8 pairs (4 club courts), but we’ll look to expand to 6 courts (12 pairs) if numbers warrant it and extra courts are available. Entry is free for members. First in best dressed. This comp will be graded with players put into groups of similar abilities as far as possible. Email or text Sarah with yours and your partners name – [email protected] or 0432 719210. One comp per date:
  • Friday 27th Jan – Mixed Doubles
  • Friday 24th Feb – Ladies Doubles
  • Friday 31st Mar – Men’s Doubles
MLTC upcoming calendar dates
January
  • Thu 26th Jan – Australia Day Public Holiday – 3 members courts from 7am to 6pm with social on all 3 courts from 12pm to 3pm.
  • Fri 27th Jan – Mixed Doubles Friday night comp 6.30pm to 8.30pm
February
  • Sun 12th Feb – Age Club Champs and Badge entries CLOSE
  • Sat 18th Feb – 40+ men’s and women’s singles and 60+ men’s singles
  • Sun 19th Feb – Combined 100 men’s and women’s doubles
  • Fri 24th Feb – Ladies Doubles Friday night comp 6.30pm to 8.30pm
  • Sat 25th Feb – 40+ and 60+ men’s and women’s doubles
  • Sun 26th Feb  – Combined 100 mixed doubles
March
  • Fri 3rd Mar – Trivia Night – more details to come. Get your teams ready!
  • Fri 31st Mar – Men’s Doubles Friday night comp 6.30pm to 8.30pm
April
  • Fri 7th to Mon 10th Apr – Easter weekend
  • Tue 25th Apr – Anzac Day 
  • Thu 27th Apr – Thu Badge starts
  • Sat 29th Apr – Sat Badge starts

Best wishes,

Virginia
MLTC Secretary
www.manlylawn.com.au

 

Being a Ballkid in Melbourne | SMH

It takes a special combination of attributes to join the legends on court, writes Carla Jaeger. They have quiet feet. They know their roles and their moves. They know when to offer a towel and when to stay out of the way of a player who’s about to explode. And they do this without showing emotion or attracting attention.

The Australian Open ballkids will march onto the courts at Melbourne Park tomorrow and face the sweltering January heat, whacks from 200km/h fuzzy yellow balls, and the demands of the world’s best tennis players.

The 394 ballkids chosen for this year’s summer of tennis have been perfecting their skills through months of training. They’re there to make the game as efficient as possible; retrieving stray tennis balls, providing balls for serves, servicing the players with new or restrung racquets, towels or drinks, mopping up the players’ sweat to avoid slip hazards, and removing interloping insects and moths. All this they must do while remaining silent and trying not to attract attention.

But, try as they might to avoid it, there are moments when they just can’t help but capture the spotlight. Global audiences laughed when Moroccan qualifier Elliot Benchetrit asked a ballkid to peel his banana at the 2020 Australian Open (the chair umpire told him to do it himself); fawned when Rafael Nadal kissed the cheek of a ballkid he accidentally whacked in the face the following year; and scowled when Russian star Daniil Medvedev unleashed a tirade about the ballkids for failing to deliver the balls in the manner he wanted during last year’s men’s final (the umpire told Medvedev the ballkids were doing their jobs exactly as they’d been taught).

Eager to learn more about the faces under the Legionnaire hats, The Sun-Herald joined a training session with 16 of this year’s ballkids. The kids at Melbourne Park’s Kia Arena are among the hundreds selected for the tournament, narrowed down from more than 1000 applicants chosen through a process that begins a year in advance. The youngsters for this year’s Open range in age from 12 to 15. Some are entering their third or fourth year as a ballkid; others are making their debuts on the blue courts. Chaperone and ballkid supervisor Eliza Flower, who runs training sessions, said those chosen needed to have good athletic skills and attention to detail. It’s not compulsory to play tennis – though it certainly helps, as the kids need to understand how the scoring of the game works. ‘‘ The really good ballkids have quiet feet when they run, and they don’t interrupt play,’’ Flower said.

Once selected, the preparation begins with five training sessions in which the basics of the job are taught – how to communicate (ballkidding has its own language, but more of that later), how to roll the ball, how to anticipate where the ball needs to be, and how to service the players.

Oncourt skills are mastered at tournaments in November and December so the ballkids are prepped for January’s Open. From the day the tournament starts, the ballkids are on site at Melbourne Park and ready for action, spending eight hours each day at the venue, half of those on court – one hour on, one hour off.

The rotations on the court decrease to 45-minute intervals if the weather reaches a certain temperature. Other methods, such as wearing padded neckties soaked in cold water, are also used to cope with the heat. If the kids work late, they start late the next day, or are given days off. They are grouped into teams of six, known as ‘‘ squads’’ . These squads are assigned a court in the morning and will work together as a team for that day. When they’re not on the court, the kids are ‘‘ backstage’ ’ in designated lounges, where fruit, water and Powerade are available. ‘‘ The lounges are really good. They provide lots of games, and you get to roll the ball everywhere,’’ ballkid Molly Rizun, 14, said. It’s fun and games backstage.

But while on court the kids are hard at work, with their performance constantly assessed by a supervisor who gives individual and squad feedback after each match. ‘‘ It’s weirdly old-school ,’’ Flower said. ‘‘ They have pretty hard feedback and pretty much there’s always something they can improve on.” The kids want that kind of discipline, too. They come off court and ask Flower what they can do better. Flower often finds herself nitpicking over small things like tucking their thumbs when they communicate how many balls they have. One of the harder rules ballkids have to follow is not talking to the players or showing any emotion – which can sometimes get hairy. ‘‘ When some players get a bit angry at themselves – or us – and they yell at you, you just have to stand there with a straight face,’’ ballkid Esther Pound, 15, said. ‘‘ Sometimes it’s a bit hard. Sometimes you want to laugh, or cry, but you just have to stand there.’’ The kids are used to it, with many having copped a spray from at least one player during their time. One ballgirl, already media savvy, chose not to disclose which player screamed at her. ‘‘ I don’t want to get sued,’’ she said. Jaidyn McNeil, 13, was willing to take that risk, dishing the details of his experience with Nick Kyrgios during the men’s doubles semi-final at last year’s Open. ‘‘ He was getting really frustrated as he was losing the first set, and he nearly hit me with a ball,’’ he said. ‘‘ It was really funny, but I was also trying to keep a straight face because we’re not really allowed to kind of smile.’’ After they’re assessed, the kids are given an overall rank.

The better the ranking, the better the arena they’ll be assigned for their next match. The best kids are assigned to the finals , a badge of honour among the youngsters, and something that is announced at a ballkid party the night before the match. Some might consider the extensive training a bit over the top. But other tournaments’ problems show just how important good ballkids are to the game.

At the 2015 Shanghai Masters, players were left frustrated after game play was impeded by inexperienced ballkids who delivered unwanted balls to players, were unsure where to stand, and couldn’t get the balls to the other side of the court. The ballkids are not paid, but they are given a prize pack at the end of the Australian Open, which in the past has included GoPro cameras, speakers and iPods. That’s not why they sign up to take on the role, anyway. The group we spoke to most commonly said making new friends and meeting the players are the main drawcards of the experience. Though a new pair of headphones certainly doesn’t hurt.

There are six ballkids at every court. Four of the kids are positioned at each corner of the court, while the other two are at the net, on either side of the chair umpire. Kids are assigned a position on the court based on height: the shorter kids go to the nets, the taller kids go to the base. It’s the job of the base kids to provide the players with balls for serves, which makes the base positions the more desired spot among the kids. They work together to grab balls that fall within their designated sections of the court, communicate where the balls are, and make sure their balls are at the right part of the court, ready to give to the player who is serving.

Now, to decode the language of ballkidding . . . At any given time of a match, there are six balls on court. The kids need to know at all times where these balls are. Ballkid Finn McCreadie, 14, said communication was one of the most important skills. ‘‘ Are they at the base? Are they at the net? So that way you know where to roll [the ball] to, and give it to the players as fast as you can.’’ The kids use signals to communicate with each other and the players to show how many balls they have at any given point of the match. Aside from verbal communication – which they are only allowed to do with the chair umpire and each other – there are signals to show who has each ball. Servicing is the technique used to provide the players with balls for serves.

But servicing doesn’t just involve balls. Players can request anything from a new racquet to a drink of water, to the more bizarre requests – like when Kyrgios asked ballkid Thomas Rossi to get rid of a seagull. ‘‘ The seagull was annoying him, so he asked me to kick it off. I just ran at it, scared it away, and then he just continued playing like nothing happened,’’ Thomas, 15, said. Getting balls around the court is done by rolling them to the kids. The key is to be efficient , fast and not impede play.

Sometimes players will request things that ballkids are taught not to do. One French player, for example, only takes balls from one side of the base – even though the kids are taught to never roll a ball from one base to another. They’ll usually do it anyway. Because, at the end of the day, the ballkid is there to tend to the player’s needs. Receiving refers to the way the kids collect the balls being rolled to them by one of their fellow squad members. Concentration must be high as their teammates roll balls to them, one by one. Rolling balls need to be fast and not impede the play. Balls are distributed so the ballkids at the baseline can service players with balls for serving. When receiving at the net, ballkids will start either kneeling (when opposite the chair umpire) or standing (when beside the chair umpire). Ballkids need to pre-empt the movement of the ball before the end of the point based on two possible outcomes: player A wins the point, or player B wins the point. Tiebreakers are tough work, and much of the training is spent preparing for them: Ballkids must pay close attention to the game play because the scoring is different, and the ball changes courtside quickly. ‘‘ If they don’t know where the ball is, the players are kept waiting for the ball, and they get impatient,’’ Flower said. So, now you know how it works.

Could you be a ballkid? For even the most casual tennis fans, being a ballkid looks like a glamorous job. You get to meet your heroes and watch history-making matches unfold. But the reality can be tougher and some people are not up to the task. ‘‘ The best ballkids are the ones that know what the player wants,’’ Flower said. Sometimes, knowing what the player wants means doing particularly unglamorous things; like squashing moths, shooing birds who stubbornly perch themselves on the net, or even pushing through the pain of the grazed knees commonly endured when drying the courts after rain. Ballkid Lucy Higgins, 14, said that while these were the strangest bits of the job, they’re also the most memorable. ‘‘ You have to keep running across the court and squashing them [moths] and it’s , like, 1am,’’ Higgins said. ‘‘ It’s definitely not something we practise doing in the ball-kid sessions, so it comes as a surprise to many people.’’

As the kids show us, and the supervisors tell us, being a ballkid requires initiative and concentration, as well as agility and speed. It’s about knowing when to take over a sweat towel – with time to roll a ball to a squad member – while keeping track of the entire match’s play. All within a 20-second interval between points.

If you’re forgetful or have a poor attitude, the job is not for you. Kids who come to court unprepared, without their hats or water bottles, are taken off court and reassigned when another spot appears on the roster. This is known as being TBA (to be assigned) – a title considered undesirable among the kids. Then, on top of it all, you have to be willing to risk embarrassing yourself on the world stage. It’s a common fear among the kids to appear on ballkid error compilation videos, a genre popularised on YouTube that can garner millions of views, featuring kids running into walls, fainting and falling over. Perhaps most unfortunate of all would be to have a tennis player talk about your bladder control in a press conference, as American player Donald Young did in 2010, after a match stopped for 40 minutes when a ball boy wet his pants. But it’s all worth it if you can handle the heat, literally and figuratively .

Source: SMH

Moneyball Comes to Tennis

Tennis is on the verge of a belated Moneyball revolution. In the northern spring, the Association of Tennis Professionals, which runs the men’s tour, is planning to open up ball-tracking data from every match to all its players and coaches.

The shift will do much to level an uneven playing field. Until now, millionaire players such as the “Big Four” men have had the opportunity to buy better-quality data analysis than their less wealthy rivals.

One might imagine that access to data would be a basic right for all leading professionals. In fact, anyone wanting to use the information gathered by Hawk-Eye, the leading ball-tracking provider since 2014, has had to pay a £150 ($263) processing fee per match. On top of that, tour rules say you can order data only from matches you played in.

In April, this will change. “We want to give players more equal access to this information,” says Ross Hutchins, the Association of Tennis Professionals’ chief tour officer. “We believe it will improve performance levels. We are looking to bring player and ball-tracking online from every ATP tournament. We’re hoping to make this happen by the second quarter of 2023, and then bring in wearable technology, such as heart monitors and GPS location devices, by the second half of the year.”

Despite the relatively large amount of money at stake, tennis must rank as one of the most backward major sports when it comes to sophisticated data analysis, mainly because there are few economies of scale.

Six-figure sums for data

If you are lucky enough to come from a grand-slam nation such as Great Britain or the United States, you can usually dip into your federation’s sizeable dataset. Otherwise, the only way to gain access to more than a tiny percentage of matches is to hire one of the big analytical companies, such as Golden Set Analytics (GSA), which used to charge Roger Federer a six-figure sum annually for exclusive access to its scouting and performance reports.

“In tennis, the teams are smaller than most other sports, and almost everything has to come out of the player’s pocket,” says Philip Mauerhofer, who runs a well-regarded analytics firm called Tennis Stat. “Unless you’re at the top of the game, adding more expenditure to your coaching and your physio and your fitness training is always going to be a stretch. So to have a trove of data available on every player would be a game-changer.”

Agent Patricio Apey welcomed the ATP plan. One of Apey’s clients – America’s Sebastian Korda – has been able to benefit from his close relationship with the United States Tennis Association, which logs all the information from its home tournaments and has a data-pooling deal with Tennis Australia.

But another of Apey’s stable – Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas – has had no such support. Tsitsipas thus needs to spend considerably more to gain the same level of tactical insight. As a top-five player, he can probably afford the difference. Those lower down the ladder are not always so fortunate.

“I’m cautiously hopeful that the governing bodies will see that making this information available to all players and their teams will only make the sport better,” Apey says. “Look at how sophisticated Formula One is when it comes to using data. Maybe in the future we will see cutting-edge analysts in the player boxes doing their work in real time and passing useful feedback to coaches and players during matches.”

Test run for courtside coaching

Tennis has many governing bodies, and at the moment only the Association of Tennis Professionals – as opposed to the grand slams and the Women’s Tennis Association – is committed to opening up its dataset. But the scenario Apey mentions is already here, even if it was used only on an experimental level at last November’s ATP Next Gen Finals in Milan, where coaches were allowed to advise their players during matches, as is becoming the norm on the ATP Tour, and at the two hard-court slams. They were also given an electronic tablet showing live data from the match as it progressed.

“It was challenging to use at first,” says James Trotman, the British coach whose player, Jack Draper, was eliminated in the semi-finals of that event. “There was so much data, whether it be the direction of the serve, the accuracy of the return, or the speed of each player’s forehands and backhands.

“I had to keep it simple, so I just focused on the first of those categories. There was one opponent who was always serving in the same place, so when it came to the tie-break I was able to tell Jack to sit on that return, which helped a great deal.”

Four years ago, Germany’s No. 1 Alexander Zverev said that “all the big guys are using data analysis, they just don’t like to talk about it” – and leading players are still coy about their data support. A rare exception is the world’s best player, Novak Djokovic, who allowed his former analyst, Craig O’Shannessy, to speak publicly about their work together.

The bigger your database, the easier it is to supply reliable scouting reports on every opponent. GSA says it has an automated algorithm that “scrapes” data directly from TV coverage, but for the smaller operators, many thousands of hours have been spent on hand-tagging matches. The going rate for a one-off scouting report from these lesser outfits is $US300.

So what kinds of insight can a big company provide? “A lot of added value is obtained from using data richer than anything the human eye can detect,” says Ben Depoorter, GSA’s vice-president of player analytics. “Hawk-Eye’s ball-tracking system generates millions of data points. And the insights that show up are not always what you might expect.

“Contrary to most expectations, Djokovic is outstanding with his backhand on fast returns hit towards his feet, and weaker on loopy balls that land short but with more of an angle, because he likes to hit on the rise. People come in with set ideas about what works – and the only way to disprove their preconceptions is with data.”

Source: The Telegraph, London

Annual Senior Club Championships. Entries Close Feb 12

Entries are now open for the Senior Club Championships in February. Dates are as below

These are the dates and events:

Saturday February 18 Noon. Womens 40+ Singles Mens 40+ Singles Mens 60+ Singles

Sunday February 19 9AM.  Womens Combined 100 Doubles Mens Combined 100 Doubles ( Hilton Mace Trophy)

Saturday February 25 Noon. Womens 40+ Doubles Mens 40+ Doubles Womens 60+ Doubles Mens 60+ Doubles.

Sunday February 26 9AM. Combined 100 Mixed Doubles.

ALL EVENTS ARE ROUND ROBIN FORMAT. Minimum of four (4) entries needed for event to be held.

ALL EVENTS WILL COMMENCE AT NOON ON SATURDAYS AND 900AM ON SUNDAYS.

Enter below.

Denis Crowley
MLTC Club Captain