Tennis Tip of the Day:

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1 To Our Readers Here is Variety, our addition to Daily Tennis News in our effort to make the world s digital daily tennis newspaper more valuable to you the tennis fan, the tennis player. In the coming weeks we will present stories and tips designed to enhance your enjoyment of tennis, the great game. Bob Larson, Publisher Tennis Tip of the Day: In 1978, Nick Bollettieri founded the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, the first full-time tennis boarding school to combine intense training on the court with a custom-designed academic curriculum. He has coached 10 players who have reached No. 1 in the world, including Andre Agassi, Boris Becker and Martina Hingis. To learn more about you can check out: Practice Your Volley s On the Move How do most people practice their volleys? One player will stand at the net while the other hits balls to them from the baseline. This is great, except for one thing, seldom are you ever in a stationary position when volleying. Most of your volleys will be hit while moving forward toward the net. Practicing the volley from a stationary position is great to perfect your technique and develop some ball control, but you must also learn to approach, volley, and hit overheads while in motion. Here s a way we like to do it. The idea is to work together and keep one ball in play as long as possible. Both player A and B start on opposite baselines. Player A will feed a short ball to player B. Player B hits an approach shot back down the middle to Player A, then moves into the net. Player A returns this ball to Player B for a volley. Player B volleys the ball back to player A. Player A then hits a lob to Player B who hits the overhead back to player A. Player A takes this ball as an approach shot and moves into the net while Player B remains on the baseline and gives Player A a volley and then an overhead. Then Player B will move into the net off of Player A s overhead and the drill keeps going as long as the ball stays in play. This drill is fantastic for footwork, balance and ball control. In the beginning you should keep the pace slow. The more advanced you become the more the pace can be increased. Also, if you are getting tired too quickly you may add volleys to the drill to slow it down. So instead of coming to the net and hitting one volley before moving back for the overhead, you may hit two, three or even four to slow the movement down. Remember, you are trying to work together to keep one ball going. This drill may also be done crosscourt to practice the movement and balance for doubles. When this drill is done correctly, it is a great cardiovascular exercise and many professionals use this drill to get a workout.

2 Tennis Hints of the Day Bruce Gullikson provides today s tennis hints. Keep them in mind when you re down 0-30 and really need that next point. * When in a defense situation at the net for instance someone having a short overhead against you in doubles get low and be prepared to hit a backhand volley. That way you can defend yourself if the ball should be hit at you. * When poaching generally hit the ball in the direction you are moving as this allows your partner time to cover the court you just left. Also, you are hitting toward the short side of the court which gives your opponents less time to react. Remembering Jack Kramer A couple of quick observations and interesting quotes after re-reading Jack Kramer s book he wrote in 1979 with Frank Deford, The Game: My 40 Years in Tennis. -- Three cheers for the Aussies. The Aussies as a group did bring beer to tennis. Back in the 30s when I was coming into the game, the players drank very little hard liquor and even beer was not commonplace Frank Shields was the rare exception But then the Aussies came to prominence after the war, they drank a lot of beer together. Everybody else started imitating them because they won, and it was easier to imitate their beer drinking than their hard work. -- On gambling and Seabiscuit: I had been around gambling all my life, going back to Las Vegas. Even as a kid around Los Angeles I would go to Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. My mom gave me $2 once to go out and bet on Seabiscuit, but of course he didn t go until the feature late in the afternoon, and that deuce started burning a hole in my pocket, so I put it on a nag named Blue Suit I still remember the name in an early race, and old Blue Suit ran up the track. And of course Seabiscuit won. -- Riggs was one of the best: I guarantee you (Bobby Riggs) is the most underrated champion in the history of tennis. After all the hustler stuff of the last few years, I want to emphasize it all the more: if you remember one thing from this whole book, remember that Bobby Riggs was a great champion. He beat Segura. He beat Budge when Don was just a little bit past his peak. On a long tour, as up and down as Vines was, I m not so sure that Riggs wouldn t have played Elly very close. I m sure he would have beaten Gonzales Bobby was too quick, he had too much control for Pancho and Laver and Rosewall and Hoad. --Steve Pratt

3 Racquet Review If you have an interesting item you would like to share in regards to tennis equipment and apparel, let us hear about it. By Jay Wiseman Babolat Y 112 The name of this racquet should give you a pretty good idea of what you are dealing with right off the bat. The Babolat Y series is filled with monster frames and the 112 is the flagship. Although it is not the biggest racquet in the series it does, as the name suggests, boast a whopping 112-square inch head. Part of what is so striking about this racquet and the entire Y line is the shape of the racquet. The head itself is of a typical racquet shape, the yoke, or throat of the racquet however is quite unique and is what I presume gives the racquet line its name. The throat of the racquet connects much higher on the racquet than is typical this widens the throat and to abnormal size. The benefit of such a change in the standard construction of the racquet is a significant increase in the stability of the racquet head. Despite a relatively light weight (9.6oz strung) the construction allows the entire string bed, with the exception of the very top of the hoop, to feel very solid and stable no matter where contact it made. This new construction also puts more weight towards 3 and 9 o'clock which, in addition to making the racquet head more stable also pulls the sweet spot out towards the edges of the frame. Nearly the entire string bed is very responsive and offers exceptional control and power and the light weight makes the V112 exceptionally maneuverable. As a game improvement frame this racquet is designed to do two things 1) Give you more power and 2) Be a comfortable as possible. The Y 112 certainly succeeds! Racquet Specs: Head Size: 112 sq. in. Length: 27.5 in. Weight: 9.6oz (strung) Swing Weight: 324 g. Balance: 7pts HH Construction: High modulus graphite, crystal graphite String Bed: 16x19 Jay Wiseman is a certified Master Racquet Technician (MRT) by the United States Racquet Stringers Association (USRSA). Additionally Jay is a certified P-1 Professional by the USPTA and has served as the Head Professional and Pro Shop manager at multiple clubs on the East Coast and Midwest. Jay has previously spent three years coaching Division I collegiate women s tennis and currently serves as a teaching professional at the largest tennis club in Toledo, Ohio, and is the Head boys and girls tennis coach at Sylvania Southview High School.

4 Remembering Will The following item was submitted by Chris Kretchmer, the head teaching professional at the Carmel Valley Athletic Club in Carmel, Calif. If you have a story or commentary on anything involving tennis you d like to share, let us hear about it. steve@tennisnews.com. A few years ago a friend of mine decided that he wanted to pursue a national championship. Aging, he had seen most all sides of life and tragically most of those sides were bad ones. But it was not always such a struggle for Will. In his glory years Will had played tennis at an Ivy League school. Now 65 years later one of his most treasured possession was a box he shared with me containing a few tattered and yellowing pieces of memorabilia from those few magical years of his life. In the intervening years life had not been kind. Will had faced and beaten back in varying degrees a great many challenges: financial, family, heath and career losses. Now at 84 he was alone, broke, battered, disheartened and growing old and tired. But there was one thing that drove him forward and that was a national championship. He asked me if I would help. He would have his first year in the 85 age bracket that year. For six months I spent day after day with him on the court. He told me what to do and I worked hard to follow his direction. We raised the funds to send him to a national tournament. That year he won his national championship and the smile on his face when he returned with that gold ball was worth every minute that we spent. That same day he informed me that he was done with tennis. I asked why and he told me that he was ready to move on, that he was going to die. I asked if he was healthy and he said that he was. I told him that it was not time. He reassured me that it was. Two months later he was gone. Sometimes dreams and tennis are the things that keep people alive. This Week s Tennis Birthday s (Nov ) Robert Kendrick (Nov. 15, 1979, Age 30); Zina Garrison-Jackson (Nov. 16, 1963, Age 46); Vincent Van Patten (Nov. 17, 1957, Age 52); Jeff Tarango (Nov. 20, 1968, Age 41) Did You Know? ESPN debuted on September 7, 1979, and the first tennis telecast was exactly one week later on September 14 a Davis Cup tie between Argentina and USA in Memphis with Cliff Drysdale on the call. -- Andy Yanne Jr.

5 Chart of the Day Russian tennis superstar Marat Safin recently announced his planned retirement before this season and played his final ATP match Wednesday, losing in three sets to U.S. Open champ Juan Martin del Potro in Paris. A couple of quick Safin factoids: Safin, 29, is the older brother of current World No. 1 women's player Dinara Safina. His final match in Paris came at the site where he won three of his 15 career singles titles. Known to be outspoken and for his emotional outbursts during matches, he reportedly had broken more than 700 rackets during his career. Considered as an underachiever by many, the former world No. 1 managed to finish among the year-end Top 5 only on three occasions ('00, '02, '04). After starting his pro career in 1997, Safin won the 2000 U.S. Open and ruled the Australian Open in He also finished runner-up at two other Grand Slam events. He reached the highest ranking No. 1 on Nov. 20, Safina and younger sister Dinara are the only siblings to take the No. 1 spot in singles tennis history. He departs with a singles record and won two career titles in doubles events, where he went Quote of the Day Today I will put all my memories, all my wins and losses in a small box. Today a door is closed, hopefully another one will open. Marat Safin, who played the final match of his career on Wednesday in Paris