Decoding the expert's eye: a simple framework for tennis shot selection
How one coach translates the intuitive genius of top ballstrikers into teachable technique
I just went to the Indian Wells tennis tournament, so tennis is on my mind!
I really like these types of in-depth tutorials like this because it takes a lot of the expert intuition behind being a great ballstriker in tennis (something commonly accepted to be an intrinsic and unteachable talent), and breaks it down in a very interesting method that less-skilled players (like myself) can practice.
Basically, Karue distinguishes between shots that are "on the rise" ("breaking up") and "on the way down" ("breaking down"), and how players should adapt. Understanding what type of shot to hit for these types of balls is something that expert ball strikers seem to understand.
Players will have different preferences on whether they like to hit balls on the rise or on the way down.
Rafael Nadal is someone who loves to hit on the way down:
Kei Nishikori is someone who hits predominantly on the rise:
Carlos Alcaraz mixes it up quite a bit:
And as you can see, the difference between contact time is a split second, but the difference is enormous. Yet all of these players are known as exquisite ballstrikers.
And basically, Karue breaks it down into a simple heuristic:
For shots that are on the rise, you want to drive the ball
For shots that are on the way down, you want to lift/shape the ball
Otherwise, he shows that it's extraordinarily hard to drive a ball that is on its way down (I've made this issue often), and how easy it is to step in and drive a ball on the rise. Similarly, it's very difficult to successfully lift the ball on the rise, and makes much more sense to lift a ball on its way down.
And the height that a ball moves doesn't have any relation with being on the rise or on the way down: a ball near your knees can be on the way up, and a ball at your shoulder can be on the way down.
For my own game, I realized that I have the tendency to try to drive every single shot: especially, I was trying to drive too many balls on the way down, when I should have been lifting them up. Some examples:
I need to lift my initial inside-out forehand, before trying to drive it for a subsequent winner
If I’m running for a forehand (and out of position), I just need to lift it in
My backhand needs more shape unless I'm stepping into the ball on the rise
Karue also spends ample time during the video asking the viewer (and the student in the video) to being to train their eyes to pick out whether a ball is on the rise or on the way down.
As a result, you really get to see how a tennis player could begin to build some of the intuition of becoming a better ballstriker, because Karue breaks it down so well.
After watching the video, I ended up playing around two hours of tennis with a friend. At the very beginning, it took me some time to adjust to this tactic and my shots were extremely erratic, but at the latter half of the training session, these ideas finally set in, and I was hitting better shots than I had ever hit before.