Are You Tenative on Your Second Server?

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Hi. This is Dr. Patrick comb with the Tennis Psychology Podcast. Today I have a special guest. His name is Ian Westerman, and Ian is a regular on the Tennis Psychology Podcast. Today he's going to help me answer a question from one of my readers. Ian is a USPTA certified pro and he's also a teaching professional at EssentialTennis.com in addition, he's got the number one tennis podcast on itunes, so be sure to go and subscribe to his YouTube Essential Tennis podcast on itunes.

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Ian, thanks for joining me today.

Thank you very much for having me. Once again, Dr. Cohn, it's a pleasure to speak with you again.

Ian. I have a question from a guy named Nicholas. He says, my first serve is a strong point in my game, but my second serve is a weakness. On my second serve, I am tentative, and as a result, I rarely win points on my second serve. What is the psychology behind being too tentative on the second serve and how can I improve this? This sounds like a very, very common problem or a very common question that I get, Ian, from lots of tennis players where they kind of push that second serve over because they're just trying to get it in and not double fault. So how would you respond to Nicholas?

That's a tricky one. And first of all, I totally agree. It is incredibly, incredibly common. And in my opinion, I think the number one thing here, there's, there's kind of, if you want to group people into two really general groups, there's kind of two different types of competitors. In my mind. There's the type of competitor that has like a fiery resolve and just kind of a strong competitive spirit. Somebody who has an attitude of, I will do whatever possible to keep you from beating me. And, and they just, you know, they have no fear and they go out there and they just compete at their maximum. There's not a lot of people like that, but that's certainly a group of competitors. I guess Rafael Nadal probably comes to mind on the professional tour as being the number one person with that trait. And then you have in the other group a lot of recreational players and club players that have never really competed at A level where they've been able to develop that kind of. Kind of fire in the belly, that kind of pigheadedness on the court to just do whatever possible to win. And sounds like Nicholas kind of falls into that category where he gets his back up against the wall on a second serve, maybe on an important point, and he kind of crumbles mentally a little bit, and he slows the swing down. He's tentative, and he doesn't have that competitive fire. And that's something that I believe has to be developed. You have to put yourself in. In a competitive situation whenever possible and force yourself to break out of that tentative mindset and hit the best second serve that you know that you can hit without being scared about it. It's easier said than done, I think.

Absolutely. And as you were talking about that, I was thinking of Sharapova. She stands up there, and her second serve is not much different than the first serve, and she's willing to miss, but still have that same fiery attitude and pace on that second serve. Whereas, you know, her competitor that she just played, was it the other Russian girl, Makarova? I think it was, yes. Where she's. She's dinking it in the second serve, and it really, really cost her. I totally agree with what you're saying, Ian, but when I think of someone that's being tentative, it goes back to, okay, you have to understand, why are you being tentative on the second serve? Well, you don't want to double fault, right? Why don't you want to double fault? Well, you're. You're scared if you keep double faulting, that you're going to lose the game and maybe lose the match. So here we are at a situation where you're thinking about the negative result. Do not double fault, which I think Nicholas creates the tension and creates the pushing on the second serve and not hitting your normal second serve. You know, I think some. I don't know if you've seen this, Ian, but I think some tennis players, they have a second serve they practice, which has pretty good pace, and then they have a second serve they use in tournaments or when they play. Right. Which is a much different type of serve. It's just a get it in serve. So, you know, my recommendation is if you want to let go of the tentativeness, then you have to focus on your spot. You have to see a good serve, you have to have a good plan, but you have to trust that serve that you're hitting in practice with pace that second serve, and let go of the Outcome and the results, about worrying about whether you're going to miss that second serve or not. To me, that's the whole thing. Can you trust your normal second serve and just let it go? What do you think, Ian?

I think that's spot on for sure. And I really, really like that you brought in the comparison between the practice serve and the competition serve. And I think that totally proves your approach to this, that being that the player is focusing on the outcome as opposed to the process. And I would just simply like to add to what you said, that in terms of technique of it, what to focus on, you were talking about the target, etc. To be able to focus on a positive thing to think about to give you good results as opposed to thinking about the negative possible outcome. I think from a teacher's perspective, in terms of technique, I think it's all about racket head speed. Without keeping the racket head moving quickly, spin is not possible. And then you run into that kind of shaky area where the racket head slows down enough that the player is forced to have to kind of go for that push second serve, like what you were describing with the Sharapova Makarova. I think it's Makarova or something like that match the other night where there's. It just gets to a point where there's just kind of a push happening. And I think racket head speed is probably the number one technique key in my mind as far as maintaining that. That confidence. If Nicholas is going to really focus on something in the present, that's going to help his performance.

Yeah. Just so everybody knows that, we're talking about the Australian Open, and I think it was the quarterfinal match. Right. That Sharapova won with a strong serve. I think she got 70% of her first serve in, which is unusual for her. And then her opponent was dinking her second serves over, which I really think hurt her badly. So thanks for helping with the question with Nicholas. Ian. I've been talking with Ian Westerman. Check him out@essentialtennis.com and be sure to subscribe to his number one tennis podcast on itunes, the Essential Tennis Podcast. Ian, once again, thanks a lot for your help.

All right, thank you. And Nicholas, best of luck to you.

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