Using Our Tennis Brain

I am playing EPIC doubles yesterday with the guys. I double faulted - which is not my usual M.O. but you know, it happens. Then before my next serve I remembered my rule: GET THE NEXT SERVE IN. I did, but I watch lots of other players who after a double fault put a third serve OUT... then it's like a 50-50 with lots of players, half the time it's ANOTHER double fault or they get it in.

What tennis rules do you have for yourself? Don't overswing when trying to pass someone at the net? A well placed lob can be as good as a pass?

Our tennis brain can STORE this information but we need to retrieve it when needed and apply it. Make rules for yourself regarding your warm-up, second serve returns, or whatever has worked for you in the past that you think is important.

God gave us a brain not just so we can enjoy old Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, but also so we can learn from our mistakes and our successes. That's a good blue-print for tennis as well as life.

In Praise of Smallness: The Humble Dampener

OMG! I cannot believe I am writing about this topic. But before I go further, there have been one (or more) of my previous posts about not sweating the racquets so much, and here I am sweating the REALLY small stuff! Having said that, I owe my tennis amigo Ian a thank you for the inspiration for this. He is all about finding the smallest-lightest dampener and for me, it's more about the size or length that matters (uh, we are still talking about DAMPENERS aren't we?!?). I find that if using a poly hybrid (poly in mains, nylon in crosses), I can get by with as little as a rubber band and it feels/sounds fine. With full nylon as most of my racquet set-ups are, I need something the size of a dime to a quarter to do the trick, which impacts maybe two to three main strings and the bottom cross.

And then there's my latest racquet condundrum- a Yonex RDIs 200. I strung it around midpoint in tension and it was hard for me to hit... too tight. Then I went 3 lbs lighter and with warmer weather upon us, I was launching balls from Griffith Park to just shy of my Burbank home! And then I found the right dampener. It had been maybe 5 years since I had used a "worm" style dampener that weaves in and out of the mains strings, contacting generally between 4 and 6 strings. And you know what? It helped control the power considerably and changed the sound from a very annoying metallic ping, back to the dull "thud" that I am use to.

A scientist friend of mine remarked recently at Indian Wells how quiet the balls sounded when coming off the racquets of the players. He then went on to say that sound is energy, implying that there wasn't a lot of wasted energy. If sound is indeed a form of energy or represents energy, then changing the sound (and feel) with a dampener does indeed change the power of a racquet - even though there are posts galore on message boards swearing that the use of a dampener is "all in ones head". And even if that were to be true, the mental edge or added confidence of playing with a dampener is still significant. So racquet techies, while I am not a fan of tricking out a racquet with lead tape to change it's playing characteristics, I am in favor of experimenting and finding the right dampener. While not as significant for ones tennis as losing 5 to 10 pounds or learning better technique, it does have its place in the tennis kingdom - albeit a very small niche.