Fatso Tennis

Archive for the ‘tennis pro’ Category

This morning I told you about getting lucky enough to get a lesson with a top hundred player. Little did I know how darn lucky I was because he seems like a pretty humble guy and I didn’t really know about all his accomplishments.

Rick Meyer was a career high of 85 in singles, but in the low 50s in doubles. Check out the note he just sent me telling me about the people he beat:

“I beat Nastase twice. Also Adriano Panatta, who won the French and Italian. He was #1 in Italy and 3 or 4 in the world. I beat Fibak, he was 5 or 6 in the world. Roger Taylor, semi finalist at Wimbledon and a top ten player as was Mark Cox. Both were #1 in England as was John Lloyd who I beat. Bill Scanlon top in the world. He beat McEnroe in 1983 to get to the semis of the US Open. Brian Gottffied and Ramirez when they were the #2 team in the world. Beat them in the French Open.

I also reached the round of 16 at The Australian Open in 1983.”

Is that awesome or what?

Wow! did I get a tennis thrill yesterday. I was in New York speaking and a speaker friend of mine Jane Ubell who just happens to be married to a former top 100 player Rick Meyer arranged a tennis lesson for me. Rick has beaten some of the all time greats like Ilie Nastase and others that I’ll put in this post as soon as I get their names.

Here's me, Rick Meyer and his lovely wife Jane Ubell just after Rick gave me a tennis lesson at the City View Tennis Club in New York City

Here’s what Rick told me after working with me for an hour:

• He likes my forehand but he emphasized never missing. He told me to have a consistent game to hit the ball from 6-12 just about every time to get good net clearance and depth.
• He likes my topspin backhand, but again he wanted me to never miss. By the end of the lesson I did not miss one top spin backhand. He again mentioned hitting low to high with plenty of net clearance. He said you can’t win consistently smashing the ball flat.
• He did not like my slice back hand at all. He said I’m leading with my elbow and popping the ball up and putting mostly side spin on the ball.. He said I was pretty much hitting the ball flat and he wanted pronounced underspin.There were various other things he didn’t like about it that I can’t remember. What I do remember is that he said I must lead with the racket head …. not my elbow. He said its a very slow stroke and even though my upper arm is moving slowly the racket head will be moving much faster since it’s at the end of the lever.  He said to picture a table top in front of me, turn very much to the side and hit down the table top.
• He did not like my overhead. I shanked quite a few. He said it was because I was focusing on the outcome not the process. He said when he gets an overhead in his mind he is saying thank you to the opponent because the point is over. He said he does not care where the opponent is and he has absolutely zero focus on the other side of the net. All he focuses on is the ball contact. He showed me that he even switches to what looked to me like a 9 year old’s pancake grip to make sure he hit the ball perfectly in the center of the racket. He said he can hit hundreds in a row without missing because he focuses on the process, not the outcome.
• He didn’t really like my volley. He said it’s more like a high five motion and by the time he was done with me he was cranking some pretty fast pace that I was able handle because of the high five motion to simply get right in front of the ball with the racket. He also emphasized keeping everything out in front with the racket head up.
• He did not like my serve at all. This was a little perplexing because I had just come from Vic Braden’s training where I was doing darn good and added a ton to my speed, but I hadn’t had any practice with my new method learned at Vic’s since getting home so I looked pretty pitiful. Mostly what he didn’t like was my ball toss. He filled up a glass of water and made me go through the tossing motion with a full glass of water… luckily we were on clay where a little spillage doesn’t hurt We ran out of time, but before we did I cranked some pretty good serves but I obviously have a lot of practice in front of me with my new found speed and two methods to wrestle with.It is pretty cool though when you’re standing next to a guy like Rick who can effortlessly crank a hundred mph serve pretty much nonchalantly while he’s talking to me.

Overall this was a thrill of a lifetime to get a lesson from someone who has “been there and done that”.

Oh, by the way. Rick promised to give me a blog posting with a pros viewpoint on the approach shot. Watch for it.

In this final part of my interview with legendary tennis coach and tennis researcher Vic Braden Vic talks about Keeping it simple, the value of education, and he mentions Chevy Chase, Tim Conway, Ronald Reagan, The Bryan Brothers and Tracy Austin

In part III Vic talks about how soccer can help your tennis, how he increased my serve speed by 30 MPH in only one hour, his two new books, his innovative junior tennis ambassadors and elementary school doctors.

Hear Vic Braden talk about Bobby Riggs and his antics, hitting with depth and brain research.

I had the chance to do an exclusive interview with legendary tennis coach and tennis researcher Vic Braden.
Here’s Part I

Hi Folks:

I just got back from spending several days one-on-one with the legendary tennis coach and researcher Vic Braden in lovely Coto de Caza, California the home of the original Vic Braden Tennis College.

Here's Vic Braden and me on site at Coto de Caza tennis facility

Besides increasing my serve speed by 30 MPH (yes, I know that sounds ridiculous especially since he did it in only 1 hour….more on this in an upcoming post) Vic was telling me story after story about pro tennis from the old days when he turned pro right up to the minute. Vic is still to this day right on the cutting edge of human performance. In fact, Vic was the only one sanctioned to video tape using three hidden cameras at the latest Indian wells tournament (apparently the obvious presence of a camera changes on court performance….that’s why they’re hidden.

Before he took me on one-on-one I sat in on his lecture for a doubles clinic being held that day.

OMG! The research he rattled off in 90 minutes was mindblowing….It really was mindblowing. He was talking about how we make the best decisions when our brain is working in the frontal cortex. It’s our job as tennis players to get our opponents playing in their back brain while we stay in the front brain. He told us many ways on how to do this.

If you want a complete breakdown of what was covered in that session visit Richard Neher’s coverage of the session for the Examiner.

Vic Braden, Richard Neher tennis reporter for "The Examiner" and Tom Antion just after Vic's lecture at his doubles clinic at the Coto de Caza, Tennis Club

Watch for my exclusive video interview with Vic Braden coming up this week and I can’t wait until you hear his story about Bobby Riggs and an elephant beating Vic and Anita Bryant.

Hey everyone. I’ve been missing in action for a little while, but still playing regularly. I’ve got a big surprise. I can’t give you all the details yet, but I’m heading to California Tuesday evening and I’m going to be spending time with a legendary tennis pro that’s going to give me some coaching and let me interview him on video.

Watch for my report coming up.

Plus.

A former top 50 player is going to grace Fatso Tennis with a posting on approach shots pretty soon.