Learning from Those Gold Medals

On Friday, it rained all practice long. And so we sat inside all that cold, cold wet day. But we busted it pretty hard in the gym with our new Tennis/Insanity workout program.

And we watched the gold medal matches in Men's Singles and Doubles from the Olympics. Which were awesome matches by the way. You can watch full match replays online from NBC.

But we wrote down what we learned, and the results were enlightening. I think what we identified were the very things that we need to work on in both singles and doubles. So, here is the info that we came up with.

In Doubles...
- 1st serve in brings a HUGE advantage
- Don't hit to the net person (you'll lose the point)
- Move together with your partner, cover the court when they are pulled wide
- Interact with your partner between points
- Every point should end with 1 team at the net (if you want to win, it should be you)
- Go forward into your volleys
- Don't forget to use the volley up the middle
- Never reach for a volley, move your feet to it
- Remember to poach, switch, etc.
- Split-step before the serve return

and the most important 3...
- GET ENERGY FROM WINNING POINTS

- ALWAYS ADJUST, NEVER BE STILL

- REMEMBER, JUST ONE POINT TURNS IT AROUND

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In Singles...
- Remember your footwork (split-step) 
- Never hit the ball right to the opponent, make them move
- Be unpredictable
- Split-step before the serve return
- Use serves to T and out wide

and the most important 3...
- TAKE HARD, FULL SWINGS ALL THE TIME

- ALWAYS ADJUST BACK TO THE CENTER

- KEEP THE BALL AS DEEP AS POSSIBLE 

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As a coach, I'm really impressed with this list. It covers all the basics of doubles, and a lot of smart singles as well. Now, we need to translate this into our on court actions. That's the challenge as we kick off the season this week!