Second Serve Tennis
Second Serve Podcast is the only tennis podcast created exclusively for adult recreational players by everyday tennis players. We are passionate about the game and our episodes are geared towards adults playing a sport in the later years of life (hence, the name “Second Serve”). This podcast discusses everything related to rec tennis. Topics include the following: advice for beginners; funny and crazy situations that happen on the court; the rules of adult tennis; and how it feels being an adult and getting your feelings hurt when you are not played in an important match. We know how it feels!
Second Serve Tennis
7 Tips to Win More Matches from a National Champion (Part 2)
This is part 2 of our episode Kenny, who is the 4.0 18 plus singles National Champion!
We are replaying a few of our most popular episodes and this was one of them!
Kenny is a former division 1 football player, a former top ten track cyclist in Thailand, and won the UK cheese rolling competition. He co-runs a local UTR league - called Elite Tennis League - with his doubles partner Chris Springer who he played 4.5 doubles with at the National Championships.
If you would like to watch Kenny winning the cheese rolling competition please click below:
Kenny winning the Cheese Rolling Competition
Sports Illustrated Article about Kenny
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Hi, this is Carolyn and I'm here with Aaron, and this is part two of our episode with Kenny, who is the 4.0 18 plus singles national champion. In part one, he gave a lot of great tips on how to succeed in every match and also told us his really interesting story about winning a cheese rolling competition. So if you haven't listened to part one, we hope you go back and listen, but here is part two, okay.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about number four. It's scouting and reading your opponents beforehand. Warmup and match.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So obviously there's a lot of platforms that you can kind of, you know, do your research and check. Utr is a big one that I use, universal tennis rating when you're playing tournaments and even locally or somewhere else, you can ask other players and even like, maybe you played an opponent, like in a in your division or your draw, that you're probably not going to play them again. And you can ask players for insight and if you're friendly, that's how I use that, nationals I'd say, you know, give me a little bit. What does that guy do? Well, what is it? And a lot of people are you know, they're willing to open up and tell you about your next opponent, and so a lot of players you know post videos of themselves on YouTube, especially. You know higher, higher level players. And then you know swing vision. If you higher level players and then you know swing vision, if you can find them on swing vision, obviously you're going to see almost all the stats that you could imagine.
Speaker 1:That's really smart Gosh. I didn't think of any of this stuff before.
Speaker 2:I never would have thought swing vision, I never would have thought to look there. But that's a great point, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cause swing vision. I mean you're going to see, like you know pretty much, you can see everything and you can break it down, and so that's a really cool thing to check out. And then so for warm-up, during warm-up, I'm using that to get myself ready, but I'm also using that to check out my opponent see how they move, check how to handle their spin, see how they handle short balls, see how they handle overheads. And then I'm big, especially when playing doubles, but even in singles, of practicing returning serves. Now I don't have to whack them. Sometimes I'll just hit it back to them, and I know some people kind of are annoyed by that, but it's also my warmup, so I like to return serves just as much actually as I practice serves in the warmup. That's smart.
Speaker 3:So again with the match, take a break after this set. I know you guys have talked about that before. Think about what you're doing well, think about what you're not doing well, think about what your opponent, and then we are our best critics and like we don't have coaches, like we're not fortunate to simply have coaches on court with us, but we know, like if we had a coach, what would our coach say? And if we're playing doubles, like I like to, I say, hey, ask my partner, like just to make sure we're on the right page, like okay, what am I doing? Or what do we need to do better?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was fantastic. Okay For number five we've got handling multiple matches and downtime physically, mentally, emotionally. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 3:In tournaments you're going to be playing multiple matches per day and like so. In my experience, you know, playing these fast four, if you're playing doubles and singles, you could play between three and six matches per day, which that is a lot to deal with. And for me, the hardest thing was just kind of mentally and emotionally decompressing after a match, because you're just like it was like back to back to back and you didn't have time just to like you know you'd lose or you play a really tight match and you got to get ready right away for the next match. So after matches, when I have time, I certainly like to take my shoes off, walk around in sandals.
Speaker 3:I'm big on changing clothes, whether the match went well or not. And then, you know, at nationals it was so hot. So I was, you know, literally taking a shower between matches, sometimes even when I had, like you know, 30 minutes or an hour. As far as the emotional aspect, you got to move past those tough, emotional matches and, you know, forget about those mistakes, forget about those bad points, and I like a quote here. I use this a lot and it goes accept what, what is, let go of what was and have faith in what will be, and it comes from the author, uh, sonia Riccardi, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 1:So number six is playing your best tennis mental strengths, adjustments, pressure, and you've got three of three written down here. I want to know what that is. But talk about all of those.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So mental is obviously, um, you know, really figuring out your greatest strengths and you know, tell themselves, tell yourself them and talk about them. You know, before you're playing, especially like when, when self-doubt creeps in and you're like, oh man, I suck, or like, oh I, I, you know it's not going right, right. So when, when self-doubt creeps in my head, I like to go to my words and like to kick in. I think I mentioned those.
Speaker 3:But you know, I say I got this grind fight win and it just gets me a little more pumped up and a little more motivated to play on center court at Nationals. That was added pressure and I like that. I was just going to run a little bit harder, I was going to swing a little bit faster and just play a little bit bigger. And also I I like to record my matches. I use SwingVision and just simply recording matches or even having people watch there that, like I typically don't know, I just I feed off of that and I play a little bit better and a little bit bigger. So it's just can you develop that positive relationship with pressure and use it as a tool for you?
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree with that.
Speaker 3:And then another point of that was strengths. Like you know, write down your strengths, figure out. You know really what those. I think we all know them, but just simply writing them down. Like, for me, my strengths are I'm very fast, I'm physical, I fight every point and I typically play. You know big points. Well, I have weaknesses also, so I try to, you know, stay away from those points. Well, I have weaknesses also, so I try to, you know, stay away from those.
Speaker 3:And then, as far as making adjustments, like you got to recognize in a match, you know if everything's going right you don't have to think about a lot and that's how you should be playing. But when things aren't going right, you know you got to make those adjustments and really figure out. And that's why, like, especially after maybe you played a bad set, take a break. I think you guys have talked about it. Like, go to the bathroom, you know whatever you need to do, take just a moment to yourself, go fill up your water bottle somewhere. You know, do something just to like kind of reset and come back out there If you can. You know, develop that positive relationship with pressure and use that as a tool to perform at your best, and that's what you see. You know the biggest players doing, so I have a crazy stat for you, or maybe a like a pop quiz what, according to this study, how many points should be? You'd be striving to win in a match?
Speaker 1:I'm raising my hand. Nobody can see it. You have to win at least 51, 51%. That's what I'm going with.
Speaker 3:But I don't know are you asking actual points. Yeah, a percent, a percentage.
Speaker 1:Percentage oh, 52. I'm going with 52.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we're taking pro tennis and your goal really should be 52%. So if you're winning 52%, you're losing 48%, so you got to be mentally prepared to handle that. And they talk about this study of. They took the greats in singles Nadal, federer and Djokovic. Those are the only players they're all at like 54. Those are the only players throughout history that they've found that win more than 52% of their points overall.
Speaker 1:Isn't that crazy.
Speaker 3:If you look at stats across all of tennis, the most common rally length is crazy it's one shot. And the second most common rally length is three shots. So, like 70% of all points across all tennis, even pros and recreational tennis, is 70% of points that will be played between zero and four shots or one and four shots. So to me it's big understanding that and practicing that, because you know a lot of people will go out and practice like these huge, long rallies and that makes up such a small percentage of the actual game. And then the final thing I have to add about that is the three of three rule. If you win three of three of these, you're probably going to win. Even if you just win two of these, you're still probably going to win the match. You're probably going to win. Even if you just win two of these, you're still probably going to win the match.
Speaker 3:So number one is your before the match preparation, your scouting, your strategy, your warmup and your focus. That's number one. Those are something, all those things you can easily control. Number two is your on-court time playing your points, playing those key points, winning those break points, saving those break points, and again comes back to winning 52% of your points. And then the final thing is three, and that's the time between points. And if you really think about it, there's probably more time between points than there actually is playing points. So the time between points is it's the mental battle with yourself, it's the self-doubt, it's overcoming pressure, challenges, making adjustments. A lot of people kind of explain it as those 20 to 30 seconds between each point and that makes up a huge part, probably the biggest part, of a match.
Speaker 2:Agreed, I have a lot of work to do, aaron. I know we both do.
Speaker 1:Kenny's going to be, do Aaron? I know we both do. Kenny's going to be our new guy. We're going to call.
Speaker 3:Yeah, reach out anytime.
Speaker 2:I love that, though. Okay, number seven post-match opponents cool down physio notes. Match review Can you talk about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I'm a big proponent of you know you got to win and lose graciously and respectfully. Again, not all of your opponents are going to be your best friends. We've certainly ran into those people that we don't want to talk to ever again, right. But when you're playing a local league or regional tournament, even a national you know the tennis community is not that big You're going to see these people again. Almost a hundred percent there's a chance you're going to see these people again.
Speaker 3:So when I win or lose a match, I really do try to be the same person, whether I win or lose, and I really believe you know that's the way it should be and I'm sure that you guys can tell me a million examples of people not acting that way. But I said, most of us are here to compete, win and have fun, and we're not. You know we're not playing, we're not professional players, we're not playing for big money, we're not playing for millions of dollars and huge endorsements. So again, it's it's just important to handle that, you know, with, with, have fun and show good sportsmanship. In my opinion, 100%. And then, as far as like a cool down, this is something I've kind of recently incorporated because you know I didn't really want to do it after I was like, oh, it's fine, I don't need to do this.
Speaker 3:But you know, in most recent time, you know having a few injuries and then you know playing tons of matches you know multiple matches in a day I really found that it was more important. So after a match, for a cool down, I like to do like a light jog, five minute jog, or like when I play at the court near my house. I live really close to the courts, so I do like a 10-minute easy bike ride home and I also use that as like a warm-up. And then, you know, if I'm feeling soreness, I certainly add some light stretching, icing any aches. And then, especially in tournaments and hot weather and I'm sure you guys have experienced this but you know making sure those feet and those fingers watching for those hot spots, because it's tough to play if you have, you know, making sure those feet and those fingers watching for those hotspots, because it is it's tough to play if you have, you know, blisters and all those kinds of things.
Speaker 1:I used to come home from matches, um, from singles matches, mostly with, really, if I had really sore legs, if I played during the day but I still had to come home and work, I would fill up a trash can like a big rubber trash can with ice and cold water and I would stick my legs in it under my desk and I would soak my legs. It was so helpful. I need to incorporate that again, but I used to do that all the time because my legs would be so sore from singles.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my football background. We would sit in ice baths every day after practice, after summer camps, and I totally feel like you're. If you can get used to ice baths, you especially in soreness. You can reduce your soreness by you know, a big, maybe 25, 50%.
Speaker 1:Another thing you got to do, Carolyn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another thing I have to do. But also, how do you guys motivate yourself to do that?
Speaker 1:I can't get in an ice bath, but I can put my legs in it.
Speaker 3:Honestly, like it's tough. You know, some people use, like these special toe pads so your toes don't go numb, cause that's like the biggest thing, like your toes or your hands will go numb. But um, honestly, it's just, it's mental, it's just like once you get used to it, like no one I think likes it originally, but once you get used to it it's kind of like cold showers. I there's research kind of along the same things about taking ice cold showers. I hated that, like my first 20 years of my life hated taking cold showers. Now I love taking cold showers, no matter what the weather is like.
Speaker 1:Listen, Carolyn, this is a man who be like, who did a cheese contest where he had to run down a hill really quickly so he can take an ice bath.
Speaker 3:He can handle anything.
Speaker 1:He can handle it. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:So, again, after the match, um, you know I like to, you know, take some notes and especially you know we talked about that review swing vision. If you don't have swing vision, you're not recording it. You know, I still recommend that you maybe have someone record some for you, but if you can't, definitely, you know, write some notes down, kind of review those things. And I said I love SwingVision because you know you can really deep dive into all the stats and analytics and see what you're doing well and not see the shots you were missing and making and really break it down. And then, yeah, if you can, you know, utilize and improve these things and all these steps, you know I'm sure you're going to win more matches, have more success and kind of feel more comfortable and more in control and play better under pressure. And I like this kind of quote that I've kind of merged from others and say like tennis is a journey with highs, lows and lessons to learn, but most of all it's experiences to enjoy, share and remember.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:We really appreciate Kenny being on the podcast. Kenny mentioned that he reviews his matches using SwingVision and we have an affiliate link and discount code for Swing Vision in our show notes and on our website, which is SecondServePodcastcom. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon. You.