My friend Lindsey and I are members of the early Alzheimer’s group. Today I went to the tennis courts to practice and I left my tennis racket at home. I drove home to get my tennis racket then left the garage door open exposing two very nice unlocked bicycles.

When I finally did get on the courts, I noticed that I had trouble hitting my backhand deep. This happens a lot in matches. When people are under pressure, they tend to hit short or into the net. Zen Golf has a very good exercise for this problem that I will transpose to the tennis court. Stand at one baseline and look at the opposite baseline. Now close your eyes and walk to the opposite baseline. It’s probably a good idea walk off to the side of the court to avoid walking into the net and you might want to position someone to prevent you from walking into the fence. You might not need it, though, because most people stop short of the baseline let alone the fence. Now go back to your baseline but this time look at the opposite baseline, beyond the baseline and the fence behind it. Try again, walk to the opposite baseline with your eyes closed. This time you should get closer. If you extend your vision of the court, you will extend the range of your shots. If you just look at the opposite baseline, you get shortsighted.

Here is another way to extend your vision and lengthen your shot. Hit ground balls with a hitting partner and hit every ball beyond the baseline. It’s not so easy. I felt like I was hitting the ball as hard as I could and it was still landing in the court. Once you get the hang of it, you might hit more balls out long but it’s better to hit a few balls long than consistently hit the ball short.

I was watching the 1996 ATP Finals match between Pete Sampras and Boris Becker on my laptop last night. I bought a DVD of the match on eBay. This was an incredibly tense five set match and Sampras was playing Becker in Hanover in front of Becker’s fellow Germans. A few points here and there and either player could have broken the other’s serve and served out the match. Nonetheless, they both hit out and went for serves till the very end. Can you imagine playing in front of 15,000 people in the final match of the final tournament of the year in the fifth set knowing that your opponent is still hitting the corners on serves down the middle and wide? Can you imagine what would have happened if either of these players had started to play tentatively? Any short shot and Becker or Sampras would be have been all over the net in a nanosecond leaving the other player with a much smaller court to aim for and far fewer options.

You probably don’t have a Sampras or Becker in your tennis league but a league playoff match can get very tense. If you start to play tentatively, the ball is going to start landing short or even in the net. If you’re gonna go down, go down in blazes. Hit out. Play as aggressively as you always play. Sooner or later, you’ll start hitting deep and serving into corners when the game is on the line.

By the way, notice what Becker says about the match in this article, “At the end, I didn’t really care who won.” I would bet my right big toe that you’d never year Pete Sampras say something like that. There’s a reason he won so many Grand Slams. He peaked for them and he knew how much desire it takes to get to a final and, once you are there, to win it.

Practice and Competition Report: I hit against the backboard today A group behind me was shooting a basketball commercial and a group beside me was playing a very competitive basketball game. Suddenly, a man walked up to me and said, “Would you take a suggestion?”

“What?” I thought to myself, “Is my hair out of place, is my shirt tag sticking out, are my shoes untied? What?”

“You are stopping your swing before following through.”

“Oh … really?” He then demonstrated what I was doing wrong. He was right. I swung at the ball then I remembered that I’m supposed to follow through instead of letting the swing carry the racket through and over my shoulder. Just as soon as he appeared, he disappeared. Inexpensive tennis lesson, that was, but a very good one.