Practice Your Weaknesses

I was thinking today how often players love to practice their favourite shots, which very often are their strengths and how little time they spend practicing their weaknesses. I would suggest that this is the fundamental reason why players don’t achieve their potential and I thought I would write a little article about it so that more people become aware of this mistake and get motivated to change.

I’m sure that every tennis player would agree that if you improved your weaknesses you would improve your game. The question is why don’t the vast majority do it? They seem content to continue hitting their favoured strokes, perhaps because it feels good or it’s easier.

Of course there may be another reason; that they don’t wish to feel embarrassed in front of their practice partner if they make mistakes practicing their weaker shot. To rise above the rest it is essential that quality time is spent on all facets of the game, not just one’s strengths. You have to be different from the majority and a good part of being different is having the ‘guts’ to practice your weaknesses.

I have taken many individual tennis lessons with players looking to improve a certain shot, the trouble is these lessons are often viewed by the player as their only practice session. Once the tennis lesson with the pro is over most players go straight back to working on their strengths and forget about everything else! An hour a week with a pro is not enough to significantly improve any shot for any period of time; it must be worked on regularly between lessons.

When you are on court over the coming weeks and months; set yourself a goal of practicing any weakness you have at least 10% of the time. If you play two hours per week that would be spending only 12 minutes on your weakness! If you do only this I guarantee you will see a measureable improvement in your game within the next month. The majority of players don’t spend any time at all – 12 minutes per week – that’s E-A-S-Y!

You will truly know what success is when you’ve practiced and polished your weaknesses until they’ve become your greatest strengths.