Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Timing

What is timing? Timing is everything. With it you can counter the toughest shots, adjust to your opponent, conditions, develop new levels of the game, and play with confidence. Without it you miss-hit, lodge the ball in the middle of your racket, hack-nub winners, hack-nub errors, and eventually lose your confidence. Timing is the ability to stroke a ball over the net with your desired outcome consistently over time. It's effortless outcome management. It's how an eight year old can hold down a rally with an accomplished adult player and maintain equal shot quality despite strength differences.

Other terms that travel with timing include smoothness, consistency, easiness, and fluidity. They describe the qualities of good timing. Smoothness is the ability to have your body flow with a steady motion from the ready position,  the take away, loading, releasing, and finishing the shot. Consistency is the ability to repeat that motion over the course of a rally or point. Easiness and fluidity are required for good timing.


Many players have  basic swing patterns down but lack smoothness. The best way to fix that problem is hold the racket looser, like a bird--not so tight you kill it but don't let it go. In doing so you will allow your body to react in a kinetic chain (the sum of the body parts put together creates the optimum result). When you trust your racket it will trust you. That's when hitting gets fun. Another thing to look for is your preparation (the take back loading). This should be done in a continous manner with no sharp hitches (despite some hitches I've encountered some people can't play without them and they are critical for their timing). Most solid strikers do not possess hitching characteristics.

Players who catch the ball in the middle of their racket (at the throat) when swinging look around and wonder what happened to the ball. That's when I tell them it went to the Bermuda Triangle. When they finally discover it lodged in their racket we all have a good laugh. That's an example of bad timing. The good thing about that bad timing in this instance it teaches you to distance yourself from the ball. Rally practice will develop your timing to higher levels. Striking a ball repeatedly with better players or the ball machine will hone your strokes and  timing. Timing is something that's borrowed from your hitting partner. Better players will give you better timing. A coach can hit you balls to help you smooth out your swing and eliminate hitches and fundamental errors. That will improve timing. Give yourself time for those corrections on the practice court to show up in competition.

Old habits die hard but an old dog can learn to hunt if he's hungry.  If your shots aren't technically sound they're not going to produce desired outcomes. Play those shots with care. If you hack a ball over the net for a winner raise your hand or racket to your opponent in acknowledgement. They appreciate it and it sends a message that you're a sportsman.

Recently Rafa was playing in the finals of the Davis Cup representing Spain against Argentina. Jaun Martin Del Potro was his 6'5'' opponent, a big strong guy who hits with the old fashioned (like Federer) eastern forehand grip. His strokes were powerful fastballs delivered from both wings. Rafa has the timing and defensive skills to heavy topspin and placements form all over the court. It was just good enough to best Del Potro in the fourth set tie-breaker for the match. Del Potro who is making a come back from injury played extremely well and cried passionately after the loss in Seville amongst a rowdy Spanish crowd. He pounded balls from corner to corner without much margin over the net or inside the court. He had to blast past the Spaniard. Very difficult on red clay to put a ball away. Many times he did. Until it came to fourth set when Rafa stuck the sword into the bull.  If it had been played in Argentina on a hard court would the result have been different? Yes the result would have been different. Most probably Argentina would have set up a hard court allowing Del Potro's flatter ball to run through the court.  Argentina did not have the home court and Rafa would put Spain on top of Davis Cup for the second year in a row.

Del Potro took the ball early (close to the baseline) and pushed Raffa around. The trouble was Raffa was too fast to the ball and simply returned too many shots with margin and Del Potros risky but good timing was not enough that day. That was the only timing he had to beat Raffa and he did the best he could. 2012 will be an interesting year with this guy back in the line-up on the ATP.

There was an example of different timing styles--one who hits heavy spin and sometimes flat and the other who hits very flat all the time.  One plays close to the line and takes things early while the other can play deep and send back enormous topspin balls that kick up into your shoulders or flatten it with tight spin when the ball is short.

How can you best develop timing? When you warm up start off easy. Hit balls that go slow and to your hitting partner. As your rallies develop pick up the pace gradually. When you have difficulty hitting a ten shot rally slow down and work at that level. This will give you great timing and you'll being training smart.

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