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Tennis Mastery
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HOME! Order Tennis Mastery Easy Order Information! *ADVANCED BOOK PURCHASES WHO should READ Tennis Mastery? Tennis Mastery is really the first tennis book written for EVERY level of tennis player as well as the Tennis Teaching Professional. Take a look at how this book WILL help YOU! St. George Tennis Academy The finest local tennis-teaching program in Southern Utah! See the program setting the standard in tennis! Desert Shadows Tennis Institute Coming soon! A National Tennis Destination Experience where you can learn the "Advanced Foundation" from the author of TENNIS MASTERY! Read what people are saying about TENNIS MASTERY! Find out what all the excitement is all about! Ask Dave Contact Information E-Mail or write David W. Smith |
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| The Most Complete Guide to Learning, Developing and MASTERING the sport of tennis! |
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| What is the ADVANCED FOUNDATION? | |
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David Smith has found through 30 years of teaching exactly how some tennis methods that are “transitory” in methodology, have created millions of mediocre tennis players. Transitional teaching is the concept of teaching a “beginner” method that must be changed completely if the student hopes to reach “skilled” levels of play, (and reach their TRUE potential!)
The ADVANCED FOUNDATION is a method of tennis teaching that does not require abandonment of specific techniques for player progression. It allows for player evolution, idiosyncrasies, and continued player development WITHOUT the frustrating need to make specific changes. |
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DAVID W. SMITH
Author’s Biography For 30 years, David Smith has been a tennis player, coach, and educator. His playing accomplishments included setting almost every high school tennis record at Garden Grove High School in Southern California. After playing number one singles for Rancho Santiago Community College and for California State University, Fullerton, Dave joined his father, nationally recognized tennis coach Bruce Smith at La Quinta High School in Westminster, California. The two Smiths created a dynasty that lasted 22 years—winning 768 team league matches against only 9 loses. At one point, they had won 398 straight team matches. In 1991 David moved to Phoenix where his wife Kerri did her residency in pediatrics. While there, he served as the assistant pro at the Five-Star Wigwam Resort and helped direct the country club’s junior player development program. In addition, David took his coaching skills to rural Arizona and won over 300 team boys and girl’s tennis matches and lost only 15 times in a 6-year period. In 1997 David and his wife Kerri moved to St. George, Utah. There he was hired as the head pro at the Green Valley Tennis Club. After nearly three years, he wanted to develop his brand of tennis programming and left to open the St. George Tennis Academy. Today, the SGTA trains over 150 junior players and over 50 adults. Over the past 5 years, David has written over 50 tennis related articles for various publications including two feature articles for USPTA’s ADDvantage Magazine and several feature articles for the Belgium tennis magazine, “Tennis and Coach”. Currently, David is a staff writer and contributing editor for www.tennisone.com, the country’s number-one rated tennis educational web site. In January of 2004, David will have his first book, Tennis Mastery published, a book that takes a close look at tennis teaching philosophies and methodologies that have been perpetuated over the past thirty years. In 2002, David won the seminar contests for both California and the Intermountain USPTA conventions. In 2003, Dave took 3rd place in the National Seminar Speaker’s competition at the World USPTA Convention in Hollywood Florida. Over the 29 years, David has taught over 3500 players including over 100 state, national or world-ranked individuals. In addition to tennis, David has been a semi-professional magician and former lead guitar and bass player for several popular southern California bands. He is married with one daughter and one son, Kyla who is 5 years old and Keaton Bruce who is 10 months old. His wife is Dr. Kerri Smith, a pediatrician in St. George. |
| David Smith’s History! | |
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1972 - 1976 Garden Grove City Parks and Recreation, Garden Grove CA
Tennis Instructor
1978-1984 Walt Disney Productions Disneyland, Anaheim CA Operations and Guest Relations |
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1985 - 1991 Garden Grove Unified School District Garden Grove, CA
High School Teacher and Coach
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1991 - 1993 Wigwam Resort and Country Club Litchfield Park, AZ
Assistant Tennis Professional; Player Development Coordinator
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1992 - 1997 Agua Fria Union High School Avondale, AZ
High School Teacher and Coach |
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1999-2001 Green Valley Spa and Tennis Resort St. George UT
Head Tennis Professional |
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2001 - Current Owner-Director: St. George Tennis Academy, St. George UT
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Dave Smith’s Tennis Vitae
USPTA Awards and Service
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PUBLICATIONS
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Excerpts From Tennis MasteryChapter 1The Advanced Foundation: A NEW Philosophy Two Classes of Tennis Players (Which are you? Or, which will you become?) 
Tennis, perhaps more than any other sport, has two distinct “classes” of players: in one court there are those who progressively improve and reach what is generally recognized as “accomplished” or “skilled” levels of play. On the other side of our proverbial net are those who learn basic skills, then promptly stagnate at a particular ability level, usually at the 3.0 or 3.5 NTRP levels. (To those just starting out, the NTRP—National Tennis Rating Program—levels go from a 1.0 beginner to a 7.0 professional.) To the untrained eye or to an inexperienced individual this distinction or realization of specifically two classes may be difficult to recognize. However, it can’t be argued that there are countless tennis players who have played for years, if not decades, who have not improved past the 3.0 or 3.5 level! Of the 12 million tennis players in the United States more than three-quarters of them reside perpetually at the 3.0 or 3.5 levels or below. This statement is not meant to offend anyone or insinuate that players at these levels are incapable of playing high-level tennis. On the contrary, it is my intention to prove that virtually all players, including those who currently reside at the 3.0 or 3.5 levels, are indeed perfectly capable of playing higher levels of tennis… much higher! |
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Chapter 2 Discovering the “Advanced Foundation” 
One of the most debated subjects in tennis is the concept that there is more than one way to hit a tennis ball. No one should dispute this statement as it can be witnessed on tennis courts all across the country. There are, indeed, multitudes of techniques that allow a person to hit a tennis ball over the net. However, if we are discussing how many different ways skilled players hit the ball over the net, we narrow down the options considerably. Just as in any sport there are fundamental tennis methods that are recognized as skilled, advanced, and/or expert. Likewise, there are other techniques that can be clearly recognized as beginner, rudimentary, and/or underdeveloped. In tennis vernacular, terms like “dinker” and “hacker” are sometimes used to describe those who don’t play tennis skillfully! There is a common saying in tennis: “Dinkers have tons of trophies.” While this statement is usually more true than not, it is very misleading. The reason for this is that most dinkers only play tournaments at the 3.0 or 3.5 levels and they seldom, if ever, progress past these levels. Through years of experience in such levels, dinkers will initially beat developing players, those who are working on developing strokes associated with skilled play. Yet, players who are dedicated to learning and practicing within the Advanced Foundation eventually pass such dinkers and move on to higher levels of skilled play. |
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Chapter 3 The Advanced Foundation: Defining Tennis Mastery 
Progressive Stroke patterns, those that will provide sustained improvement, makes up what we call the Advanced Foundation as it applies to the actual methods of hitting a tennis ball. It is obvious that players who want to play tennis well will need to be able to replicate desirable strokes under the pressure of competition. There are many people who can hit nearly flawlessly off a ball machine or a wall. However, when they get on the court against another human player, the realization that their stroke patterns are not reliable is exposed. Thus, it is critical that players learn an equally important foundation: the “Practice Foundation”. The Practice Foundation describes how the player will acquire and then incorporate the desired strokes in actual competitive environments. Before you can acquire any semblance of Tennis Mastery, you must have a clear understanding of its definition. Like taking a trip without a predetermined destination, your journey to reaching Tennis Mastery will be short lived without knowing where you’re headed! And without knowing where you’re going, determining how you will get there will be a true practice in futility and a complete waste of time!
Definition:
Tennis Mastery is the summation of all the elements a player must acquire to compete successfully at any level, against any opponent, under all conditions, and within all circumstances. Notice that I have written “successfully” in Italics. Notice also that the word “winning” is conspicuously missing in this definition. The reason for this omission is intentional; its absence is used to emphasize that you don’t have to win to be successful. Oftentimes, people only associate being successful with winning. However, many of us who have been playing tennis a while have engaged a tough opponent, perhaps far superior than we, and yet walked away feeling like we played the best tennis of our life… even though we lost! |
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Chapter 4 The Advanced Foundation: What makes up Tennis Mastery Elements of Tennis Mastery What are all the “elements” of Tennis Mastery that I referred to earlier that a player must acquire? You might guess them to be things like a topspin backhand, a great second serve, or a killer instinct. If these were some of the things that came to mind, you would be correct… but only partially. In reality, those are just a fraction of all the elements that make up Tennis Mastery. Simply put, all the elements that indeed make up Tennis Mastery can be grouped within two main categories:
It has been said that tennis is over 60% a mental component. At some levels it is, perhaps, an even higher percentage. Of course, if faulty or unfamiliar strokes prevent you from being able to hit a ball over the net, tennis at that point is 100% a mechanical component! Forget knowing why hitting a crosscourt groundstroke  has certain advantages over a down-the-line, or that developing techniques to block out mental distractions will help prevent choking; you’re not going to win any points if you can’t cause the ball to land on your opponent’s side of the court! (Nor will you have much fun!)
In this book you will discover the secrets to mastering both mental and mechanical tennis, and, hopefully, in the process find yourself fewer times on the losing side of one of those 6 - 0 matches! Understanding how these two integral parts of Tennis Mastery work and addressing them throughout your development will help you become not just a better tennis player, but also a tennis champion!
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Chapter 5 The Advanced Foundation: Preparation "Before you pick up a racket" Proactive On-Court and Off-Court There are two basic types of on-court players: Proactive and Reactive. The reactive player waits to see what will happen and bases his shot selection after his opponent has made his shot. This reactive player tends to stand still after hitting his shots, watching and waiting to see the result or the effectiveness. The proactive player looks for opportunities and often anticipates his opponent’s shots before they are hit. For example, a proactive doubles player who sees that his partner has hit a deep return crosscourt where the opponent is moving back, will move in and begin to anticipate a weak return to the open half of the court. As a result, he will usually have an easy volley for a winner by poaching, knowing where the opponent will likely hit the ball. The ability of being proactive while playing tennis is usually something that is developed over time and when the right types of practices are instituted. However, being proactive is not reserved strictly for on-court competition. A player can be proactive before he or she ever picks up a tennis racket! |
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Chapter 6 The Advanced Foundation: Making Practice Count Practice Philosophies Whether you are a beginner or a tournament competitor, your on-court success and over-all Tennis Mastery will come primarily from the way you practice. Obviously, if you practice poor form and improper technique, your game will be composed of faulty and unreliable strokes. Therefore, it is paramount that your practice routine be centered on proper form and systematic procedures. This will allow you to achieve not only on-court success, but to accomplish this success in a timely manner. Obviously, nothing can replace experience…and gaining experience will take time. This time of gaining experience includes practice experience, competitive experience, and one other form of experience: "thinking experience"! |
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Chapter 7 Technique and Form within the Advanced Foundation: The Mechanical Side of Tennis Introduction of Mechanics More books are written on the form and mechanical side of tennis than of any other aspect of playing the game. Perhaps more than any sport, more energy has been consumed by individuals in the pursuit of tennis techniques and form through videos, workshops, camps, and professional instruction. No other sport, with the possible exception of golf, offers the kinds of opportunity for players (and instructors!) to learn (or teach) the game of tennis. This book is a culmination of many instructional texts, including tennis research and basic biomechanical education that I have studied for over 30 years. From three decades of playing, teaching, and coaching tennis, I have found quintessential techniques for every player who wants to learn this game. For those of you who are in pursuit of that edge, that elusive shot, or a way to develop an all-around game, these next few chapters will help propel you to a higher level of tennis mechanics, and, thus, one step closer to that pinnacle called Tennis Mastery. |
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Chapter 8 The Advanced Foundation: The Volley 
Generally, there are two ways the volley has been taught throughout the history of tennis instruction. Most texts advocate the Eastern forehand and backhand grips for the novice player. The Eastern grips, the same used for hitting “conventional” topspin groundstrokes, are arguably easier for beginning players to “volley” a simple shot over the net. However, in assessing the need for player development most books recommend that players who want to progress past this basic volley capacity will need to make the change to the more “advanced” volley grip, the Continental. As I have alluded in earlier parts of this book, such a transitional learning process is not only detrimental to the student, it is usually excruciatingly frustrating for most players. Those who discover that they do, indeed, need to make a significant change in their volley at some point will meet considerable physical and even emotional resistance! I have found in my 29 years of tennis teaching experience that it is not necessary whatsoever to learn one method first only to have to switch at some time in a player’s development. If a player applies the tools and methods described in this chapter, it will take most players no more time to learn the “advanced” Continental volley than it would to learn how to hit with the more elementary Eastern gripped volley. Save yourself a future of heartache and headache! Develop your volley with the Continental grip and never look back! |
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Chapter 9 The Backhand Groundstroke The Advanced Foundation: The Topspin and Slice Backhand 
Introduction
For many recreational tennis players the prospect of hitting a backhand groundstroke can induce a sense of fear unequaled to anything short of asking your girlfriend’s father for his daughter’s hand in marriage! The backhand has often been associated with weakness in most players’ games initiating an entire strategy among many opponents: “Hit it to his backhand and attack.” “Just keep it to her backhand and you’re in the next round.” 
This generality exists due to several factors. The first factor being that the proper form for hitting a backhand is not initially comfortable for most players. Players who don’t receive adequate instruction (or don’t apply the same!) often find themselves flailing at their backhands with a complete lack of feel and form required to execute an accurate and reliable stroke. Thus, anxiety and fear creep in every time the ball is hit to the backhand side of the court! Sweat forms on the forehead and the palms of a player’s hand, not due to exertion necessarily, but often due to the stress and fear of simply hitting a backhand! Players will often run around their backhand to hit the forehand instead...even if it exerts twice the energy!
What creates this fear is that for most players (those who have not developed the proper backhand technique) find hitting the ball on the backhand side incredibly difficult. This difficulty can result in a tremendous lack of confidence, and a lack of confidence often leads to some very ugly and unproductive backhands! However, players who work towards the development of proper and skilled backhands usually find that their backhand does not have to be a handicap!
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Chapter 10 The Advanced Foundation: The Forehand Groundstroke One and Two-handed Forehand strokes Historically for both the recreational player and the pro, the forehand groundstroke has been looked upon as the more confident—if not the more dominant—stroke for most. However, since the advent of the two-handed backhand now being employed by an ever-increasing number of players, we are seeing a trend in which many players are becoming more consistent as well as more confident with the backhand than the forehand. In some cases, players are even hitting more aggressively with their two-handed backhands than their forehands. Compared to the flawed one-handed backhands that so many individuals attempted, the one-handed forehand has been mechanically easier to hit correctly with more control and consistency. Traditionally, the power and perceived reliability of the forehand was relative only to the weakness of the player’s backhand. Now that the two-handed backhand has been proven to be generally a more reliable, and for some, a more dominant stroke than its predecessor (the one-handed backhand), the forehand for many players is now the suspect stroke. |
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Chapter 11 The Advanced Foundation: 
The Serve Introduction The serve has always been viewed as either a weapon or a liability for most players. Players who possess highly effective serves have a substantial edge in competition: they already have half the games well in hand! Consequently, a level of confidence seems to follow good servers into competitive arenas. However, weak servers possess a sense of dread when it comes time for them to serve. These players often elect to receive first, even though they may have won the choice of serve or side, just to delay the mortification of displaying their contemptible serve! |
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Chapter 12 The Advanced Foundation: The Overhead 
The overhead is one of the most curious tennis strokes. The reason I say this is that, for some, the overhead is anticipated with almost salivary glee. For others, attempting the overhead is fraught with dread and trepidation. And for still others, hitting an overhead is simply not an option; these players opt to take any high ball and either let it bounce and run it down, or let it drop in order to volley the ball instead. Certainly, player strategies can almost eliminate the need for an overhead. There are those players who simply refuse to come to the net. When forced to move towards the net, these players, following a shot near the net, retreat, scurrying back to the baseline as fast as possible. It seems as if the net were radioactive or some sinister monster! |
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Chapter 13 Mental Tennis within the Advanced Foundation 
Mental Tennis can take on many definitions in how it relates to player performance on a tennis court. Many people associate “Mental Toughness” as being the all-encompassing phrase used to define an accomplished tennis player. This broad term has, indeed, been written about in tennis texts for decades. However, Mental Toughness is just a part of the overall “Mental” picture. Mental Tennis includes more. It includes both on and off-court preparation and understanding; it includes mental toughness training, and it includes something that can’t be gained in practice: Competitive Experience. Many players fail to recognize these associations. Thus, many of these individuals fail to study and, ultimately, are unaware of how they can and should train for the Mental Tennis aspects of tennis. |
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Chapter 14 Singles Strategies within the Advanced Foundation Introduction to Singles Strategies Simply put, Singles Strategies can run the gamut of possibilities. Depending on a player’s personality, strengths and weaknesses, and stroke preferences, any number of strategies can be favored. Certainly, the ability to change strategies based on our opponent’s strengths and weaknesses is a blessing to all players. Most current top players possess the ability to effectively change their particular game plan in relative increments to counter their opponent’s game. However, it is often advisable to stay within strategies with which you are most comfortable and confident. Play to make those strategies work against every possible opponent. Certainly, many strategies have become hallmarks for individuals and have often become the strategies which others have come to emulate. My best advice to you is to watch as much professional tennis as possible, pick players who you feel play a style and strategy which you imagine yourself playing. Then, imitate these players as best you can within a strategy that exemplifies your own personality, strengths and weaknesses. |
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Chapter 15 Doubles Strategies within the Advanced Foundation Introduction to Doubles Strategies Amazingly, even though more than 80% of the general tennis-playing public in the United States plays mainly doubles, over 90% of televised tennis is singles play! It is no wonder that a vast majority of amateur players don’t play doubles nearly as well as they could or should! Seldom do these players get a chance to see high-level doubles in action. Yet, good doubles play is extraordinarily dependent on key strategies, and, sometimes dependent on specific player positions and movements decided by events that frequently change during a rapid exchange of shots. The central strategy in doubles is quite simple, however: hit shots that your opponents can’t return. Or, even more simply stated, “make em’ miss!” However, similar to singles play, as a player develops shots and strokes that are more deliberate, consistent, effective, and diversified, the strategies of doubles play becomes more defined and complex. Unlike singles, where just getting the ball over the net can be sufficient to beat a multitude of players, in doubles such a strategy can often be fatal! With a net man located just steps off the net, a shot in singles that would normally be a safe, routine shot can be rejected with authority by a doubles net player. Often, players who possess less dominant stroke mechanics can still be dominant in doubles against players possessing much more refined strokes. This is usually a result of such players acquiring experience and knowledge in these key doubles strategies. Thus, it is paramount for players to learn not only an advanced stroke foundation as presented in this book, but they should also learn strategies associated with playing effective doubles. |
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Chapter 16 Understanding Tennis Equipment Knowing how to skillfully play tennis opens up many new understandings about the game. One of these understandings involves tennis equipment...namely how the multitude of tennis paraphernalia—from strings, to rackets, to grips, to shoes—can help players reach peak levels of performance. While even beginners to intermediate players can feel a difference between various types of rackets or strings or grips, it isn’t until a player has mastered the game that equipment can provide legitimate help. For example, recognizing that one racket feels different than another is not going to help change inferior stroke patterns. However, the subtle advantage of some equipment over others becomes more of an advantage when a player becomes proficient in the sport. Players who have mastered proper strokes are more in tune with the feel and touch they are afforded by various rackets, grips, and other equipment. Moreover, the appreciation for these subtle differences are magnified as skilled players gets better. |
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Photo Gallery (Photos by David W. Smith) 
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