| | | Welcome to the May 2021 update from Tennis Server, http://www.tennisserver.com/  Greetings,  In his May column, John Mills examines why tennis is great for your mental, physical and social health. See: " It's Not Just About Winning or Losing".  In his reprised column in this newsletter below, Tennis Warrior Tom Veneziano explains how to play a pusher (a player that hits a lot of balls back, usually with no pace) when you are not as consistent as they are. See: "Pusher Power!."  Also see Ron Waite's Turbo Tennis column in our archives: When "Push" Comes to Shove.  Please be careful out there. Be sure to do your part to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by getting vaccinated, and read this guide from the USTA: Playing Tennis Safely during the time of COVID-19: Player Tips and Recommendations.  Have fun on the court!  Cliff Kurtzman Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Tennis Server   Please feel free to forward this newsletter to a friend, and suggest that they go to http://www.tennisserver.com/ to sign up for their own free subscription.  We will miss you if you leave, but if you should decide that you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, just click here to unsubscribe.   The Tennis Warrior by Tom Veneziano Â
 The Tennis Warrior is brought to you by Tom Veneziano (tom@tennisserver.com). Tom is a tennis pro teaching at the Piney Point Racquet Club in Houston, Texas. Tom has taught thousands of players to think like a pro with his Tennis Warrior System.  Pusher Power!  How do you play a pusher (a player that hits a lot of balls back, usually with no pace) when you are not as consistent? Playing a pusher can be frustrating, but you should know that the pusher wins often because he or she is playing tennis with the correct principles. Consistency wins! Even if you hit a lot of winners, you must be consistent.  Since you are not as consistent as the pusher you will have to change your tactics and explore other options. Below are a couple of different options you can explore. Try to be a little bit more patient when rallying from the baseline. Do not go for too much too soon! Wait for the first relatively short ball and head for the net. Not just once, but over and over and over and over and over again. Be relentless! Explore different placements with your approach shot - to their forehand, to their backhand, down the middle, etc. Pushers do not hit hard so if you can create enough pressure you will have many opportunities at the net. If you can also serve and volley, give that a try. You can not volley well? Then stay on the baseline, hit some short balls, and bring the pusher up to the net. See how well he or she can volley and hit overheads. The key is to not just stay back and rally with a pusher. You must break it up and keep pressure on them by exploring different options. Of course, this may require you to take more chances and fail more often, but you have been reading the excellent instruction articles from TennisServer.com for months and you are prepared! In short, you must take control and attempt to dictate the terms to the pusher. You may even have to rally a little bit, pick a short ball, and go for a winner. If you do not dictate the terms you will just rally back and forth, get some exercise, and lose. Become a pusher yourself. At least the consistent part of their game! Adding a little patience to ones game will do wonders for anyone. Will you still lose with some of these tactics? Maybe, maybe not, but at least you gave yourself the best opportunity to succeed under the conditions. A true Tennis Warrior mentality! What you learn from the experience will be useful the next time you play that same type of player.  Mental Toughness is the accumulation of valuable information to be utilized at the proper time. To beat a pusher you must constantly accumulate enough on-court knowledge to play them intelligently and offset their strength (a never ending flow of balls coming at you).  Your Tennis Pro,  Tom Veneziano       In Tom Veneziano's book "The Truth about Winning!", tennis players learn in a step-by-step fashion the thinking the pros have mastered to win! Tom takes you Step-by-step from basic mental toughness to advanced mental toughness. All skill levels can learn from this unique book from beginner to professional. No need to change your strokes just your thinking. Also available at a discount as an E-Book.  Audio CDs by Tom Veneziano:  The Refocus Technique: Controlling Your Emotions in Tennis.  Think Like a Pro -- 2 Audio CDs. Three minute free sample (real audio): http://www.tenniswarrior.com/audio/sample_audio.ram  Training for Pressure Play -- Audio CD. Four minute free sample (real audio): http://www.tenniswarrior.com/audio/pressure-play-sample.ram   Becoming a Tennis Server Sponsor/Advertiser  Our readers continually tell us they are hungry for information on tennis-related products, equipment, tournaments, and travel opportunities. There is no better way to reach the avid online tennis audience than through the Tennis Server. For information on advertising through our web site or in this newsletter, please contact us by using this form or call us at (281) 480-6300.  We have a variety of sponsorship programs available, and we can connect you with a highly targeted tennis audience at rates that are lower than many web sites charge for reaching a general audience.   Linking to the Tennis Server   We frequently receive requests from people for a graphic to use in linking from their site to the Tennis Server site. We've created a graphic at:  http://www.tennisserver.com/images/button.gif  that you are welcome to use in conjunction with a link to http://www.tennisserver.com/. You are welcome to copy this graphic and use it on your site for this purpose. Please be sure to include an ALT tag with the graphic: ALT="Tennis Server".   Newsletter Ground Rules  The Tennis Server and the Tennis Server Newsletter are copyrighted publications. "Tennis Server" is a registered trademark and "Center Court for Tennis on the Internet" is a trademark of Tennis Server. This newsletter, along with the editorial and photographs on the tennisserver.com web site, are copyrighted by Tennis Server and its contributors.  Our newsletters cover updates to the Tennis Server and other tennis information of general interest. Mailings occur approximately once a month. The newsletter sometimes contains commercial tennis-related content from Tennis Server sponsors.  Tennis Server earns a small commission if books or other products are purchased using links to Amazon.com on our web site or in our newsletter.  We keep the addresses of mailing list subscribers confidential. If someone asks us to distribute tennis- related materials to the mailing list, we might do so for them, and we might charge them for doing so if there is commercial content to the message.  See you on the courts,  --Cliff Kurtzman for Tennis Server  | | |
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