Well, another week and another week of hard work and progress!

Great job to everyone this week. We had a very positive and energetic week and I congratulate all for their efforts.

On to week 9.
We will be focusing on more point play and starting the point with the serve and the return.
Emphasis will be on location of the first 2 shots and how to take control of the point as efficiently as possible.
We will be spending each day with different serve types and placements as well as which shot(s) to be looking for in return. We will also be looking at how to return each serve and how to get into the point as the returner. This will include serve and volley, use of the slice, placement of the second serve, where to return each of the serves and how to go on offence from a first serve and second serve.
During point play there will be a continuation of week 8: finishing the point. This will still include looking to finish with the forehand, closing in on the net and winning with the down the line.
Tournament season is just around the corner and all the pieces over the past few months are now, hopefully going to fall into the place together (very similar to the Cowboys season)
To all, make sure you continue your work in the gym, stay on top of the fitness plan you have and are working towards.

Also, we will be asking all players to have a look at the new tournament schedule for the new year and will be discussing which tournaments everyone should be playing to achieve their personal goals. pleas have a look at the ota website this week and we will see you all on the courts!

keep it up!

Mike and Drago

Hello again, and welcome to week 8.

We begin this week by discussing what has been worked on since we started.
Consistency, footwork, positioning, seeing the court better, opening up the court and staying in the rally long enough and tough enough to earn an opportunity. Well, all of this is great, but now its time to use this part of the game to enter the next phase: Winning The Point.
We started last week with one practice where we touched on this subject and we will continue this week looking into how to finally win the point.
Its important to stay in the rally and important to be patient in developing the opportunity, but once we get it, we have to be able to capitalize on it. this brings us into week 8.
We will be working on taking the opportunity and finishing the point. This will include, hitting bigger, going to the net, looking for winners, moving forwards into the court and finally hitting down the line....
We will be doing a combination of set scenarios to start a point, as well as open play to identify the opportunities within the point.
Hopefully this week will allow players to see the payoff for all their hard work and commitment over the past 2 months and now be able to benefit by putting a check mark into the win column.

Look forward to an exciting week,

see you guys on the courts!!

Mike and Drago

Stay tuff. Stay in the point.

Hello and welcome back for another week. 

This week we will continue to build off of last weeks goal and purpose and continue to work on keeping the ball in play.  Building such a foundation takes a solid amount of mental effort and habit building, so another week of this is just what the doctor ordered.  We will continue to focus on the type of ball that we are choosing to play as the instigator as well as the type of ball we are countering with. The key to building a point is patience and understanding of the court. In order to develop an opportunity we have to have the patience to keep the rally going and not pull the trigger to soon.  To work the cross and try and open up the court for the chance to hit the down the line shot. Or hit heavy enough to force a short ball that we can approach the net on. Both of these goal involve working the cross court and to do this it takes excellent footwork, balance and  positioning behind the ball.  These bring me to the next topic. The gym!

Let's make sure that in this "offseason" time frame we continue working hard on our stamina and speed. Our shot is only as good as our position. 

On a side note: to all players please check out the academy newsletter. 

     http://eepurl.com/bEgKiL. 

We look forward to seeing everyone out this week and to seeing continued progress..

Mike and Drago. 

Hello All!,

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween.

I know Drago loves chocolate very  much so please feel free to bring as many little snacks to him as possible.

The itf event in Burlington wrapped up this weekend and a big congrats to all the players for their solid efforts and play. Special shout out to Ivan Mitric for making the finals. Those points will go a long way going forwards.

Also, shout out to Fed, for finally beating Nadal in a final. For 34 he still looks like he has game!

...and now on to our week ahead....

we will continue to build on last weeks themes: staying in the point, playing tougher on defence, using bigger targets on the court when pulled off in order to extend the point. and we will also be adding getting deeper into the point. running through different scenarios where the point wont start until certain restrictions or numbers are meet.

the goal is to keep pushing ourselves physically and more so mentally to believe and fight for points deeper into the rally. extending our breaking point: the moment when we make a lazy or low percentage decision that costs us the shot.
Sometimes we tend to believe that tennis is about making highlight shots. Although fun, the 1 out 10 times that this works doesn't balance out the other 9 times we end up losing the point. We as players, need to believe that a ball in play is really the number one focus and to do whatever it takes to make that happen. this week, we will.....

to all players using this time as their off season, for training, please make sure you are following your plans and schedules at the gym and that you are still finding time to get set and match play in over the weekends.

Have a great week everyone and see you on the courts!

Mike and Drago