Pancho Williams, the tennis pro at Boca Royale Golf & Country Club, grew up in Panama and went on to play international professional tennis. This month, Pancho shares lessons about health and tennis with Venice Lifestyle. Pancho says, “Tennis is a lifetime sport. You can play until you are 90 years old. You have to maintain your health, but you don’t need to jog or workout hard. You must maintain yourself for explosive movement. You have to be fast getting to the ball in tennis. It’s really important to stretch your heels, calves and shoulders before you begin to play. You use so much of your shoulder when you play tennis, your forehand, backhand and serve all use it. You need more than ten minutes warm up. An experienced player will warm up serves, groundstrokes and volleys before they begin to play. Your average player hits a few balls and says they are ready. But they are only ready to get injured! Stretch and take care of yourself and you can play tennis all through your life.”
Forehand volley: The biggest problem when it comes to the forehand volley is that it is difficult for beginners to transition to being an advanced player. We tell them they have to turn sideways. In tennis, everything is sideways. Even with good players, when the ball is coming faster at the more advanced level, they cannot get the racket ahead of the ball quickly enough. So I want them to position their racket first and then step into the ball. The body will follow the racket.
Serving: Newer players have a hard time transferring from a Western grip to a Continental grip. That’s where most of the problems are in the serve. And they don’t toss the ball in front of them, they toss it behind them. I tell them to locate their opponent and toss the ball toward the opponent. When they do that, they are reaching for the ball and transferring their body weight into it.
Backhand volley: On the backhand volley, players should move into the net in the same way that they would with the forehand volley. Keep the body sideways and lead with the racket. Be aggressive and keep your eye on the ball. A backhand should be no more daunting than a forehand. Work on your backhand until you have confidence in it.
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