Learning to Play

American players hit the ball as well as any players in the world. If you see how American kids play, I think the forehands and backhands and serves are as good as the players in the rest of the world, but in general they don’t play as well in matches. When I watch juniors play matches they often seem “disconnected” from one shot to the next.  I think this is because we don’t emphasize point play enough.  We don’t emphasize the reasons you should hit the ball to certain places at certain times, or where your court position should be.  The way I see it American kids are more used to hitting balls than really playing matches. The kids don’t play enough practice matches and they don’t understand what the actual meaning and purpose of these matches should be.  We have kids that hit the ball as well as anybody, but they don’t play as well when it counts. This problem could also relate to the fact that American juniors play mainly on hard courts.  There is very little clay court play. When you play on fast surfaces the majority of the time, I think it’s a little tougher to…