What did Paul Annacone think of Pete's elbow lead?
John Yandell on Paul Annacone and Pete Sampras:
I had an amazing experience with Paul Annacone when he was coaching Pete Sampras. I had the chance to show Paul a video analysis I did of Pete's backhand. The video showed Pete had developed a pronounced elbow lead and that when he missed backhand drives, he didn't quite make it to the straight arm contact position. Paul agreed and saw exactly what I saw in the video and he and I had a great talk about it. At the end I asked him if he wanted to take it to Pete.
"Oh I would never take it to Pete," he said. "Mind if I ask why?" I asked. "Because Pete doesn't think there's anything wrong with his backhand," was his answer.
Crazy?
Now that may sound crazy, but actually it makes complete sense if you understand players. The point is that for a player at the world class level, admitting that there is a significant technical problem on a particular stroke could cause a loss of overall confidence that might have a worse negative effect than the technical problem itself. That's what Paul believed about Pete anyway.
But this issue of confidence is actually a huge problem for any player at any level contemplating deconstructing a stroke. There is a high likelihood the process may initially or even permanently increase his frustration and have a negative impact on his results.
Trying to overcome the natural resistance of the player that stems from this just may be the biggest problem in coaching at all levels. This article explains how I address it.
Confidence is key, but how to develop it?
Confidence
Confidence is key for any tennis player. Any player looking to make a technical change faces a huge psychological and emotional challenge, not just a physical or motoric one. This potential crisis in confidence can undermine trying to learn the new technique and cause complete failures in technical development.
There is a saying in tennis: “It may be a bad backhand…but it's my backhand." Players and coaches can get frustrated and give up on important biomechanical changes due to emotional and psychological reasons rather than physiological ones.
A fundamental principle in Winning Pretty is that building or rebuilding technique is physical, mental, and emotional. How do we achieve this though?
In my coaching I have developed a useful model based on the classic cognitive-behavioral research of James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente to help guide coaches and players through the difficult phases of technique construction and rebuilding. It's critical to support the emotional and psychological health, and develop the confidence of a player during any technical change as much as focusing on the techniques themselves.
The Stages
In their classic 1983 study on smokers trying to quit, Prochaska and DiClemente explored their theory of the 5 stages of behavioral change. The fancy name for this is the transtheoretical model of change. It escribes the phases influencing motivation that an individual goes through when changing his or her habits.
Caption: The 5 stages of behavorial change.
The six stages of change in the transtheoretical model can be applied to tennis technical development in the following manner:
1. Precontemplation. In this stage, the player does not want to make the technical changes and may not even know that their technique is ineffective or inefficient. These athletes, if aware of the changes to be made, emphasize the negatives of making the change (the cons) in comparison to the positives (the pros).
2. Contemplation. In this stage, the athlete is considering making the proposed technical change in the near future. The player is aware that there may be a problem in his technique that is causing some errors or hurting performance. Nevertheless, there is still some ambivalence from the player about whether he should make the change or not, based on balancing the pros and the cons.
3. Preparation. This stage is sometimes described as the determination stage, in which the athlete is ready to take action soon and begin taking the steps necessary towards making the technical changes. Athletes may experiment with the change themselves, or book lessons with a coach to make the change, or watch videos or research the change online or in books and magazines. The athlete is now ready for change and convinced of the positive benefits.
4. Action. This stage is typified by the athlete actually making the technical changes and acquiring the new skill. The change may not be fully mastered yet, but the player is committed and diligently working on the technical change.
5. Maintenance. This stage describes the athlete's continued work to keep the technical changes intact and prevent a relapse of form. It's very common for players to lose their new techniques and revert to old motor patterns, so this is a very important stage in order to lock in technical gains.
6. Mastery. An athlete in this stage has fully acquired the new motor program and has forgotten how to swing or move the old way. The athlete performs the new technique subconsciously under duress in competition with no reversion to old habits. The player has no desire to return to the previously used technique.
The goal is mastery.
Tennis coaches and players should be aware that different strategies can be used to move a player through the stages to get to the Mastery phase. For example the use of video can document needed changes, provide models, and show players their progress.
But it's important to figure out where the athlete is in terms of readiness to make technical changes and work to move them with positive action towards that goal. One effective strategy described by Prochaska is “decisional balance," which means analyzing the pros and cons with the player to help convince them of the importance of making the change and the benefits the player will derive from the change.
Another strategy is to show the player examples of other athletes who have made similar changes and use those case studies to demonstrate the benefits of the change.
Again, using video can be helpful in this situation. In the Winning Pretty method, it's crucial to sell the player on the importance of any technical change in order to tip the psychological and emotional scales of decisional balance in favor of the new technique.
Another important concept in the research of Prochaska and DiClemente is self-efficacy, which describes a person's confidence in making specific behavior changes. Applied to tennis, self-efficacy is the belief of athletes that they will be able to successfully change their technique for the better.
Coaches need to connect with players emotionally.
This is different from the athlete's confidence in their game, which could actually work against their decision to make a technical change. Ther Pete Sampras story is a good example. Players need to believe that the changes will be manageable and achievable.
Coaches can help athletes develop this belief by emotionally connecting with them and supporting them on the technical journey with positive energy and encouragement. Without self-efficacy, the athlete simply won't be able to achieve a technical change, even if he believes it's in his or her self-interest to make the change. Coaches and parents need to help players by bolstering their self-efficacy and self-confidence levels.
The original stages of change model were meant to be cyclical in nurture, meaning people can move back and forth through the stages based on their motivation. It's possible that athletes can move backwards in the stages, sometimes referred to as relapse, if they lose self-efficacy or start to play worse and lose confidence in their games while making technical changes.
Relapse is extremely common and players often make some technical progress only to revert back to old technical habits during match play or live ball hitting. Preventing and addressing relapse is a major challenge for anyone working on changing technique.
Bollettieri was a master communicator.
Another concept in the literature is “to spiral upwards" after any relapse. Athletes should try to learn from every setback when they are building new techniques or trying to fix old technical habits in order to grow and eventually reach mastery. Moving players towards mastery and preventing relapse is essential when engineering any technical change.
These six stages can be modified and applied to the technique building and acquiring process. Developing tennis technique also requires a movement along the transtheoretical model.
It's important for coaches to help players move to a place where they are ready psychologically for change and to take action. Even if the correct checkpoints and progressions are given, a player who is not fully committed to developing or changing his or her technique will likely not succeed.
Getting the psychological buy-in from the athlete is as important as the technical adjustments themselves. The great Nick Bollettieri is famous for saying, “It's not what you know as a coach that matters, it's how you deliver it baby!"
Coaches often get bogged down in technical minutiae or obsess about details in video analysis without remembering that there is a human being on the other end of the conversation who must be convinced about the merits of the change and that he can do it!
That's the art of coaching rather than the science. The art of great communication is critical, not just technical knowledge. Technical transformation simply will not occur without the athlete being fully motivated to change.
Diagram 2.5: The Six Stages of Technique Building
Players will progress through these stages to achieve the final stage--technical mastery
Changing Mind and Emotion
As I said, a fundamental principle in Winning Pretty is that building or rebuilding technique is a physical, mental, and emotional transformation all wrapped up into one. Emotional buy-in and mental commitment are required in the technical formation and reformation process
Relapse or reversion is always going to be the outcome if decisional balance is not addressed and the athlete is not convinced that the pros of change outweigh the cons.
Chris Lewit is a leading high-performance coach, author, and educator. He is the author of the best-selling book Secrets of Spanish Tennis 2.0, which is now available, and a new technique book, Winning Pretty, which will be published by New Chapter Press in paperback in 2026. He is also a contributing editor for Tennisplayer.net magazine and a long-time member of the RSPA and PTR. As an educator, he has presented at several large conferences, including the PTR International Tennis Symposium. Chris studied religion and literature at Cornell, Harvard, and Columbia, and is currently pursuing a PhD in kinesiology and biomechanics.
As a player, Chris Lewit played No. 1 for Cornell University and competed on the USTA and ITF pro circuits. As a coach, he has recently worked with several No. 1 junior players in the US and has trained hundreds of nationally ranked juniors. He directs a boutique full-time academy for homeschool/online players and a high-performance summer camp program, as well as high-performance training for all ages and levels, all at his club in the beautiful green mountains of Manchester, Vermont.
Chris Lewit Tennis
World-Class Technical Training
Expert in Spanish and European Training Methods
New York, New York and Londonderry, Vermont
914-462-2912
Contact Chris directly by phone/WhatsApp at 914-462-2912 or chris@chrislewit.com.
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