Novak Djokovic ended his season with his second victory at the Barclays ATP World Tour finals. He beat Roger Federer 7-6 7-5 in the finals and also finished the year as the number 1 ranked player in the world.
We of course have seen phenomenal development from Novak in recent years and in this post I want to take a close look at the lessons you can learn from Novak.
Lessons From Novak Djokovic
1. Master The Return Of Serve
The return of service is a crucial shot in Tennis and I believe it is definitely underpracticed and one of the areas where most rec players could make big improvements in a short period of time.
Novak is an excellent returner and we can see that from his stats. Novak finished 2012 as second best on the ATP Tour in Points Won Returning First Serve as well as Points Won Returning Second Serve.
So what’s the key to Novak’s great return and how does this relate to your game ?
One of the big keys to a great return is to start with a body turn and not with moving your arm!
As you can see in this video Novak initates the return with an upper body turn and throughout the whole motion his arm movement is minimized!
This will give you control and precision when returning first serves. If your opponent has an average or even weak second serve, you can of course take a bigger swing at the ball.
Most recreational players fail to turn the upper body and instead take a big swing at the ball with the arm. That’s one of the worst things you can do on a return of serve!
2. Never Stop Improving
Novak is a great example for a player that continues to improve over the years. We have seen him evolve in so many areas. His serve is better, his movement is better, he is tougher mentally and he also plays the net much better than a few years ago.
For those of you that don’t remember, Novak definitely was not the complete player he is now during his first few years on Tour.
Great Points From Novak Djokovic In 2011
As you can see in this video Novak has become an all-court player. He can do pretty much anything on the court, very similar to Roger Federer. The great thing about it though is that he has greatly improved a lot of these skills in recent years.
So What Does This Mean For Your Game ?
The message that I would like to bring to you with this post is that you can always improve your game, no matter how old you are or what level you are at currently.
Most importantly though, those tennis players that continuously work on improving are usually the tennis players that enjoy the sport the most!
Way too often players believe that they are too old to improve or simply accept the level that they are at because they have not managed to improve much in the past. This takes a big part away from the game and that part is the enjoyment from the constant struggle to improve.
Fortunately anybody can improve with the right information. I’ve had several students in their 80’s that were able to significantly improve certain aspects of their game.
Ok. So much for now. Please don’t hesitate to post your comments and or questions below!
