Serena Williams had a phenomenal year in 2012 with lots of big victories. She won Wimbledon, the Olympics, the US Open and the WTA year end championships in Turkey.
Whenever she is in good form she is by far the best player on the women’s tour. Serena is now certainly one of the best female players of all-time and today we will take a look at the lessons that you can learn from Serena.
Lessons From Serena Williams
1. Practice Confident Body Language
Serena Williams is a master in confident body language. She displays so much confidence by the way she walks and acts around the court that her opponents are often intimidated before the match has even started.
This can of course have a huge impact on the outcome of a match. We all know how important a good start is and many players really struggle with the beginning of a match against Serena because she displays so much confidence and with that intimidates her opponents.
Have A Look At Serena Pumping Herself Up In This Video
Serena is also known for playing little tricks on opponents minds before the match. About two years ago I practiced with German pro player Julia Görges and she told us several stories about these little tricks that Serena likes to play on her opponents minds before they even get on the court. Now I am not a huge fan of this kind of behaviour but you can achieve a similar effect simply by acting confident!
So How Can You Incorporate This Into Your Game ?
As a tennis player you really have to become a great actor on the court. We now know that our body language influences how we feel on the court!
So what that means is that when you practice confident body language you will automatically start to feel more confident and vice versa.
Serena is a great example for this. She has been practicing confident body language for a really long time and this combined with lots of victories has led to very strong self-belief as well as naturally confident body language!
Now I want to point out that positive body language alone will not help you grow more confident. It has to be combined with skills that you have on the court. A player with poor skills cannot build up a lot of confidence simply by acting more confident. He needs to develop better skills and practice more confident body language at the same time!
One of the quickest and most effective ways to develop confident body language is to copy players like Serena that already have it down. Next time you see her play go ahead and look at her body language between points and then go ahead and display similar body language when you play.
Watch For Serena’s Confident Body Language In These Highlights
2. Spend Hours On Your Serve
Serena’s serve is possibly the best in the history of women’s Tennis and Serena is known to spend countless hours practicing her serve. The serve sets the tone for all the points you play while serving and it heavily influences how you feel about your entire game.
What I find is that most recreational tennis players rarely go out to practice their serve. It is a great shot to practice by yourself and everybody that is serious about Tennis should be serving baskets on a regular basis!
So go ahead and ask yourself the question: How often and how deliberate do you really practice your serve ? If you play 3 times a week you should make room in every practice session to hit serves for at least 15 minutes in my opinion.
Serena’s Serve In Slow Motion: A Result Of Countless Hours Of Practice
One last thing to keep in mind though is that if you have poor technique on your serve, then even countless hours of practice will not help you much unless of course you spend those hours deliberately making changes to your technique.
If You Need Help With Your Serve Click Here For An Online Stroke Analysis
Allright. So much for now. Let me know your thoughts below!
