Legendary tennis coach and onetime Pelham resident Nick Bollettieri is back from Wimbledon and took the time to share some thoughts from his fortnight there:
My trip to Wimbledon was fantastic in so many ways, including my full page daily articles for The Independent and ,for the first time, doing BBC Radio worldwide each day on high-profile matches.
There were so many trends I was able to observe since our commentary box was so close to the baseline on Centre Court.
1.Roger Federer’s backhand reached a very high level of excellence, because his wrist was totally relaxed when hitting his one-handed backhand. By increasing his racket head speed, he had much more control, because of a little spin on his backhands.
2.Roger has soft hands but he also disguises his drop shots and angles with the same motion until he makes contact with the ball.
3.Andy Murray gained a great deal of credibility from the men’s tour, the spectators, TV reporters and, writers, etc. but he also gained respect from his support team and most important, from himself.
4.Ivan Lendl brings a few simple but so important factors to Andy Murray.
a.Ivan was a past champion and has experienced all the ups and downs that Andy is going through, but finally Andy is listening versus talking too much .
b.Ivan knows when you must play defensively but also when to turn it on like an after-burner of an F-18 Hornet.
c.Ivan also told Andy that you just can’t wait for your opponent to miss a ball. You must go for it!
5.Serena Williams is special-special-special. When she is healthy and hungry, she will win just about all the time
6.The serving motion of Serena is as smooth as silk with a rhythm that just flows without one ripple of disturbance. It is flat out beautiful to watch.
a. Special Bulletin- All of you tennis players, be sure to see what she does after releasing the ball at eye level. She then extends her arm totally upward to the sky with her head and body going up to the ball.
7. No matter how good you are, you must be able to play both offensive and defensive tennis.
