Important Tennis

The best form of Westerman’s instruction.
I am guessing that most recreational tennis players are already familiar with Ian Westerman through his online site, Essential Tennis. He is a prolific producer of instructional videos, blog posts, and podcasts. Based on that my first look this book may be the best packaging of Westerman’s message yet.The book Essential Tennis benefits from years of experience as Westerman crafted and refined his instructional philosophy. To say that he is extremely process focused is an understatement. As an example of the level of detail, the book asserts that players should develop an awareness of their most effective learning styles to optimize their tennis improvement journey. Essential Tennis hits the sweet spot for those of us that do best with written forms of instruction.Westerman is a strong advocate of tennis improvement through complex and highly detailed stroke progression sequences. For that reason, some tennis players seem to regard Westerman as an exclusively technique focused instructor. However, Essential Tennis packs in a wide variety of critical success factors for tennis improvement. That includes the improvement lifecycle, off-court preparation, tactics, strategic play, and the mental game.Essential Tennis is highly descriptive and not overly prescriptive. While there are specific recommendations in the book, the real value is conveying the improvement lifecycle framework that smart players will use to design their own tennis development plan. By thoroughly explaining the thought process and reasons behind his recommendations, Westerman provides the tools that serious tennis players need to tailor that knowledge into a system that will work best for each unique individual.The importance of strategic game planning as well as the ability to make effective adjustments in match play is emphasized from many different angles. By exercising the philosophies described in Essential Tennis, players are provided the insight required to develop habits and skills required to achieve high levels of performance.To put this review in perspective, I played Junior tennis and am a nationally ranked Senior player competing at 55+. On the USTA NTRP scale, I recently dropped from 5.0 to 4.5. I have been using many of the ideas and drills contained in Essential Tennis my entire life. However, the book also contains new perspectives that I plan to add to my own development journey. Any tennis players willing to invest in their own game will benefit from the ideas presented in this book.Essential Tennis: Improve Faster, Play Smarter, and Win More Matches was written for the player that loves the competitive battle and is committed to being the best player they can be. In this work, Westerman provides the tools that players at all levels can use to elevate their level of performance.

The Practical Reality of Winning Tennis and How to Get There
I’d recommend this book for anyone who wants to get more out of tennis especially winning.  Ian is at his best when he targets his instruction toward club level players and how and what to do in practices.  His advice is practical, based on statistics and certain realities about how to improve efficiently and improve your odds of winning. It is not a book simply about shot technique and form which by themselves will not make you a winning player. If you’re looking for a book on technique you might be disappointed.   The reality is technique and form are not that easy to execute reliably in competitive situations. Based on statistics, tennis is a game of mistakes.  Most points at all levels, club to pros, are over in zero to one shots!  So Ian points out that trying to constantly improve one’s groundstrokes is actually not the most likely or efficient way to improve at winning in tennis.The serve and return of serve are more critical to success.   This is an example of how Ian focuses on finding the best path to success. Another related Ian insight is that tennis is all about making your opponent hit an uncomfortable shot (more so than executing the perfect stroke and hitting winners).Ian spends a fair amount of time on how players should practice. Do not practice the same technique and form for hours thereby reinforcing potentially bad habits. Ian says you must shoot and watch videos of yourself to truly know what you’re doing and to analyze what needs improvement.Likewise Ian coaches the reader on what to do on the way to the tennis court, what to do during match warmups,  in between points or sets. He points out that a  tennis match really involves  much less time actually hitting than all the down time.  So learn to use that down time including time on the couch at home watching tennis on TV by making it more mindful inquisitive TV watching.  Why you hit  a certain shot and where you hit it figure highly in evaluating what is a good shot.  Thus, Ian covers strategy and tactics and gives the reader progressive drills to improve these aspects of one’s game just like progressive drills for improving technique.  Section III covers the mentals aspects of tennis but it is not as long and does not seem as unified by an overall scheme or theory as are Section I, “The Improvement Process” or  Section II, “On Court” tactics and stratagems.  Still, there are aspects of the mental game throughout Section II.Overall, this is  a really excellent book for players aspiring to honestly improve their game and chances of winning and for coaches too.

No matter your level of tennis, there will always be an opponent that is better than you. That opponent serves bigger, hits more top spin, has disciplined shot selection and always seems to be in the best court position. This book reveals what it truly takes for you to become that player. If you want to take your game further along the road of continuous improvement, then Ian and Joel lay out what is required. They describe the essential ingredients that you need to understand and embrace in order to aspire to the process of continuous improvement. There are no short-cuts to tennis improvement, but Ian gives you the road map to make those improvements faster and have them stick. All that is left for you to do, is embrace the journey of improvement and do the work. Soon, you too will be well pleased at winning a little more than 51% of points played! The value contained in this book, compared with your next tennis lesson, can of balls, or re-string, is crazy high.

I’ve read a few tennis books over the past 2yrs. This one focuses on key elements of technique and contains several simple drills that help train your muscles/body to swing fluidly and learn good tennis technique. I absolutely love Galway’s inner game of tennis – but that book is about mentality/mind. This book teaches the basics of stroke technique and has some fantastic drills for priming your body to hit the ball properly. After practicing one of these drills (as demonstrated in companion videos) my technique instantly improves a little. Mini-tennis… the book is worth reading for that alone. I like this book because I am keen to improve at club level, and it provides solid drills for doing so – from which I have already seen a lot of evidence in my game.