Tennis Influence

Mladenovic has been having an amazing run in these last couple of months, is she peaking? Or is this just the beginning? Today, she has just knocked out defending champ of the French Open, Roland Garros. I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg for the young french woman. Born in a town on the coast of northeastern France a tennis prodigy was born to a family of athletes. Her two year younger brother a professional soccer player and her dad a professional handball player, Kristina just had to have the genes of a natural athlete. She had a very successful junior career, the 24 year old won a junior French Open title and fell to Noppawan Lertcheewakarn in the finals of Wimbledon. She was already showing signs of being the most successful pro athlete in her family yet. After her junior days Mladenovic joined the ITF pro circuit and played there for 2 years until she received a wildcard into the prestigious Australian Open in 2009. She ended up losing in the first round t

Since it is Nadal’s 31st birthday I thought about looking back at his benchmarks. The Spaniard has accomplished so many things and deserves the world to celebrate his birthday, but let's start with the tennis world for now. Without further ado, the timeline of Nadal! 2001 Turns pro 2003 Nadal cracks top 100 on April 21st 2004 Nadal’s first title (yes, it was on clay) 2005 First Grand Slam (yes, it was roland garros, which is on clay) Crack top 50 on January 10th Enters top 10 on April 25th 2008 Wins fifth Grand Slam:wimbledon (his first non Roland Garros title) Becomes world number 1 for first time after winning Wimbledon 2010 Rafa wins 5th Roland Garros 2011 Wins 10th grand slam (yes,it’s Roland garros) 2017 31st birthday Starting to see why they call him the king of clay huh? Nadal is only one Roland Garros away from winning ten, will he seize this fortnight’s opportunity or wait until next year? Who knows? Happy Birthday Rafa!😊🎂

We all know we can over train in tennis, but can we over stress? Recently people have been getting more and more worried about mental health, especially about stress. So, when does healthy competition become unhealthy? A study conducted by NCBI had 8 female tennis players and 8 male tennis players tested for stress after their first match at a tournament and both had stress, women had more. Every athlete takes stress differently but they all have one thing in common, they take it badly, nobody has ever benefited from stress ( except from their opponent ;) ). Stress hits you in three different phases phase 1 is when you first recognize you’re suffering from stress, your mind automatically responds with a fight or flight attitude. Now we hit phase 2, the resistance stage this is when your body starts fighting back it will try to enzyme levels to shield itself from stress and to do that it needs rest, you know you’ve hit phase 2 once you start feeling tired. Phase 3 is wher

    Recently more and more parents have been pulling their kids out of tournaments. The reason for this is because they believe it is too much stress for them.    The Williams sisters weren't aloud to play junior tournaments for their whole childhood but Serena still turned up to be the best womens' tennis player of all time. Was that because she didn't play junior tournaments or is it just coincidence. Besides, your success in junior tournaments has nothing to do with whether you're even going to be on the pro tour or how good you're going to be, it's more to have a Gage of where your skill level is. UCLA researchers conducted a study to see how stressful youth sports really are. They gave athletes from ages 9 to 14 questionnaires to fill out and it turns out sports are less stressful then music recitals and solos, wrestling was the only sport more stressful. In fact, sports were found to be less stressful than regular school tests. So there really isn't

A couple of weeks ago Wilson has announced they will be selling limited edition blade and burn rackets. Since they went on sale two days ago I wanted to explain what the difference is. There isn't much of a difference actually, the colors are switched so now there's more green and red instead of mainly black rackets, but other than that are there even any differences? They still feature Wilson's special Countervail technology, and the specs haven't changed. But they DO have Matte finishes, pretty tempting, right? But there is no difference in price or specs so it's just which color scheme you prefer really. Wilson hasn't yet said when they will stop selling them. Link to buy them is here:   limited edition blade and burn

Roger Federer has just announced that he will come back to tennis on June 14th for the Mercedes cup. The return will bring an end to the 10 week break he took from the sport. He avoided the clay court season in hopes of increasing his success on grass. The world number four Swiss tennis player has awoken the tennis world once again. Is he a title contender for Wimbledon? Will he collect his 19th Grand Slam?

When it comes to buying a new racket there are a lot of things to look for, I am here to discuss string pattern with you. Pros and cons of the 18x20 less spin less power more control better feel recommended for advanced tennis players (3.5+) requires more muscle Pros and cons of the 16x19/18 more spin  adequate power less feel less control easier to use and good for intermediate and beginners less muscle What about the 18x16 or other spin patterns? These are less common and harder to find they offer more spin and depth but aren't too offensive, they are more for baseliners. Few players use spin patterns one is Grigor Dimitrov who uses an all out 15x16 spin pattern. The problem with spin patterns are the strings move around a lot and break easier so you have to use either a hybrid pattern or synthetic string so it breaks less.

Recently There have been a lot of new young players making a ruckus on the mens' tour. That is what inspired me to make this article, I will go over my top 3 next gen players. My first big prospect is Zverev he is big and has a style that is a combination of Nadal, Djokovic and Raonic. He would be even deadlier if he used his height to an advantage on his serve and improved his serve.  My next pick is Kyrgios. He is an amazing natural athlete and a great entertainer how can really pound his serve down the T. He needs to work on his endurance and needs to be more active on the tour. My final pick is a more recent one, Karen Khachanov, although I haven't been able to watch him he has been responsible for two upsets in the Roland Garros so far.

     Ever since completing his career Grand Slam Djokovic has been bent out of form. Do his recent actions and performances hint him returning back to his form? He has managed to reach the finals in Rome and has won his first two matches in Roland Garros in straight sets. After being pushed to five by Diego Schwartzman is he ready to face Ramos Vinolas who is also coming in off a five setter? The Djoker has been playing really well but he hasn't been able to keep his consistency and focus up throughout the whole match, something he used to always excel at. Playing a Spaniard on clay is no easy task , especially after a tiring five set match, but Ramos Vinolas also is coming out of one. I believe the next match will be a battle of who can endure longer physically and mentally.