Mike Rogers: You hit your doubles return cross court, exactly where you're supposed to, and the net player still puts it away. So what went wrong? Ian Westermann, founder of Essential Tennis, is here to show us a common mistake that makes your return an easy target, even when it lands in the right place. Using real before and after footage, he'll show you what to look for in your own swing and how to practice that correction. And fixing it doesn't mean swinging harder. Now let's get into it. Ian, it's great to have you back on Insider's Playbook. we're gonna be talking about why your return gets crushed when you're playing doubles. So it's great to have you on. Thank you for being here.
Ian Westermann: You bet, Mike. Thanks for having me back.
Mike Rogers: So to to start this off, you know, a lot of players we can we can rally fine, but boy, when we get that return of serve, we we just immediately go on defense and we're not doing what we need to do. What makes that so difficult?
Ian Westermann: Yeah, I think the way you just set that up is exactly right. it's perfect. Especially in double, and can we agree we're kind of focusing on doubles here more so than singles?
Mike Rogers: Yeah. Exactly.
Ian Westermann: So you're supposed to be on defense. Your your opponent just had their only opportunity to toss the ball to themselves and hit whatever type of shot they want to hit. And they've got a partner who's trying to block every possible shot that you could possibly hit and put it away. And so it is a very real corner that we're kind of painted in in the game of doubles. And if our response can be placed on a spectrum. If we go super, super hard I I just I'll tell you what I was thinking in a second. if we go super, super hard to the defensive end of the spectrum, that can actually be effective. I don't know if you've seen the data recently, but at World class levels of doubles, the re the lob return of serve has made a huge comeback in the last couple years statistically. Craig Ashannessy, who you've had on your channel, did a great article about the explosion of percentage of lob returns at the professional level of doubles. Because the server's partner has gotten incrementally and progressively more and more and more offensive with how aggressively they start with their position up at the net. And so the lob has made it it's kind of a pendulum, like swinging back and forth. And the the lob has made a big comeback at professional levels of the game. So ironically, way over on the defensive end of the spectrum can actually work quite well if you have good touch and and feel. Aka you can put a lob back in the middle of no man's land, you know, pretty consistently. But if you go kind of halfway in the middle of the spectrum and you don't hit the ball aggressively or confidently, but it's not a lob either, and we're kind of just trying to put the ball back in play, that will cap your level of doubles play so hard. That might cap your level of doubles play harder than if your serve is not very good. Because a good doubles team at all levels is the server's partner is looking to intercept as many balls as possible. And so if your return, if you cannot hit a solid, consistent, confident return of serve on both sides, forehand and backhand side, then you're going to struggle at all levels of doubles against a good server and service partner. So what I'd like to talk about today, Mike, is mechanically how to solve the most common problem that I see that keeps people kind of in that crappy in-between zone. Where it's not a lob, but it's also not a very strong drive. And it people get stuck just kinda in a crappy, wishy washy, like kind of block return, which doesn't get the job done against a good team.
Mike Rogers: Okay? Tell us how we do that. I love it.
Ian Westermann: All right, great. So here's a student I worked with. I actually have never met this person, but I'm gonna show you the improvements that they made over the internet. And this is his original return of serve. And what I want you to focus on specifically are, or rather, is the angle of his shoulders relative to the baseline. And as the serve comes into play, the maximum turn that he ever makes. Is about 45 degrees. And as he goes forwards to make contact, I want you to keep your eyes on the angle of his shoulders. And as he hits the ball right here, the angle of his shoulders haven't changed. He's still at 45 degrees. And so he's made a quarter of a turn with his body and kept his body there, which means The only thing that's propelling the racket forward into the ball is his arm. Now, this is
Mike Rogers: Looks he's hugging himself.
Ian Westermann: yes, yeah, exactly. My my coach, when I was a kid, used to call this the pretzel forehand, where you you get the arm across and then your your racket arm you know goes forwards and you yeah, you you create the pretzel. Now, this is especially problematic in doubles because in doubles, we've got this net player who's looking to intercept as much as possible. And if your body can never get forward facing, then the odds of getting the ball past that player are frankly, this was an incredible effort from this play from the returner. He still technically got the ball cross-court, but we all know doubles specialists, like we all know this is such a painful sight. Like technically it's gonna land cross-court, but it's just hovering and floating right over the middle of the court. It's it's just perfect poach bait. For that that service partner. Now, for context, we're gonna look at some of the best players in the world, And I want you to watch their shoulders relative to the baseline as an anchor point.
Mike Rogers: Right.
Ian Westermann: For preparation, you're gonna see them at 90 degrees to the baseline. And then at contact, you're gonna see their shoulders and chest parallel to the baseline. Now, I understand this is a rally ball, this is not a return serve, but we're gonna address that in a second. Preparation ninety degrees. Contact parallel. Preparation ninety degrees contact parallel. Preparation ninety degrees contact parallel.
Mike Rogers: Detect a theme here.
Ian Westermann: Very different players, different styles, different grips, different generations. The rotation of the torso is the fundamentally most important part of hitting a solid, strong forehand groundstroke. If we don't get 90 degrees of rotation between preparation and contact, then the arm is forced to have to take over and do more work than it's designed to do. Relative to the torso. The arm is dramatically weaker and less stable. It's not meant to be the engine behind the shot. It's meant to be a conduit that delivers the energy from the torso into the ball. And when you get stuck hitting returns like this, where the initial turn is weak. And the forward rotation is non existent, you have zero chance of hitting a quality shot back. Now, if the ball is a big shot, we don't need a full 90 degrees of rotation. But we need much more than zero. And what what I've
Mike Rogers: Ha ha ha.
Ian Westermann: what I've noticed over the years is that players get stuck in this pattern. of very low levels of activation with their body because they get frozen. I don't remember the exact phrase, but you opened with a perfect phrase, Mike. You said something like we get s stuck in a defensive rut or something like
Mike Rogers: Yeah, defensive yeah, defensive pizza I forgot what I said, but yeah.
Ian Westermann: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Players get stuck in a defensive mindset in a defensive response. And most players, like we just described in the pusher lesson, Mike, most players when they're met face to face with stress and pressure and their own maybe inner demons on the court and they badly are trying not to lose, the first thing to go is the rotation with their body. And when we're left with this small, you know little chicken wing to try to accelerate the racket, we lose precision, we lose strength, and we lose quality of shot. We also lose directional control because only swinging the arm dramatically cuts down on our options of where we actually would like to hit the ball. Obviously cross court is going to be the you know the key target. Crap, sorry about that. And when your body stays sideways, getting the ball cross court is almost impossible. So this is just kind of the the starting analysis. I'll show you the actual solution. Any questions about the the actual problem?
Mike Rogers: So let me ask you, like on a on a big first serve, is it y you cause you kinda sometimes wanna just maybe block it back if it's really a big first serve rather than taking a full swing, but then you definitely want that full rotation on a second serve. Is that pretty much on target?
Ian Westermann: So I just played 4.5 sectionals, Midwest section. And It's lot of fun because for the first time in quite a while I had to return like hundred mile an hour serves. And at that pace, you're right. I don't need a full time I I'm not trying to add pace. But If you're receiving 100 mile an hour serves, the person who's playing with that person at the net, as soon as they see you turn and just put the racket out with a continental grip, is gonna be all over everything that you're trying to hit around them. You have to be able to produce some kind of drive and or forward rotation to be able to receive a hundred mile an hour ball and then actually send it back with direction and some spin to be able to keep it in play. Now, the intensity is gonna be much, much lower. No question about it. But if when I receive a big serve, my only alternative is just to like turn and just block the ball, it's not gonna cut it against the the pairing level of the service partner up at the net. So there has to be an in-between. And the rotation of the body is the still the foundation of that shot. Even though it's not as intense, it's not as big, it's not as powerful, it's still the it's still at the foundation. Does that make sense?
Mike Rogers: Okay. Sure, sure. Totally. So how do we fix this?
Ian Westermann: All right, so Here's a student that we're gonna talk about. And this is his forehand before. Remember our benchmarks relative to the baseline. Originally he's doing a great job with his shoulders. But like so many people out there, his shoulders never actually unwound enough to be able to deliver all that stored energy. So he's only making it to forty-five degrees, just like that return of serve player that we we looked at a moment ago. In other words, he's only using half. Of the stored energy that he set up here. Everybody likes to focus on preparation, but if we don't actually utilize all that force that's stored with that coil, then the arm, ironically, ends up being the thing that does the hitting. And so you can see how rigid and tight intense this hit is. And it's because his body doesn't get to a forward-facing position until way after he's already hit the ball. So in my Experience, the best way to solve this is to practice going to a normal coil position and then at first exaggerating the timing between the body and the arm. And I'm going to do that with this student by asking him to turn his torso while leaving his racket behind at first. So he's going to drop his racket and leave it back behind his body. While his body turns forwards. Now, this doesn't look all that exaggerated if you do a lot of deep analysis on professional players. But for this player, it's wildly exaggerated. Because this is his normal shoulder position at contact, but his racket is still way back here. And in a return of serve scenario, Mike. If this is the only body position you ever get to and your arm is responsible for all the rest of it, you're going to get stuck in a rut of just blocking and kind of redirecting the ball back because you don't have any rotation to send it back with any of your own pace. Okay, so in this drill, I'm having him A segment his swing. You'll notice there's been some here, I'm gonna play this, and I want you to watch him go through a couple. He's segmenting this on purpose. Preparation, drop, and then we're calling that turn with his body, stretch. So here's preparation. Here's the drop of the racket. Here's the stretch. And I'm asking him to actually feel for a physical pull around his chest or shoulder on the ins on the inside of his shoulder. Because I'm asking him to leave his racket behind while his body pulls his arm forwards. Now this is actually exaggerated. And that's what I want in a training environment because I'm trying to get him to do the opposite of what he's used to. And the last position is contact. I'll I'll play one or two more of these and then I'll show you his finished forehand.
Mike Rogers: Well, the other thing he's doing right too is he's keeping his left arm up, which he had down below his waist.
Ian Westermann: Wow, good eye. That's good. Nice. Good job, Mike. Okay, so after a bunch of repetition, getting comfortable with this. By the way, I didn't use the words out in front a single time while we're doing this training. If the body leads and the arm follows, then there will be space between the rackets position and where the body is. If you over-emphasize the racket and the arm and the body doesn't do its job, an out in front contact position is never, ever, ever possible. So here he is a couple minutes later, focusing on creating that stretch. And so instead of getting stuck at forty-five degrees, he's getting all the way to a forward-facing position now. It's not as exaggerated as the shadows, and that's why I asked him to exaggerate the shadows, because everybody always meets kind of halfway in between. And this is a great halfway in-between position for this player. This is the training I had that return to serve player do. And a couple weeks later, This is what his returns were looking like with a full turn with his upper body. Now he's at 90 degrees relative to the net. And more importantly, he's now unwinding to a forward-facing position at contact, which makes a cross-court return much, much easier to actually get the ball past the net player on the other side. In my opinion, this is the biggest thing. Yes, it's preparation, but if the body never unwinds in time, it's not possible to send a quality shot back. And it's also not possible to reliably get the ball cross court. So that's why I picked this for the return of serve focus. Thoughts, questions, Mike?
Mike Rogers: No, excellent. Yeah, I I think that's very good information that you know, we just y you can't be afraid of it. You you gotta almost make it more of an offensive
Ian Westermann: That's right.
Mike Rogers: shot than a defensive shot.
Ian Westermann: And I wanna bring like the the concept of intensity, which you and I talked about at length in the the pusher conversation that we had. Most competitive adult tennis players find it impossible to separate the concepts of length and speed of swing. What I'm describing here is length of swing. We haven't talked about intensity. When the ball comes in fast and hard from the server, we can still use full length of swing, but bring the intensity down and use the energy they send towards us and confidently and calmly send it back. in their in their direction. Just because we make a big turn doesn't mean that you need to be at an eight or nine out of ten on the intensity scale. Against a 100 mile an hour serve, your intensity should be very low, which is highly, highly difficult for, you know, humans in general, like the higher the intensity of the environment, the the the more they physiologically ramp up. It's very counterintuitive for people to receive a 100 mile an hour ball and be calm and relaxed and smooth. That's different from being clamped down, locked down, rigid, and block the ball back. And there's a time and a place for a block, but I don't think that's the path for the vast majority of people watching this.
Mike Rogers: Right. And and then there's the time and the place to do the lob return back. You don't wanna do every single one as a lob return, so you gotta mix it up. But I think this is great
Ian Westermann: Yes, yes, very much so.
Mike Rogers: because somebody can go out, put a camera behind them, and film themselves doing some return of serves from a friend, and now they can kind of see for themselves what they can go and change and you've just explained everything to them. So I greatly appreciate this.
Ian Westermann: Or honestly, just let's address this real quick. Just record your forehand rally ball. Like for all intern for all intents and purposes, we're talking about forehands and backhands. most of us are not receiving eye height kick serves. most of us are not receiving hundred mile an hour, you know, flat flat serves. It's a forehand, it's a bad I I think a little bit too much gets made of like the how special like the return is. Yes, the ball is coming in from a different trajectory. But guy like it's like we know where it's going. It's gonna be a forehand or a backhand. And so there's like eighty percent crossover in my opinion between just your forehand and your backhand and return of serve. Don't think you have to get point play and like special like special record, like return of serve to find out how you're doing.
Mike Rogers: E unless they're playing somebody that took your serve training, so then
Ian Westermann: That's right. Hundred mile an hour serves and and eye height kick serves then.
Mike Rogers: Yeah, exactly. Well, Ian, thank you so much. I'm sure some people would love to learn more about what you're doing. what's the best way they can find out more about your work?
Ian Westermann: Yeah, either Essential Tennis on YouTube or search for Essential Tennis on Amazon. you can check out my book there. Those are the the two best resources by far.
Mike Rogers: Fantastic. Thanks again for coming on.
Ian Westermann: You bet. Thanks for having me.
Mike Rogers: Getting your return cross-court is a good start, but as Ian showed us, the quality of that return matters if you want to keep it away from the net player. The key is letting your body contribute to the shot, rather than asking your arm to do all the work. And remember, more rotation doesn't have to mean swinging harder. Before your next match, record a few forehands and watch what your shoulders do through contact. You might spot something you never felt. Thanks for watching Insider's Playbook Subscribe for more conversations to help you compete better after 50. I'm Mike Rogers. Play smart, compete strong.
Ian Westermann: You bet, Mike. Thanks for having me back.
Mike Rogers: So to to start this off, you know, a lot of players we can we can rally fine, but boy, when we get that return of serve, we we just immediately go on defense and we're not doing what we need to do. What makes that so difficult?
Ian Westermann: Yeah, I think the way you just set that up is exactly right. it's perfect. Especially in double, and can we agree we're kind of focusing on doubles here more so than singles?
Mike Rogers: Yeah. Exactly.
Ian Westermann: So you're supposed to be on defense. Your your opponent just had their only opportunity to toss the ball to themselves and hit whatever type of shot they want to hit. And they've got a partner who's trying to block every possible shot that you could possibly hit and put it away. And so it is a very real corner that we're kind of painted in in the game of doubles. And if our response can be placed on a spectrum. If we go super, super hard I I just I'll tell you what I was thinking in a second. if we go super, super hard to the defensive end of the spectrum, that can actually be effective. I don't know if you've seen the data recently, but at World class levels of doubles, the re the lob return of serve has made a huge comeback in the last couple years statistically. Craig Ashannessy, who you've had on your channel, did a great article about the explosion of percentage of lob returns at the professional level of doubles. Because the server's partner has gotten incrementally and progressively more and more and more offensive with how aggressively they start with their position up at the net. And so the lob has made it it's kind of a pendulum, like swinging back and forth. And the the lob has made a big comeback at professional levels of the game. So ironically, way over on the defensive end of the spectrum can actually work quite well if you have good touch and and feel. Aka you can put a lob back in the middle of no man's land, you know, pretty consistently. But if you go kind of halfway in the middle of the spectrum and you don't hit the ball aggressively or confidently, but it's not a lob either, and we're kind of just trying to put the ball back in play, that will cap your level of doubles play so hard. That might cap your level of doubles play harder than if your serve is not very good. Because a good doubles team at all levels is the server's partner is looking to intercept as many balls as possible. And so if your return, if you cannot hit a solid, consistent, confident return of serve on both sides, forehand and backhand side, then you're going to struggle at all levels of doubles against a good server and service partner. So what I'd like to talk about today, Mike, is mechanically how to solve the most common problem that I see that keeps people kind of in that crappy in-between zone. Where it's not a lob, but it's also not a very strong drive. And it people get stuck just kinda in a crappy, wishy washy, like kind of block return, which doesn't get the job done against a good team.
Mike Rogers: Okay? Tell us how we do that. I love it.
Ian Westermann: All right, great. So here's a student I worked with. I actually have never met this person, but I'm gonna show you the improvements that they made over the internet. And this is his original return of serve. And what I want you to focus on specifically are, or rather, is the angle of his shoulders relative to the baseline. And as the serve comes into play, the maximum turn that he ever makes. Is about 45 degrees. And as he goes forwards to make contact, I want you to keep your eyes on the angle of his shoulders. And as he hits the ball right here, the angle of his shoulders haven't changed. He's still at 45 degrees. And so he's made a quarter of a turn with his body and kept his body there, which means The only thing that's propelling the racket forward into the ball is his arm. Now, this is
Mike Rogers: Looks he's hugging himself.
Ian Westermann: yes, yeah, exactly. My my coach, when I was a kid, used to call this the pretzel forehand, where you you get the arm across and then your your racket arm you know goes forwards and you yeah, you you create the pretzel. Now, this is especially problematic in doubles because in doubles, we've got this net player who's looking to intercept as much as possible. And if your body can never get forward facing, then the odds of getting the ball past that player are frankly, this was an incredible effort from this play from the returner. He still technically got the ball cross-court, but we all know doubles specialists, like we all know this is such a painful sight. Like technically it's gonna land cross-court, but it's just hovering and floating right over the middle of the court. It's it's just perfect poach bait. For that that service partner. Now, for context, we're gonna look at some of the best players in the world, And I want you to watch their shoulders relative to the baseline as an anchor point.
Mike Rogers: Right.
Ian Westermann: For preparation, you're gonna see them at 90 degrees to the baseline. And then at contact, you're gonna see their shoulders and chest parallel to the baseline. Now, I understand this is a rally ball, this is not a return serve, but we're gonna address that in a second. Preparation ninety degrees. Contact parallel. Preparation ninety degrees contact parallel. Preparation ninety degrees contact parallel.
Mike Rogers: Detect a theme here.
Ian Westermann: Very different players, different styles, different grips, different generations. The rotation of the torso is the fundamentally most important part of hitting a solid, strong forehand groundstroke. If we don't get 90 degrees of rotation between preparation and contact, then the arm is forced to have to take over and do more work than it's designed to do. Relative to the torso. The arm is dramatically weaker and less stable. It's not meant to be the engine behind the shot. It's meant to be a conduit that delivers the energy from the torso into the ball. And when you get stuck hitting returns like this, where the initial turn is weak. And the forward rotation is non existent, you have zero chance of hitting a quality shot back. Now, if the ball is a big shot, we don't need a full 90 degrees of rotation. But we need much more than zero. And what what I've
Mike Rogers: Ha ha ha.
Ian Westermann: what I've noticed over the years is that players get stuck in this pattern. of very low levels of activation with their body because they get frozen. I don't remember the exact phrase, but you opened with a perfect phrase, Mike. You said something like we get s stuck in a defensive rut or something like
Mike Rogers: Yeah, defensive yeah, defensive pizza I forgot what I said, but yeah.
Ian Westermann: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Players get stuck in a defensive mindset in a defensive response. And most players, like we just described in the pusher lesson, Mike, most players when they're met face to face with stress and pressure and their own maybe inner demons on the court and they badly are trying not to lose, the first thing to go is the rotation with their body. And when we're left with this small, you know little chicken wing to try to accelerate the racket, we lose precision, we lose strength, and we lose quality of shot. We also lose directional control because only swinging the arm dramatically cuts down on our options of where we actually would like to hit the ball. Obviously cross court is going to be the you know the key target. Crap, sorry about that. And when your body stays sideways, getting the ball cross court is almost impossible. So this is just kind of the the starting analysis. I'll show you the actual solution. Any questions about the the actual problem?
Mike Rogers: So let me ask you, like on a on a big first serve, is it y you cause you kinda sometimes wanna just maybe block it back if it's really a big first serve rather than taking a full swing, but then you definitely want that full rotation on a second serve. Is that pretty much on target?
Ian Westermann: So I just played 4.5 sectionals, Midwest section. And It's lot of fun because for the first time in quite a while I had to return like hundred mile an hour serves. And at that pace, you're right. I don't need a full time I I'm not trying to add pace. But If you're receiving 100 mile an hour serves, the person who's playing with that person at the net, as soon as they see you turn and just put the racket out with a continental grip, is gonna be all over everything that you're trying to hit around them. You have to be able to produce some kind of drive and or forward rotation to be able to receive a hundred mile an hour ball and then actually send it back with direction and some spin to be able to keep it in play. Now, the intensity is gonna be much, much lower. No question about it. But if when I receive a big serve, my only alternative is just to like turn and just block the ball, it's not gonna cut it against the the pairing level of the service partner up at the net. So there has to be an in-between. And the rotation of the body is the still the foundation of that shot. Even though it's not as intense, it's not as big, it's not as powerful, it's still the it's still at the foundation. Does that make sense?
Mike Rogers: Okay. Sure, sure. Totally. So how do we fix this?
Ian Westermann: All right, so Here's a student that we're gonna talk about. And this is his forehand before. Remember our benchmarks relative to the baseline. Originally he's doing a great job with his shoulders. But like so many people out there, his shoulders never actually unwound enough to be able to deliver all that stored energy. So he's only making it to forty-five degrees, just like that return of serve player that we we looked at a moment ago. In other words, he's only using half. Of the stored energy that he set up here. Everybody likes to focus on preparation, but if we don't actually utilize all that force that's stored with that coil, then the arm, ironically, ends up being the thing that does the hitting. And so you can see how rigid and tight intense this hit is. And it's because his body doesn't get to a forward-facing position until way after he's already hit the ball. So in my Experience, the best way to solve this is to practice going to a normal coil position and then at first exaggerating the timing between the body and the arm. And I'm going to do that with this student by asking him to turn his torso while leaving his racket behind at first. So he's going to drop his racket and leave it back behind his body. While his body turns forwards. Now, this doesn't look all that exaggerated if you do a lot of deep analysis on professional players. But for this player, it's wildly exaggerated. Because this is his normal shoulder position at contact, but his racket is still way back here. And in a return of serve scenario, Mike. If this is the only body position you ever get to and your arm is responsible for all the rest of it, you're going to get stuck in a rut of just blocking and kind of redirecting the ball back because you don't have any rotation to send it back with any of your own pace. Okay, so in this drill, I'm having him A segment his swing. You'll notice there's been some here, I'm gonna play this, and I want you to watch him go through a couple. He's segmenting this on purpose. Preparation, drop, and then we're calling that turn with his body, stretch. So here's preparation. Here's the drop of the racket. Here's the stretch. And I'm asking him to actually feel for a physical pull around his chest or shoulder on the ins on the inside of his shoulder. Because I'm asking him to leave his racket behind while his body pulls his arm forwards. Now this is actually exaggerated. And that's what I want in a training environment because I'm trying to get him to do the opposite of what he's used to. And the last position is contact. I'll I'll play one or two more of these and then I'll show you his finished forehand.
Mike Rogers: Well, the other thing he's doing right too is he's keeping his left arm up, which he had down below his waist.
Ian Westermann: Wow, good eye. That's good. Nice. Good job, Mike. Okay, so after a bunch of repetition, getting comfortable with this. By the way, I didn't use the words out in front a single time while we're doing this training. If the body leads and the arm follows, then there will be space between the rackets position and where the body is. If you over-emphasize the racket and the arm and the body doesn't do its job, an out in front contact position is never, ever, ever possible. So here he is a couple minutes later, focusing on creating that stretch. And so instead of getting stuck at forty-five degrees, he's getting all the way to a forward-facing position now. It's not as exaggerated as the shadows, and that's why I asked him to exaggerate the shadows, because everybody always meets kind of halfway in between. And this is a great halfway in-between position for this player. This is the training I had that return to serve player do. And a couple weeks later, This is what his returns were looking like with a full turn with his upper body. Now he's at 90 degrees relative to the net. And more importantly, he's now unwinding to a forward-facing position at contact, which makes a cross-court return much, much easier to actually get the ball past the net player on the other side. In my opinion, this is the biggest thing. Yes, it's preparation, but if the body never unwinds in time, it's not possible to send a quality shot back. And it's also not possible to reliably get the ball cross court. So that's why I picked this for the return of serve focus. Thoughts, questions, Mike?
Mike Rogers: No, excellent. Yeah, I I think that's very good information that you know, we just y you can't be afraid of it. You you gotta almost make it more of an offensive
Ian Westermann: That's right.
Mike Rogers: shot than a defensive shot.
Ian Westermann: And I wanna bring like the the concept of intensity, which you and I talked about at length in the the pusher conversation that we had. Most competitive adult tennis players find it impossible to separate the concepts of length and speed of swing. What I'm describing here is length of swing. We haven't talked about intensity. When the ball comes in fast and hard from the server, we can still use full length of swing, but bring the intensity down and use the energy they send towards us and confidently and calmly send it back. in their in their direction. Just because we make a big turn doesn't mean that you need to be at an eight or nine out of ten on the intensity scale. Against a 100 mile an hour serve, your intensity should be very low, which is highly, highly difficult for, you know, humans in general, like the higher the intensity of the environment, the the the more they physiologically ramp up. It's very counterintuitive for people to receive a 100 mile an hour ball and be calm and relaxed and smooth. That's different from being clamped down, locked down, rigid, and block the ball back. And there's a time and a place for a block, but I don't think that's the path for the vast majority of people watching this.
Mike Rogers: Right. And and then there's the time and the place to do the lob return back. You don't wanna do every single one as a lob return, so you gotta mix it up. But I think this is great
Ian Westermann: Yes, yes, very much so.
Mike Rogers: because somebody can go out, put a camera behind them, and film themselves doing some return of serves from a friend, and now they can kind of see for themselves what they can go and change and you've just explained everything to them. So I greatly appreciate this.
Ian Westermann: Or honestly, just let's address this real quick. Just record your forehand rally ball. Like for all intern for all intents and purposes, we're talking about forehands and backhands. most of us are not receiving eye height kick serves. most of us are not receiving hundred mile an hour, you know, flat flat serves. It's a forehand, it's a bad I I think a little bit too much gets made of like the how special like the return is. Yes, the ball is coming in from a different trajectory. But guy like it's like we know where it's going. It's gonna be a forehand or a backhand. And so there's like eighty percent crossover in my opinion between just your forehand and your backhand and return of serve. Don't think you have to get point play and like special like special record, like return of serve to find out how you're doing.
Mike Rogers: E unless they're playing somebody that took your serve training, so then
Ian Westermann: That's right. Hundred mile an hour serves and and eye height kick serves then.
Mike Rogers: Yeah, exactly. Well, Ian, thank you so much. I'm sure some people would love to learn more about what you're doing. what's the best way they can find out more about your work?
Ian Westermann: Yeah, either Essential Tennis on YouTube or search for Essential Tennis on Amazon. you can check out my book there. Those are the the two best resources by far.
Mike Rogers: Fantastic. Thanks again for coming on.
Ian Westermann: You bet. Thanks for having me.
Mike Rogers: Getting your return cross-court is a good start, but as Ian showed us, the quality of that return matters if you want to keep it away from the net player. The key is letting your body contribute to the shot, rather than asking your arm to do all the work. And remember, more rotation doesn't have to mean swinging harder. Before your next match, record a few forehands and watch what your shoulders do through contact. You might spot something you never felt. Thanks for watching Insider's Playbook Subscribe for more conversations to help you compete better after 50. I'm Mike Rogers. Play smart, compete strong.
