Lately as a staff we’ve come to the conclusion that some of
our players need to focus some more on match play outside of Seminole high
performance. When we do our clinics, we focus on a variety of things, from
drills to live ball to set and point play. We vary our focus depending on our
student needs, which range from age, experience level, and tournament
schedules. Our differentiated instruction is certainly different from most
tennis academies where drilling is a primary focus. With our family of
students, we are able appropriate different strategies for different kids,
which means we really do stay connected with our players throughout the course
of their tennis lives.
Part of our focus these next two weeks is preparing our
tournament players for a big upcoming event as well as getting down to the
fundamentals of shots and footwork for our up and coming competitive juniors.
Just like in the classroom, though, it’s important that we put what we learn
from clinics and SHP coaches into practice, so we have been incorporating
homework assignments each week on Thursday for our players to focus on
completing over the weekend. Last week, it was to find three different people
in SHP to play a set against. This week, we’re challenging our players to
compete in a three out of five set match against one of their peers in our SHP
family. This ensures multiple things; that we are growing our peer to peer
communication and strengthening our commitment to each other and our team, that
we are practicing over the weekend independently, and that we are working on
specific fundamentals, technique, and strategies that we have learned over the
course of the week.
I cannot tell you enough how important set and match play
is, and all of our coaches at SHP encourage you to do your homework, don’t
procrastinate, and come back on Monday with it completed!
On another note: stay
tuned to future blogs about up and coming SHP spotlights! I’ll be writing about
a few of our standout students from the past as well as college plans for some
of our current competitive SHP players, and reminiscing about good times before
we sadly have to say goodbye to these SHP players.
