Hello, tennis lovers! The Atlanta Tennis Podcast, powered by GoTennis, is back with another exciting episode. Today, our host, Shaun, discusses the value of tennis fundamentals with Justin Yeo, a highly sought-after coach from Puerto Rico. Whether you are ready to start mastering the ready stance or struggling with what your non-dominant hand should be doing, Justin is joining us today to provide actionable advice that resonates with all levels of players.

Why are tennis basics so important? Click play and enjoy what Justin has to offer.

About Justin Yeo

Before getting into the episode, let's introduce our special guest for today, Justin Yeo, a tennis coach recognized for his great grasp of technique and player development. Justin has quickly become well known in tennis for his ability to articulate complex movement mechanics in a simple, easy-to-understand, user-friendly way. He currently works from the beautiful island of Puerto Rico and is originally from Australia. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced player, Justin thinks your tennis playing skills can be improved if you’re obsessed with learning the skills that he unlocks in this episode.

Quick Recap of The Episode

In this episode, we return to the basics (something that Justin insists is essential for all players).

Below are some highlights of our conversation-

• About low stance: Justin stated the game usually starts with a low stance. Everything else will ultimately be called travel if you are in a different position from play onset. He offers some advice on how to develop the ideal position, allowing you to keep your body harmonized and your mind sharp so that you can perform well.
• The power of the split step: Discover how a gymnast does it and practice on your break. This will improve your movement on the court, making you faster and better defensively. This basic move can change the game whether you play defense or set up an offensive shot.
• Utilizing non-dominant hand: Your non-dominant hand is vital to stabilizing your shots. Listen in as Justin explains how you can leverage this often-ignored quality of your game to improve shot consistency and control.
• Utilizing forward swings: Stop worrying about how everything looks up to the top. Rather, focus on the forward swing. Why? Ultimately, that is an indicator of where the ball will go. He explains what happens when we focus on forward motion, and every golfer can hit a more solid, powerful shot.
• Unit turn and shoulder rotation: Another gem from the episode is the emphasis on a proper unit turn vs. an improper shoulder rotation. Doing this part correctly leads to easy and efficient body movements, which translate into more accurate shots.
• Fixing the normal culprits: Justin and Shaun discuss how several adults, especially those well-known for years, usually slack on their essentials. By adjusting our ready stance and utilizing sound footwork, Justin covers how to be your most match-ready at once as you were (for the next few years) when you truly needed it.

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YouTube Replay

Shaun Boyce USPTA: shaun@tennisforchildren.com

https://tennisforchildren.com/

Justin Yeo: https://www.instagram.com/yeocoach/

Bobby Schindler USPTA: schindlerb@comcast.net

https://windermerecommunity.net/

Geovanna Boyce: geovy@regeovinate.com

https://regeovinate.com/

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[Music]

Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

Every episode is titled "It Starts with Tennis" and goes from there.

We talk with coaches, club managers, industry business professionals,

technology experts, and anyone else we find interesting.

We want to have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.

[Music]

Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast,

powered by GoTennis. While you're here, please hit that follow button.

And after you listen, please share with your friends and teammates.

Also, let us know if you have questions or topics you would like us to discuss,

and we will add them to our schedule.

With that said, let's get started with 10 minutes of tennis.

[Music]

This is 10 minutes of tennis with World renowned tennis pro Justin Yeo, Australian,

in Puerto Rico, and I am just a guy in Atlanta.

But I will say, "May the courts be with you."

And good morning. It's a rainy morning here in Atlanta.

I'm sure the weather is beautiful as always there in Puerto Rico, Justin.

But today's topic is talking about the fundamentals and when to get them right.

Should I save them on the fundamentals for the end?

That wouldn't make any sense to anybody, would it?

So getting them right from the start just makes sense.

So why do we have to even say it?

Because it's the foundation of setting everything up.

Get them right.

The amount of people that I've met that, you know, I said, "Hey, can you read it?"

And we got a round back, the knees are bent forward,

grip is too tight.

The old boys are tucked in to the rib gate.

I mean, come on, right?

That sets the tone in every single thing.

So yeah, the fundamentals of fire is even just getting the ready stage.

It's just so critical.

And even just as people get older, if we want to talk about, you know,

we used to have a ready stage move 20 and now we're 50, you know.

I always used to be out now. I always arid.

And we're sort of both comfortable to sit there like this.

Like you're sitting on a toilet almost, you know?

So, you know,

What a Darrell Lewis call it, he called it the garden gnome.

We're just going to be ending there watching, right?

The garden gnome.

Well, so, you know, and then, you know,

just a simple fundamental to the tennises and golf.

So, it's not feeding the ball right to the play out.

I don't know.

I'm very the ball.

They've laid that perfect boy because the ball's sitting right there.

But it's never going to be there all the time.

So, anyway, they're not really the fundamentals.

The fundamentals is, you know, you could just stand in the right rib stage.

Making sure the racket is in the center.

This is out to the side.

You know, understanding that, you know,

absolute people don't talk enough of how important the non-dominant hand is.

I mean, the non-dominant hand is just as important.

Setting the racket tone, making the grip that tension right.

So, I mean, I'm just touched on standing still when the right ready stance is a fundamental,

you know, without working on footwork and, you know, physicality and,

you know, just making sure you can even rotate your body.

If you can't rotate your body, you know, that was going to be the question is,

okay, so walk me through a few of the fundamentals.

The starting point is often the starting point, which we consider the,

what am I going to do?

The ready position.

Right, right?

So, walk me through the fundamentals that you want me to start with.

And say, okay, here are you that we're going to get right from the start.

I'm going to, I'm going to test show,

boy, so it's just this guy in Atlanta.

And we'll see how advanced he is as a coach.

And you tell me that as the kid sits in ready stance,

how do they get ready from forehand?

What's the first step?

What's the first step we tell them is they do a little split step.

They bounce on their toes.

Cool.

That's a good fundamental.

What's the next one?

They pivot to the right or if they're a righty.

So, they pivot to the forehand side.

Okay.

They can pivot, pivot what?

Pivot what?

They pivot on the balls of their feet.

It's turning their, turning their body sideways.

So, they spin the ball.

It's odd.

That's pretty advanced, man.

What else do they pivot?

What else do they pivot?

Usually it's the shoulders that go.

Foo go right there.

That's what I was waiting for.

I was going to say, have you hit record back up?

It's saying record back up.

We're going to punch in the head through the computer.

No, no, no. So, we do that with the little, really little one.

So, the three year olds that are just standing there and their racket has to be behind them,

that's a different thing.

But once we get the point that the kid can kind of move and put,

there's a split step and a pivot.

And the racket stays with the, in the shoulders.

And if they tend to show this, they tend to show this little pivot to feet anyway.

So, you know, the unit 10 is really what I was getting to.

Unit turn is what you call it.

Yes.

The amount of people I have to correct that first,

it's because they're still being taught, rack it back.

I just like, it's so...

No, Venus Williams made a pretty good career doing that.

Hey, all right, let's look over there on that one.

We thought about fundamentals.

Richard tried the basics fundamentals of VHS tape.

So, he did pretty well off that.

Yeah, that's true.

So, but yeah, you know, just modern game.

Again, non-dominant arm, non-dominant hand, right?

If it turns, if it turns, it loads the rope, but you know,

if I you glutes, you're going to have more chances of weight transfer.

You know, there's so many things that can actually, you know,

if you get one thing right, if you almost do five or ten things for a person.

And then they're just like, wow, what happened?

I'm striking the bull in front, like, yes, because you stuck your left arm out, you know.

What? Just by doing that, I'm like, well, let me tell you the ten things that happen.

And that's always fun because there's a one thing.

Say, okay, we'll do this one thing.

What we call the magic mirror, where the racket comes up to the side.

You just one thing and all of a sudden the shoulders turn and the hips go.

And then you kind of spin, they have no choice.

Even hand up to what's the wall.

I mean, the other biggest shoe is obviously elbow up a little bit because everyone

that tucks the elbow in, the racket goes around the back and you're locating and hitting a lake

contact. So it's so many fundamentals, but it all starts with a good range stage.

And as far as I'm saying, a really good unit turn is two of the biggest ones that I say,

correcting in 3035s, 40, you know, I correct a lot of, a lot of ready stands.

Even 45, 40-year-old players that have got lazy in their ready stands and can't understand

why they're counting the ball like they used to. And it was all because they're ready stands.

And you start doing that right, you know, the fundamental in the volley.

You know, I've been working heavily on people but say, okay, I want you just working this at home.

You're doing gauge your shoulders, engage a little bit of wrist part, but then you relax

everything else and you have to practice that over and over and over.

Because as soon as they engage the showers and bring their racket up, all the tension happens now.

They're blocking the ball. So we're talking about some serious fundamentals here for

the bit of bass, but that's how important they are. But when I like, you started with the ready

position, which is starting, the volley, you know, in my mind is point of contact. So that's point of

contact only. And I say, hey, you can do one thing on the volley. Use the point of contact.

No follow through, no backswing, all that stuff, right? But for me, one of the things we talk with

the kids about is one of the fundamentals is a follow through. And I say, the follow through fixes

everything. Now, I know that's hyperbole, but if I can get somebody, any player, we work with mostly

kids, but any player to get that follow through over their shoulder and get that racket pointed

to the fence beside them. If I get that that snaps the wrist over, that finishes, it completes the shot

and almost forces it to be low to high. So we tell them a lot that follow through fixes everything.

So we often start with the end. Whatever, do whatever athletically you need to do in the beginning.

But if you haven't got that racket over your shoulder, that's going to fix a lot of things as well.

Yep. If I want to give a big shout out to any coaches, a big tip, stop spending time on backswing and put

more effort into the forward swing. The forward swing is everything. It is everything. It's more than

the follow through. Because what it does is it puts the person to perceive what the balls doing

and matches the contact point in front and focuses on the forward swing. You don't get a big backswing

if the balls come too deep in fast edge. It's as simple as that. But if the player is constantly

focusing on backswing, they'll never get the perception of the ball of being able to match the

contact point and meet the ball in front. It's just never happens. And if you look at it in a mindset

of a brain, the brain can only focus on so many things at once. So if it's just watching the ball

and matching the ball to contact point, then your forward swing is where the focus is.

Not your backswing. I think that's actually what's telling the ball where to go, right?

100% and there's going to be times where the balls coming a little deeper or lower or whatever.

You ain't going to get a time to finish having your shoulder. You're going to focus just

on the forward swing. That is where the professional focus on all the time. Matching the forward swing

to the ball. And then we've got backswing. We've got point of contact. We've got follow through

you've taken the point of contact to the next step, which is forward swing. So let's hold that in

around the point of contact space. Just to know what's the fundamental. You're going to tell me

one thing for today. Get the fundamentals right. If you could pick one most important fundamental

that I'm going to get right from the start, I'm going to my coach today and saying, I'm going to work

on this. What is it? Ready stance. You're ready stance at the baseline compared to your ballie

attuned it for ready stance, right? But get your athletic face right and get your ready stance,

right? Here you go. I like it. Call your coaches just in your 10 minutes to tennis. We'll see you next

week. Thanks, mate. Cheers, mate. See you.

Well, there you have it. We want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio. And be sure to hit that

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[Music]

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