Tennis. How to Return Serve like Roger Federer

Want to return serve like Roger Federer? Is this even possible? Or has Federer just got a natural talent.

If it’s natural talent, you’re probably out of luck if you didn’t receive a good share of return-of-serve genes.

But is it really your genes or is it something else that’s holding you back from being the champion you deserve to be?

Natural Talent is Overrated

Well, straight off, Federer’s ability to return serve has nothing to do with natural talent. There’s a long history of sports people being dragged into the laboratory to have their reflexes tested. And time and time again these skilled performers are shown to have no better reflexes than anyone else.

This is because athletes even at the height of their powers and strangers to sport alike are stuck with the same problem. Before you can swing into action what you see needs to take a rather tangled journey around your mind’s built-in hardware.

And for everyone this journey takes a minimum of around 200 milliseconds. Unfortunately no amount of practice will make a substantial dent in this ‘shatter proof’ 200 millisecond barrier.

So what to do? How do you get to speed up your anticipation in the way Federer obviously has?

Just How Helpful is a Coach?

Well, for a start, you could get onto the internet where cyber coaches offer no end of suggestions on returning serve or ground shots. For the serve watch the ball toss. Over the server’s head – expect a flat serve. A little to the right – expect a spin serve. And a little to the left – expect a kick-serve.  Or for ground shots – ‘open’ shoulders equals cross-court, ‘closed’ shoulders equals down-the-line.

Unfortunately such advice will have no effect on your anticipation. And indeed under stressful conditions which are inevitably encountered in competition your anticipation will actually deteriorate.

So what’s going on? Why do such common sense suggestions as offered by our cyber coaches not work or make things worse?

And why aren’t you Roger Federer?

Roger Federer Can See the ‘Invisible’

The answer is he ‘sees’ what is invisible to you and me. But what exactly is Federer seeing?

Improbable as it may seem, Roger Federer uses the same technique to return serve as chicken sexers, chess grandmasters and hockey players. His eyes do a frenetic dance collecting tell-tale clues in his opponent’s wind up.

These are bundled together, processed by his subconscious and relayed to his muscles via the spinal cord propelling his body and limbs into action. All in the blink of an eye.

But How Does He Do It?

How does Roger Federer see what we can’t? And can you learn to do it too?

Answers to these questions and more are to be found in my ebook:

What’s Chicken Sexing Got to Do with Tennis? And How to Return Serve like Roger Federer.

It’s an easy read and full of information – I’ve read the research and summarised it for you.

You can have a look at what’s in the ebook here.

All the very best.

Roger.