"You have to play with your eyes."
I had the opportunity to hit with Sergio Casal two days ago--the other half of the Sanchez-Casal Academy, just last Friday.

It was an incredibly windy afternoon, and I was surprised when Andreau, our WTA group coach, patted me on the back and told me "Sarah, you go and play with Sergio now." Grinning, he added "Be prepared to get killed!!" Sergio, standing nearby, laughed and blurted something along the lines of "Sooo not true!"

As tired as I was from the accumulated days of training, I was very excited just to walk on court. Think about it, what opportunity! And just me with him! Woot! We did a couple of drills, starting off with volleys and passing shots--he stood at the net and I at the baseline, hitting lots and lots of passing shots. It's strange--the first few balls I hit were good, deep and fast. But then my brain started working overtime and I started feeling pressure to keep up the qualities of rallies I had initially set upon with such freedom. Then I started getting tired and making mistakes. Hahahah.  Not so cool.

Thankfully, Sergio was understanding about the fatigue.  Whenever the drill stretched out long and I'd start hitting like a pondan, I'd start to compromise the correct movement/footwork, in order to force in more speed.  Each time this happened, he slowed down the feed, shorten the court, and kept on reminding me "I wait for you! I wait for you!"  One thing I really appreciate about the system of training here, is that the coaches are willing to adjust themselves to the individual's pace, especially during ball feeds.  Pushing but not necessarily forcing the player.  There is none of the paranoia to do it fast and furious--the focus is more on control and precision.  Are you moving correctly?  Are you hitting it cleanly?  If you have to go slow to get it correct first, let's go slow together.  It's more about control, precision, positioning and balance.  Once these things are in place, the power and the pace come naturally.

One thing that's also tremendous about the training system here, is the emphasis on understanding the drill before doing it.  Good coaches bother to explain the particular relevance of a drill to the actual game situation.  Why are we hitting the ball down the line instead of cross court?  Why is the alternating shot an approach short cross instead of another down the line?  The particularly exceptional coaches take further pains to differentiate and explain to the player when and why it's a tactical drill or a technical one.  Thankfully there are many of them here--and it amazes me how they all sing the same, cohesive tune.  It's true that there are different grades of coaches here--no one is the same--but still, the variations range from good to incredibly brilliant, so there's really marginal short changing going on.  In my two weeks here, I've trained with 12 coaches and worked 1-1 with about 4.  In between, we are usually assigned to hit 1-1 (2 per court) or do drills with a coach in the ratio of 1:2.  Rarely do we have 1:3 coach:student ratios, or 1:4 court:player ratios--which is fantastic, really.  This really provides space enough to hit and play, and grow properly.

Among all of these, obviously, the 1-1 sessions are the best, because that's when you have the time and chance to ask more questions, and when the coaches themselves have enough focus to explain things in depth.  What I've learnt most during my 1-1 sessions was understanding how these series of drills serve as fractions that add up to the sum total patterns of rallies in an actual game.  Sergio ended up spending more than half of the time we had together explaining the significant relevance of the drills, and then analysing how I could use my specific body type (long arms) to hit my backhand better.  I've been having problems getting into the grove of my backhand, partly because of my old footwork, but also how I'm so used to using a lot of my left hand instead of my right.

But all it took was one astute observation, one simple tweak and I could angle and hit my backhand approach shots so much more easily.  Incredible!