In tennis there is no mistaking speed and quickness in an opponent. It becomes obvious when you see a player that just blows by a defender.

What I didn’t realise until recently is that what we focus on may be on the wrong end of speed!

Don't get me wrong. Step speed and acceleration are hugely important when it comes to tennis. But tennis isn't a linear sport! There are stops and starts, lateral and angular cuts and deceleration.

Tennis requires players to have great multi-directional speed.

Because of this, some of the fastest players are not the quickest. There are some players that can accelerate to near top end speeds in only half the court’s distance, yet when they need to change direction they are slow.

Why is this the case? The issue with this type of tennis player is the fact they have poor body control and techniques when it comes to deceleration.

You see, they can't control all that momentum they built up going in one direction and stop it, and re-direct it into a new direction.

To be truly quick, we all need to know all about deceleration! To be fast, you need to slow down!

This is just one of the great things.....Little did Sir Isaac Newton know he would affect sports the way he has with his three fundamental laws of motion. Newton’s laws govern how all movement happens in our daily lives. And, the laws, albeit quite simple, play a huge role in understanding tennis fundamentals as well as everything that happens in the modern game we are studying today.

Newton’s first law of motion is also called the law of inertia and states that any body will stay at rest or stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. The best description I can present is if you are the passenger in a car and you don’t have your seat belt on. The car is moving at 30 miles per hour and suddenly stops. Even though the car stops your body still keeps moving and if you don’t brace yourself against the dash board, you will be in trouble. In tennis, many players stay in a crouched ready position and become too fixed, making quick movement difficult. Likewise, some players try to take the racquet straight back with no loop backswing. If the racquet is truly taken “straight back,” it must stop before moving forward, forcing the player to create force with extra muscular effort. And this could make control of the racquet face difficult.

Newton’s second law of motion, or the law of acceleration, states that force equals mass times acceleration. This means that, since mass is usually constant during a movement, the more force you provide, the more you will accelerate. However, the equation also works in the opposite direction as well, meaning that the more you accelerate the more force you will have to accommodate. In tennis, we understand how the linked system is used to create tremendous ground reaction force and then is transferred up through the legs, hips, trunk and upper limb(s) to forcefully strike the ball. Conversely, this law helps us understand why a player who selects a very light racquet because of the “whippy” feeling may generate tennis elbow as the body tries to accommodate all the acceleration from the swing.

Newton’s third law of motion is also called the law of ­action and reaction. This states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When you push to open a door, the door pushes back with an equal and opposite force. In tennis, when serving, you push against the ground and the ground pushes back with an equal and opposite force. Another example in serving occurs as the player has thrust upward with the legs, hips and trunk and is just about to begin swinging the arm toward the ball. The opposite arm comes across the trunk, causing it to decelerate, which, in turn, causes the swinging arm to accelerate. In a one-handed backhand slice, the trunk will begin rotating in the direction of the swing and, as the opposite arm stops and begins moving backward, the trunk slows drastically, causing the swinging arm to accelerate.

There are many more examples of how each law plays a role in our great game. I encourage you to continue studying how they work to help or hurt your movements. It is the foundation that these laws provide that will help a tennis player grow in his or her career.