Serveitup Tennis Magazine #61

Issue #61 March 2021 

real junior tennis 

Fear Will Cripple 

You 

Correct Bad 

Techniques Now 

Focus On The End 

Results 

Look For Me In The 

FUTURE 

Serveitup March 2021 1

Tennis Talk 

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2 Serveitup March 2021

02/15/21 

Dear Junior Tennis Players, 

It’s time for us, to get our focus, back on the two 

most important issues at hand. 

• Getting Better! 

• Staying Ready! 

Let your mindset be, to consistently do everything 

you can, and should be doing, on and off the court, 

to become a better player. If you’re not doing that, 

you are setting yourself up for failure. 

Opportunities are going to come knocking at your 

door, and only if you are ready, will you be able to 

take advantage of them. They won’t wait around for 

you. Stay ready, so you will always be ready. 

Subscribe to get a new issue in your inbox every month. Follow and 

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PUBLISHERS DESK 

P.S. Don’t forget to share us. Enjoy! 

wesley@serveituptennismagazine.com 

All articles are written by the publisher 

Wesley Baptiste unless otherwise noted.


Our Credo 

Serveitup is the quintessential junior tennis magazine. We intend 

to promote and showcase only junior tennis players 18 and under. 

Serveitup lays claim to the fact that we are real junior tennis. 

Serveitup is the most unique, dynamic, cutting-edge junior tennis 

publication on the planet. Our vision at Serveitup, is to transport 

you every month, on an exciting journey into the remarkable lives 

of real junior tennis players. We will tell their stories and reveal 

who they are. You will know about their Lifestyles, Fashion, Tournaments, 

Health & Fitness, Achievements, Equipment, Instructions, 

Goals, Passions, Training Methods, Travel and much more, before 

they become the next tennis superstars. 

We will strive for excellence in every issue. Every publication will 

be specifically designed to deliver the most relevant resources to 

educate, motivate, empower, showcase and interact with all junior 

tennis players. We will chronicle the lives of the junior players, as 

they begin their pursuit into that elite world of tennis stardom. 

For this reason Serveitup is totally free and 100% juniors. We will 

promote junior tennis players, whether they play the junior circuit 

or the pro level. We intend to affect junior tennis globally by getting 

Serveitup into the hands of current and future junior tennis 

players. That makes Serveitup a must read for every player... and 

their parents? So get all your photos and content ready, and send 

them to info@serveituptennismagazine.com 


#61 

March 2021 

6 

Very Very Important 

A Hitting Partner. 

14 

Correct Bad 

Techniques Now. 

in this issue 

8 

12 

Transitions Are 

Tough. 

Fear Will Cripple 

You. 

16 

18 

How Many Grip 

Changes. 

Focus On The End 

Results. 

20 

Cover Story 

Who Is Vikram Basu 

20 

26 

Cover Story: Who Is 

Vikram Basu. 

Contributing Editor 

Saving Time. 

32 

34 

How To Become An 

Exceptional Player. 

Be Very Patient. 

30 

Even Baseliners Will 

Have To Volley. 

38 Footwork.

VERY VERY IMPORTAN 

A HITTING 

PARTNER 

All up and coming junior tennis player, 

need to be working with a regular hitting 

partner. 

This is not one of your friends who you hit 

with sometimes, who wants to hit every 

ball away from you for a winner, so they 

can feel good about themselves. 

This is someone like an ex-college or an 

ex-pro player, who works alongside your 

coach, who consistently brings the ball 

back, into the court, so you can work on 

developing your strokes and your game. 

This is a critical “MUST“ for every junior 

tennis player.

T FOR DEVELOPMENT 


TRANSITION 


ARE TOUGH 


S 

Transitions are tough across the board, and 

will test your resolve. It is never easy when 

you are operating in transition mode; and it 

can be totally frustrating. 

So whether you are transiting from holding 

the incorrect grip, or learning how to 

toss the ball the correct way, or changing 

from the WTA to the ATP forehand, or even 

moving up from one level to the other, the 

challenges are the same. 

You are asked (required) by your coach,not 

to hit the “old“ shots that you know how to 

hit, but to hit the new ones, that you don’t 

know how to hit as yet. You are in total disarray. 

Sometimes you look really bad, and 

can’t even hit the ball properly, and you 

may even lose to players who you normally 

beat. 

Weak players fold under the transition 

pressure, and revert back to what feels 

comfortable to them. Just remember that 

when it comes to transitions, it will always 

get worst, before it gets better. 


onCourt 


with 

Leila Hunter 

Instagram: @gogo_hunter 


onCourt 

with 

Mikaeel Ali 

Instagram: @mikatensity 



Any kind of fear or nervousness, will 

cripple and hold you back . You have 

to not second guess yourself, and be 

free to go for your shots. You should 

be willing to live with the outcome 

of your decisions, whether the results 

are rewarding or not. Stop being 

fearful. 


Fear 

WILL CRIPPLE YOU 



The longer you wait to address bad 

techniques in your game, the more 

they become a part of you, and your 

muscle memory. Then they become 

even harder to change. That’s why 

you even see pro players with bad 

hiccups (techniques) in their games. 


Correct bad 

TECHNIQUES 

NOW 

before it’s too late 



HOW MANY 

GRIP CHANGES 

should you have 


Players should have three grip changes. 

The forehand, backhand, and every other 

stroke after, whether it’s your serve, volley, 

overhead or any other thing, should 

be done with the continental grip. Some 

two handed backhand players only use 

two grip changes, by hitting their backhand 

with the forehand grip. 



Let your main focus during competition, 

be the end result. Don’t let all 

the opponent’s cheating, arguing or 

any other thing, be a distraction that 

makes you lose focus on what your 

end goal should be. If you don’t have 

a goal and a focus, you will get what 

you desire... NOTHING!. 


FOCUS 

on the end 

RESULTS 


VIKR 

20 Serveitup March 2021BAS 

Tennis Talk

Cover Story 

From USA with Love 

AM 

UServeitup March 2021 21


Hi my name is Vikram Basu. I was born 

in Wellington, Florida. My dad gave me 

my first tennis racket when I was 7. 

One day my dad took me to play tennis, 

and that is when I started to love 

the sport. I wanted to play tennis more 

seriously, so I started getting coached. 





In 2019, I went to the Miami Open. I got 

to see Nishikori, Venus Williams, Bianca 

Andreescu, and more. During quarantine 

I missed a lot of tennis practice. 

After a year I played a tournament. I had 

to fight for every point in my matches. 

Some matches I won, some I lost, but I 

gave it my all in everyone. In one match 

the score was 0-2, but then I came back 

and won the set 4-3. 



I want to get a tennis scholarship, and 

after that become a professional tennis 

player. I try to be braver, kinder, and 

mentally stronger every day. 

In my free time I like to play on my xbox, 

ride my bike, and go skateboarding. I 

love tennis because there are so many 

different strokes, and you can place the 

ball anywhere such as, cross court or 

down the line. 

Also, tennis isn’t like other sports where 

there are teams. In tennis you have to 

play a match alone, and you have to 

motivate yourself. 




SAVING TIME 

Managing Space For Best Performances 

Contributing Editor 

Bill Patton is a 30 year Tennis Coach He 

is a certified USPTA Elite Pro, Professional 

with PTR and MTM. He is the author of 11 

Tennis books, Speaker, YouTuber (Infinite 

Tennis Coach), Swing Vision ambassador, 

Once you know how to hit the ball 

at all, everything else on a tennis 

court is about saving time and 

space, and/or taking them from 

your opponent. How would you 

like to get every ball without having 

to run faster? 

How would you like to get more 

balls at a smooth, under control 

pace? Would you like more time 

to get into the most efficient possible 

position to hit great shots? 

Do you want to decrease your errors 

and increase the errors your 

force in your opponent? Sounds 

too good to be true? It’s not. 

First you have to admit that there 

28 Serveitup March 2021 

is something that you are not 

quite doing right on the tennis 

court. Almost 100% of the players 

I meet for the first time think they 

are seeing the ball out of the opponent’s 

racquet, but their definition 

is off by a little or a lot. It’s 

off by a little when they still pick 

up the ball fairly early in it’s flight, 

and those are usually the 4.0/4.5 

players. 

The players really struggling are 

the ones who only give a casual 

glance, then they are the ones for 

whom the ball seems like a surprise. 

It’s like your asking yourself 

how the ball got there so

quickly, or you have an ‘uh oh’ 

moment, because all of a sudden 

it’s way over there, or it’s a 

mishit ball that barely cleared 

the net. The problem of slow 

reactions, poor ball recognition, 

and being ill prepared to 

play the strategy you want to 

play is one of seeing the ball 

too late. 

Immediate Accurate 

Decisive Action Is The 

Goal 

You can see the ball on time, or 

late coming toward you, there 

is no early. The word anticipation 

is not a great one, because 

there is an element of guessing 

that happens, and when 

you guess wrong, then you find 

yourself out of position. Yes, of 

course, there are a handful of 

times on a tennis court where 

you are so far out of position 

that you have to guess, or you 

can sprint to the open court, 

simply to try to get your opponent 

to change their shot. Those 

are the exceptions, those are 

not the strategy of how to see 

the ball better and respond to 

it more quickly. 

Your mindset should be one of 

reading and reacting. You may 

be a person who does not have 

the fastest reactions to visual 

stimuli and we are all different, 

but even if you have lightning 

fast reflexes and can see quickly, 

you most likely will need to 

train your first response. 

I have yet to meet a player on 

court who did not need to train 

their response to the ball. Sometimes 

I use ‘molasses in January’ 

to describe their movement, a 

thick liquid in a cold environment 

does not move like mercury.There 

is a finite amount of 

reaction time that simply is not 

conquerable. Minimum it takes 

.04 of a second for the impulse 

of seeing an object to trigger 

the ability to respond. 

For some it’s longer, and I don’t 

want to go down the rabbit 

hole about whether that can be 

trained, but suffice it to say that 

if you are 100% healthy, eating 

right, fit and have good or well 

adjusted vision, then you have 

probably maxed out your ability 

to have the fastest possible 

finite reaction time. 

However, the trained decision 


making response time is what 

most people don’t realize that 

they have much more control 

over in how they play. You can 

urge yourself on to do better in 

this regard. Great coaches and 

players have been subjected 

to an almost ‘Simon says’ approach 

to making the first move. 

The coach will hold a ball up in 

the air, and when they move it 

from one side to the other, then 

players have to quickly prepare 

and maybe even take a first step 

in that direction. In practice, 

you might find that you have to 

push yourself to make your first 

move immediately after seeing 

the ball. 

Move With The Blur 

So now, finally, what to do? Use 

scanning skills, because people 

try to focus too much, and 

we will get into that more later. 

Scan to the other side of the net, 

so that you can take in the whole 

player in your eyes, while giving 

your attention to the ball coming 

out of their frame. When you 

see the ball going into and out 

of their frame, while also seeing 

their relative body position, 

your brain takes in many tiny 

cues, and you see better read 

what kind of shot is coming. 

Vic Braden, the face of sports 

science in tennis for many years, 

shared that once the ball is out 

of the frame of the opponent 

by 2’, that your brain with 95% 

accuracy knows where it’s going. 

So that means that within 

a few feet, you know where to 

run. Watch professionals and 

see how quickly they respond 

to the ball out of the opponent’s 

racquet. 

See the ball out of the frame, 

every time, and push yourself 

to have the quickest possible 

reactions and you can save a 

lot of time and space on every 

shot, and take advantage 

of many more opportunities to 

take away time and space from 

your opponents. As you continue 

up the ranks, as the ball 

speeds and spins up more and 

more, then you will need to advance 

your ball recognition, 

reaction and first step skills. It 

gets a lot more fun when you 

do.

Assume That You Can Improve 

Now, maybe you are one of those 

people who says, “I already do 

that?”. If so, just humor me, because 

most people I work with 

think they are doing exactly that, 

until I show them that they are 

not paying 100% attention to 

contact through scanning, and/ 

or their first move is slow. So 

give it a shot, and ask your coach 

if you are maximizing your response 

time. This issue is one of 

the most fundamental differences 

between good and great players, 

so take full advantage and 

become a great player. Someone 

might even ask you the question 

‘How do you do that?’ 



EVEN BASELINERS 

will have to 

VOLLEY 


Even if you’re a baseliner, you’re going 

to have to volley. That is because 

smarter players will pull you into the 

net, and then hit a passing shot. The 

only shot against passing shots, is a 

volley. Don’t forget to practice them. 



HOW TO 

BECOME 

AN EXCEPTIONAL 

PLAYER 


If you really want to improve, you’ve 

got to become totally obsessed with 

learning and applying everything 

you can, to get better. All the effort 

and drive have to come from you. 

Until you achieve your dreams, anything 

less will just make you into just 

another player. 



BE VERY 

PATIENT 


Players and parents, often become 

very impatient, with the progress of 

the child. Patience and encouraging 

words, are necessary, especially 

when repititions are so tedious. 

They are sometimes even discouraging. 

But take heart, it will all come 

together eventually. Be patient. 


PHOTO 


OF THE MONTH 

Hey can I try 

these on? 


VIDEO OF THE MONTH 


Fitness 


footwork! 

never be caught 

flat-footed 


Artist: Cat Lee 

follow her on instagram @colacatlee 

Fight To The End! 



visit our new 

WEBSITE 

serveituptennismagazine.com

Serveitup Tennis Magazine #61

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