About Us
Purpose
There is an excellent argument that can be made for not playing tennis without talent. Engaging in any activity that is both competitive and favors the fortunate is a fool's pastime. Still, that is life. Life unquestionably favors the fortunate and is unremittingly competitive, yet we don't shrink from that challenge; we embrace it. Without challenge, life would be an unending series of unearned, undoubted and unappreciated successes. The greatest pleasure in tennis, as in life, comes from winning against all the odds. It may be a match, a set or just a point. The magnitude of the pleasure depends less on the size of the victory than on its difficulty. The mistake we all make is to assume that the satisfaction of the champion is somehow greater than that of the second round loser who had no business winning the first round.
Talentlessness, then, should not prevent us from competing. In and of itself, it should not prevent us from enjoying tennis. Lack of talent is only problematic when it leads to frustration; when we are constantly stymied in our quest for improvement despite our best efforts. I believe frustration arises less from the bumps in the road and more from repeatedly finding ourselves at dead ends. Frustration comes from practicing tactics, tips, and techniques that don't work for us. Most teaching pros are people of talent - there is a definite prejudice that we should be learning sports from those who have enjoyed personal success playing those sports. It just makes sense that the person with the best forehand in town should be the one to teach you how to hit a forehand. The problem with that logic is that natural athletes don't need to know how they do things or why it works because they do them well naturally. A surfeit of talent is why the number one tennis player in the world still needs a team of less successful coaches. There is more to learn from failure than from success.
What normally abled players need is knowledge. Simple, effective, understanding of how A-players do what they do, boiled down to actions that even the untalented can learn to perform. Knowledge, so we can stop wasting our time struggling with specious tips and pronouncements, most of which are useless and many of which are just flat out wrong. We need to know how A-players create pace, spin, control and consistency at the same time and with minimal apparent effort. How they govern their emotions and find their way into the Zone. How they differentiate stroking issues from mental meltdowns. Exploring these mysteries is the goal of this site. It is about the whys and wherefores of the game. It is about knowledge and understanding. Knowledge will not help make you as fast, strong, tall, svelt, quick, agile, coordinated, temperate, focused, mindful or graceful as the truly talented, but it can give you an edge. Natural athletes trust their gifts and never ask questions of those gifts lest they break the magic.
Players
I, Tad Phelps, am a 64-year-old radiologist with an empty trophy case. I am one of the worst, most uncoordinated, clumsy dorks that ever had the audacity to step out onto a tennis court. I started playing tennis 50 years ago at age 14 when the city of Rutland, Vermont built four plexipave courts basically in my backyard. My mother (who started playing tennis at age 35 and became NELTA ranked in doubles by age 38) recounted watching us learn to play from our back porch, and she claimed that she could always pick me out as the one tripping over his own feet. Throughout my life I have thrown myself into skiing, ice hockey, baseball, swim team, platform tennis, squash, paddle ball, running, weight lifting, ping pong .. all in an attempt to find something for which I had some modicum of talent.
