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Practice makes perfect right? Um, I don’t think so.

If you are working on the ball machine or with a hitting partner to improve your skills and aren’t using the proper technique you are simply ingraining a way to fail in match play.

Hitting a tennis ball, much like throwing a dart at a dart board, is a closed skill.

If you practice dart throwing hours on end and then in competition are forced to catch a dart thrown to you then hurriedly stop and peg the same dart at the bull’s-eye of a moving dart board you then replicate the closed skill in an open environment that the sport of tennis demands.

When you practice tennis strokes you must first work on the closed skill of setting up in a balanced manner, striking the ball with the correct swing path and racket face angle, and then making sure you use the proper follow through to deliver the ball toward the intended target.

After you have put in the hours necessary to execute the particular skill you are working on, you must then subject that skill to the chaos of a tennis match and audit to what degree that skill breaks down under pressure.

Is the preparation a little late when you have to run four or five steps to the ball?

Maybe you aren’t getting your feet positioned the way you were able to in that less explosive and variable practice session.

Does the follow through get short, and thus your control of the spin on the ball and your targeting skills disappear?

Practice only makes perfect if you first perfect, as best you are able, the closed skill of ball striking then subject those skills to constant observation and re-evaluation under pressure.

Be keenly aware of when and which component of each stroke fails and only then can you tailor your practice sessions to foster the greatest environment for positive change.

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Howie Burnett is a member of the United States Professional Tennis Association and tennis director at the Island Country Club on Marco Island. Burnett welcomes questions on strokes, tactics or etiquette. To reach him, call the tennis shop at 394-4464 or e-mail him at 

islandclubtennis@hotmail.com.