 Evening everyone. I hope you are. It's the Touch Tennis Show. It's 8 o'clock and very excited to announce. This is the first time ever we have got a guest on the show and it's none other than Ashlee Neves who runs the Instagram account The Tennis Mentor. If you're not already following him you get a chance now to screenshot and bring in the underscore tennis underscore mentor. I'll also put that up on the screen in a few minutes so that you'll be able to see that too. Now Ashlee Neves has been playing Touch Tennis for quite some time. Humble photography. Thank you very much. It's not just nice lighting is it? I mean let's be honest. This is outrageously good lighting. I mean this is the best lighting even you've ever seen. It's just another level. I mean I want to be humble about it but I'm just too great. I mean why should I be? It's hard to be humble when you're A as pretty as this and B as talented as this. But yeah I'm just using some cheap lights. The new air light up there and I've got another new air light as a hair light or a rim light for a rim light behind me here and that just makes it up and then of course behind me we've got the obligatory light that says stay humble but I'm using an f1.1 lens which I've mentioned to you before which gives you that beautiful shallow depth of field. So with no further ado I'm going to bring in our guest Mr Ashlee Neves. I want you to give him a round of applause with lots of likes at the bottom there. Have I played Robbo? Yeah cross him he's a bunny. Let me just bring in Mr Ashlee Neves. Good evening sir. How are you? Great mate thank you so much for having me. It's been one of my things on my bucket list and yeah finally here. Yeah I mean imagine being this young in life and one of your life goals has been done. You don't have to do anymore. You just that's it. Incredible incredible but no love the show. I've been watching it you know ever since you started it and you know it's gone up a notch with the lighting and you know everything you've done with it so great work mate. I'll have a drink to you. Well it's sparkling water but me too. And a drink to myself as well for putting on such an amazing show and having guests like Ashlee Neves. Now this is a man who has played touch tennis for many many years we're going to go in to ask him a few questions about you know his tennis history as well not just his touch tennis history because he coaches tennis full-time and he won the LTA Coach of the Year award in 2019. It's no meat feet there are at least 5,000 coaches in this country and I've got to say 4,000 of them are absolute junk. 900 of them are quite competent you know adequate. 50 of them are unbelievable and to win you've got to be nominated by Ashlee. Yeah so I got nominated I won the Hampshire award and then you get put forward to a regional one and then managed to win that and yeah got put through to the last three had a nice day at Wimbledon and yeah most incredible day of my tennis career my tennis coaching career anyway but yeah very lucky honoured to have won it and you know lucky with all the people I've worked with and you know it's just it really helped to boost the club and that sort of thing so yeah very lucky. Oh I don't know about luck I think there's um there's a fair few things you can talk about in life that involve luck but there are some things that involve a great deal of perseverance commitment and hard work and I know that you take your work seriously but more importantly what I've noticed about you over the last year is unlike almost any other coach and I'm talking about people with tens of thousands of followers as well your video game has gone up another notch this year you have increased your production values and I know you've been you know watching great tech talks and stuff buying the right equipment but not necessarily splurging but just buying appropriate equipment for what you do tell us a little bit about when that journey began for you. Yeah so lockdown number one back in April I was trying to figure out a way that I could keep my players I work with active while I was unable to get on court with them so it started off I've always been quite active on on social media Instagram and you know post lots of pictures and things but but never really delved into the video side of things so yeah during lockdown I posted a few different challenges you know they'd be 30 second clips and just use my iPhone and and kind of really enjoyed it and started looking at different ways to edit them the films and gradually over time it kind of improved you know through the quality through just understanding a little bit more about the the videography side of things and when I got back to the club after the first lockdown I I had lots of the members of the club kind of commenting about the videos that they've seen and almost quoting some of the lines they'd heard and I kind of thought actually they've they've enjoyed it they found it valuable so I thought I'd kind of take it to the next level make the videos a bit longer started a YouTube channel and yeah since then it's it's grown I've posted quite a lot I think I've done about 80 videos now on YouTube and feedback's been lovely you know it's been really nice to help everybody and yeah hopefully you'll see you know slow improvement with the quality taking loads of tips from you rash you know with lighting and things and you know if you look back at my first YouTube video you'll notice that you know this room was really badly lit and and it didn't look very professional hopefully now you know I'm using my iPhone here but you know taking tips from you with regards to how to set things up has really helped so yeah hopefully I'm putting a bit of value out there you know there's loads of really good people out on on Instagram and on YouTube and taking lots of tips from them and and putting a bit more out myself it's been it's been an absolute pleasure to watch your uh let me just flip that back on now I almost lost you for a second um yeah it's been a pleasure to watch that growth actually just seeing your channel not only the number of subscribers grow but also the interaction with your videos on Instagram's been awesome I've seen how many people watch your videos it's incredible you get a really high engagement rate a really good loyalty so people are tuning in and also the free content that you put out at the beginning of the year little things like oh you know can you bounce a ball on the edge of the racket bouncing between your legs not necessarily trick shots but great shots that you can practice that will keep your hand-eye coordination in check while we're all in lockdown and a lot of those were really well received so yeah hats off to you for those those videos so tell me a little bit about your your tennis playing before you got into coaching I mean you started playing at what five six years old I was actually a little bit older I was about seven or eight years old and um my parents just saw an advert in the local paper and it was a summer camp went along to this summer camp um in Portsmouth at my local tennis center and absolutely loved it and I'm I'm the first of five boys I've got four younger brothers and then they all got into tennis you know various levels and and degrees but um yeah so I got started this summer camp and never looked back I played once a week from then by the time I was 10 11 I started you know taking it a little bit more seriously started competing playing maybe two three times a week um and by the time I was 15 I kind of knew that tennis was my thing and that it was going to be um hopefully my career longer term whether it be being a player or or being a coach I kind of knew that tennis had worked where I wanted to be and um yeah I left school at 16 played tennis full-time for a couple of years and during that time I kind of played you know a decent level um domestically played in the British Tour of Burns played a few um junior ITF events went abroad to a couple of different places and got smashed up by a few um decent players but it was a good experience and um yeah I kind of needed to find a way to pay for it so you know the travel it was expensive booking accommodation and not knowing you know when you travel up to Bolton for a British tour you know how many days do you need to book for accommodation you know if you get knocked out first round you're back down on the same day if you you manage to get through a few rounds it's going to cost you a lot of money and actually you're not going to earn enough money to cover your your expenses so um it's you know at that level it's very very very tough and um so started coaching to fund it and gradually over those few years between 16 and 19 really um my coaching kind of started to overtake my playing and I kind of had to make a decision at that point um as to what to do whether to continue competing or whether to to coach and I and I made the decision to to take my coaching a bit more seriously which looking back at it now is probably the best decision I made because I've had you know years and years to practice the the craft of coaching and um yeah so tough decision at the time but the right decision and what you talk about some of the the financial side of things and I mean I'm I don't you don't mind me saying this on on on live it's not like you know you're from a it's a multi-billionaire family so it's funding that route what are we talking about in terms of if you're not winning these futures and ITFs and you're 18 19 years old you're playing them what sort of money are you having to spend on say a monthly basis to play professional tennis hundreds you know near near to the to the thousand you know 1000s you know that sort of price and actually I wasn't at the stage where I was winning these British tours so I wasn't making that money back at all right you know so I was lucky enough to have really supported parents but they didn't have a lot of money and um so you know they couldn't afford to keep me so I had to pay my way around at that age you know they supported me as a youngster but when I was 16 17 it was it was my job to fund it so coaching was the only way and um so yeah no it's it's tough and unless you've got really you know supportive parents financially that can look and look after your tennis or if you get a sponsor it's a very very um tough profession very very tough and and you know there's lots of players out there that you know are fantastic incredible tennis players you know top 500 in the world are really struggling around the tour and um yeah in my opinion tennis is you know along with touch tennis is the best sport for your um you know you're developing life skills you know I tell every parent to get their kids into the sport but it's it's to make it professionally is incredibly tough so we've got a question here from tennis box tv he's 13 years old I've seen him playing touch tennis he can clearly hit a ball um and he's asked you know have you any tips as you know how to reach the top as a junior tennis player you've got to work your socks off every single second that you're on that tennis court you've got to work with purpose and I think you know if you go on that court and and you put a hundred percent effort in and have a purpose behind what you're doing then you're going to give yourself the best chance you know I see too many people going on court and just having a knock up and not really thinking about what they're doing and not really pushing themselves um surround yourself with the right people you know whether it be the right coaches the right players that you're playing with um positivity isn't important and um don't focus on the results right now focus on on the process you know it doesn't matter if you lose the matches right now as long as you're developing yourself in your game so um I agree with a lot of that and the effort and but I I could ask that someone like tennis box tv you know George you you ask yourself also why is it you want to be the best junior in the world why is it you want to be the suit for example I'm quite content in life with being the best I can be on the guitar I'm never going to be Eddie Van Halen or Steve Vai or somebody like that I'm just content to be the best I can be and I think it's because tennis is a sport that has rankings ratings competitions tournaments it's such a different pressure that you the only way you can ever be gauged is worthy and if you attach yourself esteem to those things you're looking to a lifetime of disappointment instead of being the best junior out there I would recommend you think about being the best you can be all of your life and I think Rafa has that mentality certainly he seems to exude that mentality he just wants to be the best he can be being number one is a bonus but he didn't seem to have any problem with being number two in the world to Fed for five or six years as long as he was winning majors as well long as he was playing his best tennis yeah I mean that that number one ranking is just the byproduct of the hard work you know it is the process that gets you there it's not chasing rankings because you know like you say it's a slippery slope once you start focusing on that you know you can you can only go one way it can only you can only feel negative about that if you're not there so um yeah process is the key. So Chris Sutar has joined in he's one of the few coaches again that I said he was at the upper echelon to the game I might have been slightly harsh at the beginning when I said some people are not necessarily particularly good uh Selina is a legend of the sport Chris is a legend of the sport and he's one of the the coaches that I look up to um you know the stuff that he puts out there is quality and um you know I'd love to get on call with him sometime when um when the times are right. You must be about five foot two if you're having to look up to Chris Sutar or maybe you just get underneath that head so you don't get the shine hitting off it and blinding you um but there are polarized glasses for that um uh Selina thank you for joining uh Chris Sutar was blushing oh Jesus Christ we really will need sunglasses now it's gonna be from every angle he didn't think he was gonna come on air and get abused Chris was gonna get on the show as well sometime because I value his opinion above almost anyone in the world of tennis um and also I value his opinions as a human being so you know I actually like the guy value you know genuinely there are very few people that I would invite into my home for example anymore and he's one of the people that I have invited to my home a couple of times and would regularly again great guy um Mo good evening Mo Allie joining us uh hope you're well Mo Allie actually it should be pronounced not Allie I'm pronouncing it like a like I've given up and sold my soul and forgotten my roots it's Allie it's actually I don't know why they say it right at ALI it's ULI almost but that would be Uli we'll get into the um semantics of spelling one other day what about how to become the best when people you train with aren't your standard Ash give someone a tip here really important because I've had I've got some ideas on this but really the reason I want you here is to answer questions like this yeah you're playing against substandard players and you're trying to improve um and I had this problem as the goat you know there was no one my level for me to play against and raise my own levels so what I would do is I would jokes aside when I was playing tennis there was a time when when touch tennis began and I would play against players that absolutely sucked at tennis which is hard to believe when you see how bad I am so what I would do is I'd say right I'm going to hit every backhand up the line that's it every time they go to my backhand I'm just going to try and nail up the line every forehand I'm going to go up the line inside in or up the line from there I'm not going to hit anything cross-court so that would be my practice session I would exclude cross-court and then the next time I played them I would exclude the lines and I was like I'm only allowed to rally cross-court against them that was what I would do but what can you give us some decent tips for playing against bunnies and improving your game at the same time absolutely so totally agree with you rash I think you know having having ideas like that is a really good way to do it if you think of Novak Djokovic or Serena Williams they don't have many people better than them they don't have anybody better than them to train so quite often they'll have to train with two players um you know two on one drills are really good way of of kind of pushing yourself and challenging yourself um have a goal in mind like rash said you know if it is to bully the backhand and hit one part of the court more often then make it be that it might be that you're trying to work on something technically it might be your sliced backhand so force yourself into hitting more sliced backhands um but yeah there's different ways you can do it think of it like when you play somebody better than you're a similar level reading their game can be quite simple they play good tennis so they almost play predictable tennis but when you're playing people that are of a lesser standard of view it's not always as predictable so you it's a bit of a challenge in a way to deal with those you know rubbish balls that come in short when you're not expecting it or those those balls that hit the frame and are tougher to read so treat it as a challenge and um like rash said have a focus in mind and try to just pinpoint that area of your game and sorry before I forget I'm just doing something underneath your screen that was meant to be done seamlessly and I've now done it so you can now see at the bottom of your profile when you're on screen here yeah exactly it's there so people now tag you that's that's almost that's bordering on bordering on heroic yeah and it's still there that's awesome isn't it it's got the tennis mentor at the bottom absolutely love this this is huge new level so the next guest we have on here I'll prepare better for the reason I didn't bother us because Ashley Neves once was the recipient of a golden set that had to be mentioned right of course I'm not I'm not even gonna make excuses right it was it was three o'clock in the morning I was I was half asleep um Alex Ball if you're watching if you're watching in the future well played mate um the worst thing though it wasn't just the fact that yeah the second set was better by the way I did a lot better than the second set but um Jamie Lang I don't know if you know Jamie Lang he was watching wasn't he one of the celebs there made in Chelsea's house and it was yeah three o'clock in the morning at the NTC and I got cold and bagled hope that's the last of it Rash I hope nobody else hears of it no I don't think I'll ever bring it up again that's the one thing you can guarantee about me is that discretion is my middle name you know I'm I'm sort of lost you there for a second you're still there Ash I'm still here oh sorry I thought you just muted yourself and you were done for the day after that golden set being brought up but no I promise not to bring it up again Mr Mark Butler hello good evening to you hope you're well thanks for joining in this live stream tonight's live stream we have Ashley Neves with us the tennis mentor who is a an award-winning coach you won coach of the year in 2019 in Great Britain and is an all-round lovely guy who plays loads of touch tennis I think we were all tired that night yeah stay humble absolutely um but yeah that was uh that was a hell of an evening wasn't it so all right so moving on into the coaching world we were talking a little earlier you know and I interrupted and talked about where you drew the line when it came to finances you're talking about between 6,000 and 12,000 pounds a year just to be a player but that doesn't include paying your rent where you're living that doesn't include eating when you're not on tour it's like so it's still a 20-25 grand a year lifestyle and you've got zero income I can't see how that's easy so it seems like the decision you made to move into into coaching were panned out well I mean it turns out that it's not like you were untalented as a tennis player but certainly it seems like your talents do seem to lie more more in your tennis coaching would you say I think so yeah I think and because I started early it allowed me to to really develop and that side you know growing up with four younger brothers I think helped with you know patience and and dealing with kids and and I I really enjoyed outside of coaching you know working with the younger kitties and and giving them the foundations that they need to to kind of take a lifelong love the sport and you know whether they make it as players or whether they you know play tennis at university or whatever they choose to do I think tennis is a fantastic sport and and really good for for all life skills you know dealing with failure dealing with winning and being humble as you quite often say so yeah you know and all sports are like it but I think when you're in that arena in a one-to-one sport it really kind of you know puts that that pressure that you know dealing on your own with failure all those sorts of things it's much tougher in a one-to-one sport and I think in itself it gives you a lot of good live qualities that you need got another one here from the tennis box he was saying what's better touch tennis or touch tennis I think he's answered his own question hasn't he yeah I think touch tennis is better yeah I think so yeah absolutely um also we have lots of bad weather and only outdoor courts which causes sessions to be cancelled what should I do two squads a week isn't enough never mind if they get cancelled so essence see improve your fitness you know whether it's your strength whether it's your agility there's loads of good homework out there that you can do and being a good tennis player these days is way more than having good technique is way more than hitting tennis balls it's such a physical sport now when you see those players on the tour they are machines and and I think you know if you can create yourself into an athlete actually that's going to be even more beneficial than the you know the the technical side of things you know I think it's a lot easier to create a tennis player from an athlete in the inner start rather than starting from technique so yeah build up your your physical side of your game when you're not able to get on court but even if you are able to get on court it's good to do that too now here's a question for you you're building up your strength and conditioning when you've got somebody who's 12 13 years old I don't recommend they ever do weights of any description what sort of s and c are you talking about here I'm assuming it's more like band work speed work that sort of stuff you're not talking about getting in the gym and lifting you know for the people that aren't tennis players who are watching we're not talking about you know benching their body weight stuff what are we talking about here in terms of s and c typically what would you typical day for you with a with a junior a 13 year old yeah so I'm you can do weight training but body weight training you know you would never lift weights as a younger junior player anything with explosive movements is really good as a tennis player because you know as you know you've got to be very quickly around the court you've got to be very explosive when you're hitting shots so yeah endurance stamina obviously important but actually nowadays the points aren't as long you know the game is evolving in lots of different ways and and the players out there now are focusing mainly around their serve and ball number three or their return and ball number four so so actually being able to to have that explosive strength is important so yeah there are lots of good programs out there for juniors to to develop their tennis specific physical skills but outside of the tennis specific stuff actually just improve your general fitness yeah so you know plyometric work is great for tennis players you know jump lunges and squat jumps and those sorts of things are really really good yeah see I am Lucarias Lucarias Perez evening to you thanks for the applause um I did find that the more heavy weight I did the stronger I was at the full extent of my range so if I was using free weights a lot I found that do you remember when I cuffed maca with those 35 kilogram dumbbells literally cold just picked up to 35 bags in jeans yeah and and then he gets there and he can't even lift them I think that ended him I wish I played him at touch tennis straight after that because he would never have been able to beat me in a matter how good he was um that's maca for those who don't know is his younger brother who's called the forehand it's possibly one of the biggest ground stokers that's ever played the game he can hit off both wings so phenomenally hard just sorry quickly before I finish I'll go back to maca in a second I found that at my full extent my range I was able to control the ball better because I guess using heavy weights you know you got strengthening your tendons but what I lost was speed on court I just didn't have that explosive strength speed like so no matter how strong I was I couldn't get to the ball as soon as I started doing light weights lots of repetitions and quick stuff I was able to get to the ball so much quicker that I didn't need to be at the extent of my range to hit a forehand because I was there early enough to hit it out in front of me yeah it's it's functional strength isn't it you know it's the strength that you need to hit a forehand it's the strength that you need to serve and actually you know bench press deadlift all good things for full body strength but actually tennis specific wise you want to be doing those movements so um yeah anything dynamic anything with acceleration and deceleration as well super important and going back to maca he your first younger brother he's the one directly below you right no he's he's the third actually there's always between us yeah I didn't realize so he um he bludgeoned the ball on both sides with such obscene ferocity every single time I mean I have seen meteorites hit the surface of the moon with less aggression than he hit forehands and I couldn't understand how I remember he went three sets with Simon Roberts in uh Odeby tennis club on astroturf courts in 2017 I'm going to say and sorry 16 actually 2016 and he went three sets and he was in a position to win almost and just about as usual Simon found the way but he hit the ball for three sets so biblically hard how does someone do that how does someone develop that sort of game where they can hit the ball that hard and it goes in what is it that separates a him from you you've trained in similar places you've hit the ball very similar what is it you think that he has is there some innate gift or is it something he just worked on because he was mentally so challenged he knew he couldn't last more than six shots in a rally without losing concentration which one do you think it was yeah it's a really good question I honestly can't win this one you're going to abuse your brother whichever way but carry on yeah yeah but he's he's used to that um I honestly think it's more the mental side and and the way that he he likes to play his game style so he's developed that game it's crazy though as a junior player so he was an unbelievable talent on the tennis court unbelievable so um he he played nationals he played road to Wimbledon and got to got to the last eight in the country like really really good player but he was known as the wall he would not miss a ball he was are you seriously grinder I'm no way serious filthy grinder but no I cannot imagine maca grinding a point in a million years I mean I just cannot imagine that so he um yeah he won't let me say he played carl edmund two or three times as a junior and um carl at the time was a kind of later bloomer than the maca maca been playing for years he played since he's like two three years old and he used to beat carl and he was just a brick wall and I don't know you have to ask him I don't know what whether there was a moment that he changed or whether it was something that happened but yeah he absolutely well there you go one shot maca he absolutely spanks his forehands now and I do think it was a mental switch for him because he is um what's a nice way of putting it he he's a loose wire on the court he right you know he I'm very calm as a tennis player so I don't you know throw rackets I don't shout I'm quite cool and calm collected he's the opposite um right and so I think it reflects in our game style so yeah I'm I'm quite a steady eddie quite um a solid player and I think that kind of matches up with the way that I my mind sat on the court whereas he is a loose goose and he absolutely spanks it and it you know if he's having a good day nobody can stop him but on the other side if he's having a bad day the racket will be over three courts away I'm just trying to find a couple of rallies as we speak um because you know we've got a lot of um I mean that photograph was a classic example as you say one-shot needs you know it was we didn't he's actually here is he's watching yeah Emma tennis is there he's watching um he's probably thinking you know why why have I come on here to get abused and it's like well if you're on the touch tennis show watching you're kind of asking for it you know it's it's one of those things so let's look at our photographs we don't want we want to go to videos don't we so touch tennis longer form videos house versus sir top five rallies mackerel while you're there is there a moment that that changed you because it is like chalk and cheese you honestly two different people yeah let's have a look I mean this first rally is a really good example of um what my mouse has gone to sleep crack crack connected there you go right let's bring this in and you can comment on this while it's playing I mean at that point we were thinking he could possibly it could possibly be number one in the game the way he was hitting the ball in 2016 and he went to love up against robert's in that fight in the quarter finals of the masters cup 2016 didn't win another game it's crazy it's crazy and it's if you had that game style with a slightly calmer um mindset on the court yeah um that could kind of figure things out when things don't go your way yeah that would make the difference and I think you know it's it's in the heat of the moment he's he's spanking that forehand all over the court and if something doesn't go his way he's raging about that and and you know doesn't really think too much about how he can make it that adjustments so um and he'll agree with me he's um his game and his personality reflect one another um and on the flip side it's similar to me you know I'm quite steady and I'm quite calm on the court if if something was different then you know I could be a better player as well but it's funny in um on the tennis court he he hits his forehand that big but in his backhand he doesn't um whereas on touch it when he plays touch tennis he's actually a lot more confident with his backhand and he'll rip it as well um yeah I think I think touch tennis can do a lot for your tennis game I know um players at the club where I am at the moment you know some of them played um touch tennis on the tour and you know started really getting into it and it really helped their game and I'm talking about you know adults of 40 50 years old and and you know they they weren't that strong at hitting you know top spin on the tennis court but or 60 if you're talking about Gilead well I've been polite um yeah but but yeah it's um just the hands that you develop and your reaction skills and being able to read what the ball's going to do before it's struck because quite often you know when you play when you play tennis you've got a lot of time and you get you get away with being a bit lazy because you can wait to see what the ball's doing in the air before you start moving but actually when the pros play tennis they need that information before the ball struck at the other end you know they need to see they need to look at the opponent's body position they need to look at the size of their take back to start gathering information as to what they're going to send back whereas in touch tennis you have to do that because you don't have enough time just to watch the ball so um you know it's not just the technical thing that it can help with on the tennis court but actually your the reading skills and learning to anticipate yeah I think the the one thing I learned when I was still playing both tennis and touch tennis was after I played touch tennis for a day and I went out and played tennis the pressure to serve was gone because now I had two who just go after both serves I felt so confident like well I'm not going to miss two I'll miss one sure but I'm not going to miss two and the other thing I felt was the court was just huge so I couldn't miss I was so used to ripping the ball and getting it up and down in this really compact space where the net is so high relative to the court suddenly you're at the baseline and the nets you know what is it it's 20 40 feet away from you almost and all you need to do is just pop it like that and it will always clear the net it's it's fun especially with your with your game style you know not be going above 20 30 miles per hour it's quite hard to miss it long as well so you can get sorry are you the only player that's ever been golden-setted in history yes okay so anyway moving on so I feel like in tennis you're much more likely to go in the net when you're tight whereas in touch tennis you're much more likely to go long when you're tight because you pop it instead of ripping it and in tennis you just go like that and you sort of decelerate the ball goes in the net whereas in touch tennis you don't accelerate enough and it goes long would you agree with that yeah I think the nice thing it's all about the ball in touch tennis the nice thing about it is you can't get away with pushing the ball floats the ball go long yeah um so when you get tight in touch tennis you cannot afford to open the strings up you know what people people tend to do when they play tennis you know at a certain level is they'll push the ball quite flat you know nudge it into play but as soon as you do that in the touch tennis court the ball floats yeah it really encourages you to to hit through your shots even under pressure and I think you know that can that can help to transform your mentality on the tennis court too yeah absolutely I've seen a lot of people do that when they they've been in unbelievable winning positions and they've just tightened up like a clam just shut and you see them sort of I want to win this because they haven't beaten this player you know he or she you know has got their number and they just start pushing the ball like that and the other player is just back against the wall doesn't care and is still free hitting and I've seen people implode mentally it's and it's incredible because the physical manifestation is only a reflection of what's going on in their mind they're tight they're pretty much you can see them like choking it up and gagging everything long and a great example of that is Aryan Furuhande I mean I don't know those of you who remember you know he was playing a doubles match very important match and got tight jumped up and gagged the smash I mean I I'd hate to bring it up today I'm going to afford him the courtesy of not playing that video but uh unless of course Ash do you not remember the video do you think you need to see it yeah I don't recall it actually I don't would you mind getting it up the video yeah I should know better you should know better right so for those of you that doesn't don't um that don't uh have never seen this video if you're one of the half a million people that have been on mars um over the last couple of months and haven't seen this video this is what happens when you get tight on an overhead we we call it affectionately the monkey jump um yeah I'm sorry Alan I'm I need to play it more often I hope you got a chance to see it there we affectionately call it the monkey jump where he just is just so tight now because he feels like he should have won this point 95 times over he's there's no way he should and so he's just getting tighter and tighter and then he gets one here and he just does the monkey jump and then he's still falling and spanks it wide and that's a classic example yeah it's just of getting tight in a point let alone in a match situation and Al Mazzetti provided the entertainment there by just just hoisting the ball up and up and up just dirty dirty lobbing love it love it yeah the the length of that rally in itself just increased the pressure at each shot that ball came back the pressure was mounting wasn't it and it had to end up with without with that smash it's brilliant yeah and that's that's so valid you know people don't realize that the longer a point goes on the pressure that mounts that you do not want to miss I mean I play Al probably like you know once I remember when we first moved into the bomb we played every single day that fault without fail every single day and then our bodies were just breaking down after a year and we're like okay we need to cut it down so we cut it down to every other day no four times out of five um but I remember whenever we get into rallies there's a lot of pride between us about like who's got the steadier backhand for example or who's not going to miss on an exchange so if I'm going forehand line to his backhand he's just making backhands make and he for him to miss he hates it he considers himself like um a barricade you know one of those junk ballers who refuses to miss and he's just rolling it up the line and he knows the pressure is just building on my forehand which is my most least consistent shot or even if it's backhand to backhand I'm just there going just trying to get that ball across court and once you get past about 10 shots I don't care who you are you start going I don't want to miss but you're also your opponent is giving you the ball that you could just unload on up the line but you don't want to take it on it's so similar when I look at club club doubles and you see that player at the net and there's a big cross court rally happening and you can see them just going into a shell you know dreading that time where the ball's going to go down the line so the best thing you can do is try to get involved in the point as early as possible you know make that interception on your on the return or on the next ball but you know as that as that rallied lengthens there's so much pressure on that net player and at some point it's going to go there so um no it's funny what the mind can do and how you can feel when you're when you're playing those long long rallies so I'm going to let you go now and uh last question for you so get a little tip for your club players out there who are it's locked down for across the country so a lot of people are going to be playing against someone from their family so the chances are they're going to have to be playing against an absolute bunny or somebody they can routine there's very few families where you've got siblings that are of equal ability what can they do to improve their game during lockdown um to make themselves a better player for when it when they come back to playing against much better players again be that tennis will touch tennis this is a bit out there this is a bit out um outside of the box but coach them and learn how to coach them and if you are i've become a much better player since being a coach because i've researched the game you know i know you know all of the tactical intentions that you need to know i know you know everything that you learn as a coach really helps as a player so if you can do a bit of research head out on on youtube you know look into different coaching tips for coaching various levels of player and if you can help to develop their game then it's actually going to help to develop your game in turn you know quite often when you are playing with a family member who doesn't play tennis it's very very tough to get anything out of it physically but if you if you get more out of it mentally um with knowledge you know improving your tennis knowledge understanding different things about the techniques and different things about tactics you can actually take them into your game when you return to the tennis court and practice yourself but outside of that improve your fitness as much as you can um yeah fitness and knowledge really as far as as you can go um when you can't get on tennis court playing with with like-minded people wonderful it's been an absolute pleasure having you on for those of you that aren't following um it is the tennis mentor his name is tagged at the bottom there so it's at the underscore tennis underscore mentor he is former coach of the year award winner from from the lta both locally regionally and then nationally and is an all-round wonderful guy former top 10 touch tennis player and has some great video content ash i really want to thank you for your evening giving up your time to be on the touch tennis show tonight and i'm so grateful that you were the first ever touch tennis live guest that we've had on the show thank you so much ash it's been incredible and um you know i wish you all the luck with with you know getting these next live shows out i'm sure you have lots of good guests and um yeah awesome stuff thanks for having me been an absolute pleasure ladies and gentlemen uh that was actually neves and i have had the absolute pleasure of having him on the show tonight and as you always having you on the show tonight as well watching answers and asking questions and engaging with us as part of our tribe i really hope all of you have had a wonderful weekend a great christmas break we'll be back tomorrow night where we are announcing the winner of the touch tennis home kit um but for now from ashley news and from myself stay happy stay healthy and most of all if you want to be the goat stay humble good night