Marina Match Point

ABOUT RODGER

​​Irving Byrne was first and only teacher. He taught Richard “Pancho” Gonzales.   To his credit he gave Pancho his infamous serve! Professional players’ serves were always measured by Pancho’s serve for decades.  Today, it is Pete Sampras.  Many quotes from Pancho, including “practice the serve every time you set foot on the court” came from Byrne’s mouth.  He taught me when I was 16 and spent 3 hours a day, 5 days a week in the summer.  I put in another 5 hours of drilling to keep with the knowledge he was giving me.  He used kinesthetic, whole-part-whole , visualization and verbal teaching techniques.  The way he taught me laid the foundation of my skills of teaching today.  He gave me 2 strokes: (1) the second serve and (2) all the volley strokes, including return of serve, approach shots, blocks and chips etc.

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I was taught the kick serve American twist) and he wanted me to be able to hitserves 100 serves in a row.  In 2018, I could still hit 106 consecutive serves in a row without missing. I was serving to another person on the other side who was trying to return them.  I could have kept going but I stopped at 106.  I stopped at 106 to show, now deceased, Irving Byrne that I could still do it.  I was known for the twist serve in the South Bay.  The characteristic of a good kick serve bounces above your opponent’s shoulder and has a directional hop to the right, if you are right handed.  The directional change from the trajectory to the landing in the service box and the, after the bounce, could b e as much as 4 feet deviation.  Irving Byrne was brilliant.  By giving me a serve, he also gave me an overhead and my volley strokes were the rest of my game.  I could attack anything, a serve, a heavy topspin groundstroke, it didn’t matter.  The volley strokes are the second most important strokes in the game.  I did not learn the topspin ground strokes and slice/flat serve until after college.  Those were self taught.  I played on the El Camino College tennis team and 2 years SC/Jc tennis team and was the MVP and asssistant coach.  I graduated from CSU Cominguez (with Great Distinction).  I studied biomechanics, wrote a paper on tennis elbow, taught a class on “wall tennis” tennis stroke development against a wall.  I developed the varsity tennis program for Wildwood High School in Los Angeles.  

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In 1984, I joined the USPTA “Elite” Level and started at the Marina Oakwood in Marina Del Rey,CA which had 4 courts and a Pro Shop.  I have been there as the Tennis Manager for 40 years.  I was a tester for the USPTA for 5 years.  My m Nestor, Bob Parker, encourage me to join the USPTA and give back and build the game of tennis.  He was one of the founding fathers of the USPTA.  His membership number was #8 and he was USPTA Pro of the Year 2 times.  Bob was watching me teaching at my facility and, after I completed the lesson he couldn’t believe the change I had made in the student in just 1 hour.  It didn’t matter if the student was beginner, intermediate or advanced.  He made the comment, “your teaching was magical and I dub thee Merlin of the Marina”. 

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Teaching a varity of people, 4 year olds to 98 year olds, kept my teaching skill sharp.  The November/December 2010 Tennis Magazine article “Tennis Uninterrupted” profiled my 98 year old student.  From beginner to top players in the country, I treated them the same, trying to bring out the best tennis player inside them.  

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I was fortunate to teach a 6 year old by the ame of Derrick Bauer for 4 years.  By the, I turned him over to some other Pros who continued his growth.  It was in Derrick’s heart that he took it to another level and reach #2 in Singles and #1 in doubles for several years.  I also worked with Jonathan Sappaiboonm #1 in the Nation 16’s.  He reminded me of Michael Chang.

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Because of Derrick. Auger, the USTA came out from NYT to talk about my methodology in teaching the serve.  We talked over 2 hours and bottom line, we saw eye to eye on everything and they graciously gave me the NASA 350 frames/second video of Pete Sampras’ serve.  He is my template.  No one has ever met what level of Pete Sampras.  His second serve alone was 125 mph topspin landing halfway up the box and106 mph slice.  His first serve had 2000 rpm, 500 rpm more than any other player on the tour.

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I believe that my serve and the ability to teach it is the main reason I became a teaching pro.  “The serve is the easiest and hardest to master.”  Easiest because you are in total control of the service motion and the toss.  If done consistently, the second serve will become a well lubricated machine-like motion that can be repeated over and and over and never fail you in the heat o battle.  I have demonstrated serving blindfolded in a lot o my clinics and to students.  The reason why the serve is also the hardest to master, it requires a lot of practice and drilling.  At age 16 I practiced my serve 3 times a day in the summer.  One hour each time morning, noon and late afternoon.  I mastered “the feel” in 3 months.  I mastered the kick serve with a chocked up grip where I could sense the feel and touch and consistently hit 99% of my serves in the ox with a lot of spin and kick and height.  It grew bigger with lowering my grip to the actual grip of the racquet.  Lowering my grip in increments aloud  me to keep that “feel” always present.  It’s that “touch and feel” of the brush with the racquet head speed that is the most difficult aspect of the brush with racquet head speed that is the most difficult aspect of the kick serve to learn and to teach.  Your’re only as good as your second serve.  Because of it’s height and spin, you can keep yourself out of trouble. Michael Chang won his only Grand Slam, French Open, on a kick serve and underhand serves against a #1 #1 player in the world in the world, Ivan Lendl. 

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Enjoy the journey,

Rodger Lolley