Congratulations to Phil Moy Itasca, IL Schaumburg TTC for his contribution to the Coaching Forum contest. The winning entry is listed below for your review and implementation into your training program.

Phil Moy
Itasca, IL
Schaumburg TTC

“The robot gives me a steady consistent ball to practice against. Once I have achieved consistent strokes, then it’s time to provide some inconsistent balls to hit against. The way to do this is to add all sorts of different balls into the traysŠone star balls, two star, three star, no star (like the really cheap, cheap balls you find at K-Mart) and you’ll get a variety of trajectories and bounces, more like you’ll get in a real game!”

Technical Support note: If you use this tip, you may get some balls that are so badly out of round, too large in diameter, or too small in diameter for the balls to fit through your robot properly. If you start having problems with balls sticking in the machine, or some very erratic trajectories (like the ball popping straight up or directly sideways) you can try weeding out the offending balls one by one and still get a variety of reasonable trajectories and bounces. Two brands of balls we particularly have trouble with are Pioneer and Halex.