Milligan tennis has become one of the first teams in the Appalachian Athletic Conference to incorporate the use of film in their practice strategy.
Tennis coach Ryan Reynolds came up with the idea of filming his players during practice to help them achieve a better perspective of their own game.
The purpose is to focus in on a single player’s stroke and help them develop a far better game, hopefully the best game they can achieve.
“The film will be used to critique players individually,” Reynolds said, “and help them play at a better level.”
Reynolds plans to take the film of his own players’ tennis swings and compare it side by side to the swing of a professional tennis athlete, providing further in-depth learning. The team will not be looking at scouting films from other schools but rather zeroing in on improving Milligan tennis as an overall program.
Reynolds has partnered with senior tennis player and communications major Daniel Peacock. Peacock works with cameras on a day-to-day basis and should provide excellent film for the tennis team to use.
“I had talked to Coach about possibly getting the communications department involved to help film practices and edit the film, making it more presentable,” Peacock said.
Many teams at Milligan have already adopted the idea of filming. In fact, Reynolds stated that tennis was one of the last teams to actually begin using film.
“Athletes don’t realize what they are doing wrong,” Reynolds said, “until they see it themselves and then can go in and correct it.”
