Wherever there's a sport involving a ball, no doubt the most common phrase uttered by coaches, parents, and other sources of sports wisdom is, "Watch the ball." Fortunately, this advice is as sound as it is common. Give the ball its due. It usually deserves to be the center of attention.

When we watch tennis on TV, we can afford not to watch the ball quite as intently as if we were on court. After all, we don't have to chase it and hit it. None the less, it remains the center of our focus. Even on TV, we either watch the ball itself or the person hitting the ball. This is natural and sensible, but there's a lot we can learn by forcing ourselves not to follow the ball. Here are a few suggestions for redirecting your attention.

1. Watch each player just after she hits the ball. In particular, note how the footwork sequences she uses to recover her position back toward the center of the court vary according to how far she has to recover. If you're a beginner or intermediate player, you might be side-stepping when you should be running, or vice-versa.

2. In baseline rallies, study the correlation between where a player aims her shot and where she moves to get ready for the next shot. You'll see that she'll need to move farther when she has just hit down the line than when she has hit crosscourt. So, when you're in trouble in a point and might have to scramble for your next shot, where should you aim? Crosscourt, unless you can rip a winner down the line, in which case you won't need to get to a next shot.

3. When one player is hitting a groundstroke, watch how the other is preparing to react. Whether he's at the baseline or the net, you'll usually see him split-step so that he can bounce off in the proper direction as soon as his eyes pick up the ball leaving the hitter's racquet.

4. Instead of watching the server at the start of a point, watch the receiver. Most receivers will take a couple of small steps forward, then split-step as the server swings. After watching several matches, you'll notice that the starting position and amount of forward movement by the receiver correlate to the aggressiveness of the return. If you're returning too defensively, try more forward motion.

5. After a player hits a short ball, watch him adjust the depth of his position. You'll see that good short balls call for one positioning response, bad ones the opposite adjustment. When a player sees that his opponent will be forced to dig a good drop shot up from below the net, he'll move forward because he knows the opponent can't hit an aggressive reply. On the other hand, when he sees that his opponent will get to a short ball too easily, he stays back to try to survive the inevitable attack.

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