Our Research Team

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Past Team Member
John Yandell, Co-Investigator/Project Manager

As Co-investigator and Project Manager, my role is to help define the questions and areas for our investigation of tennis and the flight of the tennis ball, to determine what technology is available to study those areas and record data, and to supervise and direct the on-site data collection, for example at the 1997 U.S. Open, where we filmed over 120 hours of high speed video of the top players. In addition, I am working with the other members of the project team in the analysis of that data, and in presenting our research project and our results on web so that students can follow what we are doing and participate in the process. I also am in charge of reporting the progress of our project and the results to the tennis press and any interested general media.

The Aerodynamics in Sports project has the potential to take our understanding of tennis to a new level. We are studying the flight of the tennis ball in pro tennis, and hope to develop an understanding of the speed of the ball, not only on the serve after the radar gun reading, but on all strokes, as well as the spin, how the ball moves through the air, and the bio-mechanics of the strokes that produced the flight in the first place. Working with the USTA as well as other tennis experts, we hope to make a contribution to the science of tennis, and also translate that science into coaching and teaching technology. My background in tennis is as a player, teacher, writer, and instructional video producer, living in San Francisco where my tennis school is located. As a junior I played competitively and was ranked in the Missouri Valley section. I have continued to play competitively as an adult and have been ranked numerous times in Northern California, including rankings in the top 10 in two different divisons.

At Yale I studied history and graduated cum laude.In the late 1970's I also did graduate work in the humanities at both Berkeley and Stanford. As I progressed in my tennis career, the analytic skills I developed during my education have been invaluable in seeking to understand how the game of tennis is played and how it is taught.

While working as a teaching pro at Golden Gate Park, I experimented with the effects of music and mental imagery in tennis, and often taught (as well as played) to special mix tapes with rock music that fit the rhythms of the game.

In 1985, I produced a best selling tennis instructional video with John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl. Called "The Winning Edge," it paired imagery of their strokes, and of competitive points, with music by the Police, the Cars, Blondie, the Pretenders, and the Motels.

In 1984, I founded the John Yandell Tennis School in San Francisco. In 1991, my book Visual Tennis was published, and in the same year, I released the Visual Tennis video. The Visual Tennis system is designed to use imagery to teach players at all levels to develop classical strokes and to hit them under competitive pressure by learning how to use the same imagery on the court.

Over the years we have used Visual Tennis with excellent results with begining, intermediate, and tournament players of all ages, all the way up and including touring pros and champions such as John McEnroe and Gabriela Sabatini.