The Game of Tennis- General Tips (General Tennis Comments &Tips)

Member Name: rossmoorlock

Product:	General Tennis Comments &Tips
Date:	06/03/01 (241 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great game- fairly easy to pick up.

Disadvantages: Can get complicated.

I am sure that all of you are thinking that tennis is a very easy game. I mean come on; all you have to do is hit a ball over the net with a big bat thing. Well, yes, that maybe the case, but if you want to become a good tennis player then there is a lot more that you have to learn. There are lots of different shots in tennis but some of them are quite similar.

The forehand and backhand shots are fairly similar. The forehand is played out to the side of you and the backhand is played across the body.
I have been playing tennis now for years. I have represented by county (Nottingham) and Rushcliffe and am currently playing in a performance squad. I am going to try and give you some basis tips on how to get your tennis shots working well.

Forehand
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This is probably the easiest shot in tennis. You need to get yourself positioned well, and make sure that the ball is out to the side of you. This is the hard bit coming up.
You need to get your racquet back low to the ground, and swing your racquet from low to high. You should be aiming to hit the ball when it is between knee and waist height, as this makes timing the ball a lot easier and it is generally more comfortable to play the shot.


That is what I would call a very basic forehand. If you are feeling confident with that then the next stage is to try and hit topspin on the ball. Coaches never taught topspin until about 20 years ago so quite a lot of middle-aged club players tend to hit a lot of dodgy slice spin on the ball which is ok I guess, but the ball is hard to control.


The idea of topspin is that you should be brushing up the back of the ball. Again, you start your racquet low and go from low to high. You should not be making too much contact on the ball. You may find it easier to practice this shot from the service line and get somebody to hand feed you the ball. It just allows you to get used to the shot and the timing of the ball.

When you play a topspin shot you should give the ball a lot of height over the net.


Topspin makes the ball dip a lot, so if you hit the ball so it was only just scraping over the net it would bounce short and allow your opponent to have an easy put away.
If you are having problems understanding the technique of a shot then just watch some tennis on the TV. When I was young I always used to have my eyes glued to the screen and I would watch carefully to see the techniques that they were using. Then the next time that I went up to my tennis club I would try them out.

Backhand
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This is generally a player’s weakest groundstroke. When you are young and just starting tennis the forehand is always a more natural shot to play, so you just hit more forehands then backhands and the forehand becomes a much better and more controlled shot.


When you cut the backhand down into little stages it is not a hard shot at all. I would always recommend starting with two hands on the grip. Make sure that you hands are just touching, but not overlapping. If you are right handed then when hitting a backhand you should have your right hand on the bottom of your racquet and your left hand just above it. You then put your racquet out to the left with your right arm going across your body. Similarly to the forehand you start the racquet head low to the ground and then hitting the ball between knee and waist height, swing the racquet from low to high.


If you want to hit topspin then like the forehand you should be brushing up the back of the ball. You can always tell when you hit topspin because you can feel it on your racquet. The contact is not too hard and it makes more of a clicking kind of noise.

When hitting a backhand with two hands you will find that you get a lot more support. Recently I tried to hit a single hand backhand for a while, only to find that unfortunately my wrist didn't feel str
ong enough to generate enough power.


The volleys are a bit more complicated then some people may think. Most tennis players that haven't been coached tend to swing at the ball. For those of you who don't know what a volley is (duh) then it is when you hit the tennis ball without it bouncing. This shot is generally played in at the net, as it is easier to hit down on the ball and create more of an angle.


When you hit the volley on both forehand and backhand you should not take your racquet back behind you too much. The action that you should be making is very similar to a punching action. Like hammering a nail in.
Don't swing at the ball, as you will end up hitting the ball behind you and it will end up going miles out. However hard the ball is coming at you, you need to make sure that your weight is going forwards into the ball.

This will help with the timing and the ball will have a lot more power on it. If you keep on missing the ball then you need to watch it more carefully.
Here comes one of my intelligent tips. If you are in at the net and the ball is hit to you and it is higher then the height of the net, you should hit your volley cross-court and try and create an angle.
But if the ball is lower then the net there are two shots you can play. You can play a drop shot of just chip the ball down the line.


The smash is a very important shot in tennis. Some coaches tend to take this shot for granted and never coach it until the player is a bit older. If you are very small but still a keen tennis player you should listen to this very carefully. I was small when I first started playing and whenever I would approach the net I would get lobbed. The ball would fly straight over my head and land on the base line every time. There really wasn't anything I could do about it. This made me almost scared of coming into the net, because I knew that I was going to get lobbed. But in be scared of c
oming into the net I never got to practice my volleys so at one point they got a bit weak.


The smash is very similar to the serve. It should be similar to a throwing action. When you see that somebody is trying to lob you, you should get you racquet back early behind your head. Here’s a tip for you. Using your opposite hand (not your hand that is on the racquet), you should point at the ball as it comes towards you, as this will help you to time the ball and hit it cleanly.


You can take more of a swing on the smash. It is better to try and hit length on it, although most professionals hit it into the ground before the service line. They do this because they have immaculate timing and know exactly what they want to do. Remember that on a smash, generally you should be hitting the ball into the ground and not hitting up on the ball.


When I get time I will add the serve to this opinion, but that can be very complicated. I could have gone into much more detail with any of the above shots, so if you have any questions about them, please leave a comment and I will answer them as quickly as I can.

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