But you can improve your game tremendously just by knowing how your mind and body react and adapt before and during tennis matches.

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1. What's new?
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a) I've included 2 examples from my own experiences of playing tennis and how knowing myself helps me play better tennis:

Know Thyself - How Being an Expert on Yourself Enables You to Play Your Best Tennis

b) Thanks again for submissions to the What Have You Learned From A Tennis Match page.

This weeks winner is undoubtedly Jesse for his great story:

The Tennis Mind Game And Why We Play

The second prize goes to Mohamed in Cairo for his contribution:

How To Defeat Fear And Anger

Special thanks to all other contributors: Sayp, Pierer Tan Wee Teck and Mahesh.

The competition goes on so feel free to submit your story!

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2. Tennis Thoughts Blog
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The blog post for this issue of the newsletter is not posted on my blog. Rather, I have contributed it to a great tennis website and blog from Kathy Krajco.

Q&A - Reality Check

Feel free to comment directly on Kathy's blog and take some time to explore the rest of her website.

Although Operation Doubles is primarily targeting tennis doubles players, you'll also find tons of instruction articles, pictures and videos to help you play a better singles game.

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3. Q&A
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Q: Can you tell me how many different hits are possible in tennis and I am very new at tennis so I am not very good!

A: If you are asking me, how many different strokes there are in tennis, then I'd have to think a little bit. ;)

There are basic strokes like:

- forehand
- backhand
- serve
- volley (forehand and backhand)
- overhead (smash and backhand smash)

Some of these strokes have different ways of playing them like:

- flat
- topspin
- slice

But you can also play:

- return (forehand and backhand)
- drop shot
- drop volley
- drive volley
- lob

So if you combine all the shots, different spins and special shots, you'd end up with more than 20 ways of hitting the ball in tennis.

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Best regards,

Tomaz

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