Tennis Basics
What is your starting point?

• you have not played a lot of ball sports
• you have been playing sports with balls for many years

And all the rest in between…

If you start from the »not so familiar with sports with balls«, then your tennis experience may be very challenging, unless your coach is very experienced and knows how to deal with this situation.

Technique in tennis is not so difficult; at least not the basic technique. You can get good foundation for forehand and backhand in 20 minutes. Judging the ball and developing feel for the ball and racquet is another story.

That's where your previous experience with sports comes into play. If you start from zero, you have to develop these during your tennis basics lessons.

For comparison – imagine that you have never done any physical work or sports and now you decided to starts visiting a fitness club and you want to develop a great body. Can you imagine how much time and effort will it take before you have a great muscular body?

Well, I believe that tennis or any other sport where coordination, judgment of the ball flight, balance and feel are so important will take more time, repetitions and effort than building muscle mass and definition. So when you're starting with tennis basics you need to have realistic expectations in order to enjoy the way.

The other part of the equation is your coach. If he understands these processes and has many great and fun drills to improve your abilities and build your confidence, then you'll enjoy tennis regardless of your level.

But if on the other hand your coach is too picky with technique and proper form, which are not the MOST important elements for a beginner who is just getting to know the tennis basics, then you might become very tense, sensitive and your tennis story can be quite frustrating. So keep this in mind when having a lesson with your coach.

If you have been involved in sports with balls for years and want to learn how to play tennis, then your start won't be that challenging. You are already familiar with the ball flight, how they behave after the bounce, your balance is pretty good, your eye-hand coordination works fine and you have developed some feel for the balls.

You may find this game very challenging and may put too much focus on your mistakes when you start developing your tennis basics. Don't do that, they are not mistakes, just feedback. Don't judge yourself or your abilities and try to just observe what is happening.

When you hit the ball too far, hit the next one with less power. When you hit one ball into the net, hit the next one higher. It sounds very simple, but the human mind has an uncanny ability to complicate things.

You don't have too know detailed technical analysis of your stroke to just hit the ball higher. It is automatic – and hopefully your coach knows that.

Obviously you need to learn some basic technique, but later it's all about feel, feeling comfortable, playing with economic movements and having an empty mind.

The best way to have a good foundation in your tennis basics is to observe a »model«, where someone is demonstrating and then you try to copy his movements. And then if you can get the feedback by watching yourself (being taped by video camera) that's the fastest way to really GET IT.

When you see yourself you'll notice that your movements don't look the way you feel them. That's because your kinesthetic feel can often deceive you.

It means that you feel your arm behind you but it's really not there yet. And since you trust your feel it's difficult to make any corrections even when your coach is telling you to do something.

So if you can see yourself move and play you will improve in the fastest possible way.

Check out the other sections of Tennis for Beginners, where you'll find more tips and ideas on how to build good tennis basics in all areas of the game.

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