If you are an absolute beginner (never held a racket or hit a ball in your life), please find yourself a certified tennis coach to teach you the basics.
You can read all you want about how to play tennis, but your muscles have not learnt to do it.
You need someone to feed you balls, show you the motions, correct you immediately when you make a mistake. It’s the best way to learn, otherwise you will not enjoy the game in the long run.
Some players are self-taught, and I’m sure many of you have friends and playing partners who are like that, and they are probably good players too. But I assure you it took them years and lots of determination to get there.
More likely than not, they have some very fundamental flaws in their game, and bad habits that they would like to get rid of, but can’t.
Do yourself a favor, learn from a pro (they've spent a lot of time, effort and money to get proper training) and have yourself more years of enjoyable tennis.
1 comment:
Fully agree. When I started as a kid, I got some rudimentary advice from a coach. In retrospect, he didn't come across as a regular player, more like a ball feeder making some bucks of a few insecure parents.
Over time, I found I was compensating for lack of consistency (which was really due to shortage of fundamentals due to said coach) by trying to go for the quick kill.
The problem was that I learned how to hit hard, rather than well. The first step was learning I had a problem - I figured it'd all clear up if I worked at it over time only it didn't. I was playling older players with far less power and speed and LOSING, sometimes by a ridiculous margin. The GOOD thing was that I became oblivious to fear - I was going for the lines all the time at full pace, but the kill isn't any good if it only lands on 1 out of 5 shots. Tennis is a percentage game - there's no replacement for solid fundamentals and gobs of court time.
Then I picked up a couple of pointers from some friends, now my regulars. The game has become more patient and there's now a semblance of strategy in my game. The 'big gun' is still there, but is seldom used except in smart(er) situations.
Yes - get a coach or a bunch of buddies who can study your shot and give workable pointers for your skill level.
I still enjoy playing better players, but now I try to balance it out by playing a mix of skill levels - playing the inexperienced allows me to really crank down my game to focus on the placement and feel aspects of the game, while playing the better players tends to force me to open up my game, get more aggressive and think more. This way, I get to share my game and learn from others - the way it should be.
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