All that is needed to play tennis is to intercept the path of the oncoming ball with the racket face (strings). That’s all it takes.
Now let’s get serious. What I stated is at the heart of hitting the tennis ball. But is not the answer to effectively playing the game of tennis. Because tennis is played against an opponent, you need to do more than just direct the ball back across the net into your opponent’s side of the court.
Since we know that winning at tennis takes more than just making contact with the ball, we need a series of steps to develop a competitive game.
How do you get there? That is the goal of www.playbettertennistoday.com. We will provide a path for you to get started with the game, improve your existing game, and become a better tennis player and competitor.
Let’s get started with a basic that every tennis player needs; making good contact with the ball. Yes, I said there is more to the game than just making contact, but you can’t do anything in the game if you don’t first make good contact. So, bear with me, drop the ego, and get ready to improve.
It doesn’t matter what level of player you are. Everyone can benefit from improved contact with the ball. Over the years, the one thing I see all players trying to do is create spin and power. While these are necessary to advance in the game, sometimes they are pursued at the expense of some key fundamentals. Namely, balance and ball contact. That is what we will investigate and discuss in this article. Remember, get the ego out of the way and embrace the fact that sometimes the simplest things can be the answers you were looking for.
Balance
Balance starts with a good foundation of even weight distribution between your feet. Your weight shifts forward as you make contact with the ball. It’s this weight forward position that gives you the proper ball contact position and location. In general, the ball is contacted in front of the center of weight. For a forehand this means around your forward foot; for the backhand, in front of your forward foot. This sounds awfully intuitive, but watch most tennis players and you’ll see that they hit the ball with their weight slightly leaning back. That is why the stroke you see them use doesn’t look very fluid and effortless. The effortless part comes from meeting the ball in front of your center of weight. We’ll talk about how to get the feel of this position later.
Contact
Basically, contact is made with the strings of the racket facing the direction you want the ball to go and perpendicular to the ground. For underspin, the face is slightly open (facing skyward). The face stays this way as it follows a forward path. In practice, a forehand will have an upward path and underspin will have a downward path. The combination of path and racket face angle will influence the resulting ball flight. For now, let’s go back to keeping it simple.
So, the simple position is out in front of your weight center with a racket face that is perpendicular to the ground and following a path in the direction you want the ball to go.
I recommend that all players learn to play mini-tennis to develop feel for the contact position. This helps you to develop the feel of the proper contact point and balance. It will also build a mindset that you can accomplish a lot with a minimum of racket movement.