Tennis Lessons Takeaways
As I wrote about earlier, I’ve been taking beginner tennis lessons. Today was the last lesson of the season, though I signed up for the next 2 months in the new year.
Here are my notes and takeaways of things I learned and practiced:
- There are two main grips
- Forehand grip (semi-western grip)
- like you’re holding a pan
- used for strong hand swings
- Continental grip (”everything else” grip
- like you’re holding a hammer
- used for serving, volleying, and backhand swings, and everything else
- Don't hold the racket with a death grip. Treat it like you're holding a bird: secure enough so it won't get away, but loose enough that you don't crush it.
- Swings can be practiced with ball tosses
- Normal swings by holding a cone and tossing a ball from out of the cone - the key is a low-to-high motion to get the ball over the net
- Serving is like pitching a baseball, but instead of straight, you’re throwing upwards
- Volleying is like catching a ball one-handed
- Volleys (hitting the ball without it bouncing on your side of the court)
- step with opposite leg
- for power, just step into it, don't swing
- look at opponent's racket to get idea of where ball will go. Not enough time to think while at the net
- Practiced swings and serves by trapping ball with racket against tarp to get a sense of where to hit it
- windshield wipe motion for swings
- backhand swing uses left hand to push, but keep both hands on racket
- trophy and backpack positions for serves
- can be practiced with a towel with a knot on one end. Swing it around without letting it fall slack. Start in front of you, to trophy, then backpack, then trophy, then “pitch”
- you’d need to be 6'7" to hit down on a serve
- Hitting the ball too long is a better mistake than too short into the net.
- Hitting long can be fixed with fine-tuning.
- Hitting short is a problem with fundamentals.
- It's natural when focusing on technique to do worst at first. You have to think about stance, positioning, etc. instead of focusing on the ball, until the technique becomes natural
- Cross-court shots are easier than down-the-line shots
- can hit 4-5 ft further without going out of court
- the net is inches lower where it sags in the middle
- for down the line, push forward more with the racket before swinging through
- Visualization
- Visualize hitting the ball 2ft above net
- Best to visualize aiming for the blue line (between the baseline and halfway line) because if the ball lands 2ft too long or short, you're good
- When you make a mistake, that's the image in your head, and you'll keep making messing up, setting a pattern
- best advice my coach received was to reset the visualization to what you want after a mistake, so that you don't keep making mistakes
- when you see athletes sitting on bench with eyes closed, they're probably visualizing
- Types of focus in the game
- Unproductive focus - thinking about your technique
- Productive focus - keep eye on ball, focus on the target where you plan to hit
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