Stopping the Racquet at Contact Point

You must try and learn to complete the follow through of your shots. When you find yourself hitting the ball too hard, a consequence of that is stopping the racquet at the contact point and not completing the follow through leading to an ineffective stroke. When doing this you actually contract many muscles in your arm when you stop the flowing movement forward and you lose control of the ball. How do we stop this?

How do we complete the follow through and play the ball slow into the short court?

First just focus on the follow through. When the coach feeds the ball, hit as hard as you want, hit through the ball making sure you hit through your follow through. Concentrate on the follow through only, not where the ball lands or any of the finer details. This way you will get a good feel for going through the ball. Then work on slowing down that movement down still playing into the short court. Keep at this and it will become more and more comfortable.

Beginner challenge number 5 tomorrow......

Being Too Tight

Being too tight is another challenge. When you start playing tennis you contract too many muscles and you lose that all important feel and can hit the ball too hard and generally get it all wrong. So, how can you become a little more relaxed? A good tip is to rate your tightness 1-5. 5 being very tight and 1 being relaxed and going with the flow. Play mini tennis and rate your tightness on each shot. You may have a level 4 to start with then you try to play at level 3, then as you continue you try and loosen up to a level 2 tightness and continually relax and improve. One question to ask yourself is, what is the least effort I need to put in to play mini tennis? Basically, don’t try so hard….just let it happen, go with the flow!

Hitting The Ball Too Hard

Another big challenge for a beginner is how not to hit the ball too hard. They see a ball and swing at it. A beginner is only thinking of connecting with the oncoming ball and they may panic a little. One of the main reasons for hitting too hard is that they don’t have a target. Your arm doesn’t know how much it should swing, if you know the distance then you can get a feel for what force is required.

You need to have a target, a good target being the service box. Whilst playing with your coach or partner stand just outside you own service box and concentrate each shot on getting it into your opponents. This will teach you not to hit too hard. Another reason a beginner hit too hard is due to swinging at the ball too much. One practice drill to improve this is for you to play right up at the net, leaning over with you racquet in front of the net on your opponents side. Then your coach can throw the ball and you can play from there. You realise through this exercise that you don’t need any backswing for that distance. Do this for both the forehand and backhand side. Later you can go back a little and play short court tennis and progress from there. You will have found that you don’t need such a big backswing. You will see the good players with a big backswing and you will want to try and emulate, but what you won’t have seen is the progression to get to that point. You first must learn that such a backswing is not necessary for what you are trying to achieve at this stage, get the basics right and build from there.

Loosen up!....check out tomorrow's tip on avoiding being too tight........

Beginner Challenge #1 - Judging The Ball

It’s very common for a beginner to lack judgement in where the ball is going to go and how fast it’s going to get there and play appropriately. A beginner often thinks the ball is going to be shorter than it actually is. They rush to the ball and consequently hit the ball to hard and are off balance when they get there. They don’t realise that the ball will actually fly deeper.

Try this drill; Stay behind the service line. Even if the ball is short you must stay behind the service line. This will enable you to learn to wait for the ball. A beginner may not realise they can wait for the ball. Even if the ball bounces twice when your coach or partner hits it you still must wait for the ball to come to you before you hit it. Practice for a while and see if this helps you to judge the ball better.

Second: Play at about ¾ of the court and each time the ball is hit to you allow it to bounce twice. This will enable you to judge the flight of the ball. Often a beginner will think a ball will bounce, go up and straight back down whereas in reality it would fly further. Allowing the ball to bounce twice in this practice drill helps to gage this better. After a while move inwards and return to one bounce tennis but now you will have that experience of the ball bouncing deeper and you can wait a little.

Do you find you hit the ball too hard? Well the next tip will address this very issue......

How We Learn

I know I said I would reveal the first of the beginners mistakes but you'll just have to wait until tomorrow for that particular pearl of wisdom! I thought it would be a good idea to write a post on how we learn to give it a bit of background before launching in to more practical elements. I will talk a little about mindset as this is vital in all that we do and everything else can be built from that foundation.

It’s important to realize how we learn. There are two types of learning- intellectual and motor. With intellectual learning it follows an applied logic and you can use it straight away. If I showed you how to upload a photo to the internet, for example, you could easily follow the exact simple steps to do the same. When playing a tennis stroke it is a little different. This is an example of motor learning which takes a bit of time for your body to get used to through repetition and memory.
Roger Federer is unlikely to be anywhere near the standard he is using his left hand, infact he may well be a beginner. He has all the knowledge and has won many a grand slam, but he would have to learn the motor movements of playing left handed. The body learns through feeling which takes time and continual trial and error. It is important to have the correct information and that it’s presented in the right way which will help you in the most effective and fastest way. It’s how a movement feels and you need to work on improving that feel and make constant adjustments to get to where you want to go.
The thing is, although there is a correct way to do things and certain techniques you should follow, it’s not an exact science. Each person is different and adapts the basic knowledge into what’s comfortable with them and their abilities. You need to try and stay in the moment and not judge. Don’t let past mistakes effect your present shot, similarly don’t think too much about what’s about to happen, concentrate on the job in hand. Play your shots, move around the court and correct course and improve as you go.
Tennis can be a challenging game to master although the hardest part to conquer is your own mind. Get this right, hit a lot of balls and you will get there.

Tomorrow......beginner challenge number 1....

7 Biggest Beginner Mistakes

Ok...so over the next few days I am going to reveal to you the 7 biggest beginner challenges. It can be frustrating and difficult to get a handle on these aspects of the game but once you start to improve in these areas you will come on leaps and bounds. These are the basics that will enable you to develop a good all round game and the framework to really build on. The first tip will be in the following post....

Welcome To Top Tennis Tips

Welcome to top tennis tips with all the latest tips and tricks to take you from novice player to master of the courts. This blog will continually be updated with tennis advice, recommendations, stories and reviews. I will also add anything of benefit I have gained in my own personal tennis journey. I will keep things light hearted with an emphasis on having fun but reaching for success....See you at Wimbledon!