Insider Tennis Strategies And Tactics

Improve Your Tennis Game With Insider Strategies Of The Top Players.

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Advanced Tennis Strategy For Match Play

How do you define insanity? Well one way is to describe it is to repeatedly do the same actions but expecting a different result each time, very much like playing tennis in fact. Playing tennis is very strategic, and if you find your self losing in quite spectacular fashion, is it time to change your tactics.

The mistake that many players make is not adapting their style of play to try and match their opponent. They come into the match with a game plan and stick to it religiously, even when it is blatantly not working. I have a few tips here for you to consider implementing next time you walk out onto a tennis court. These could well have the desired effect and result in you winning the match.

If you play from the baseline and are facing a player who plays as the net you need to play them at their own game and try to get to the net first. Those players who love to rush the net are attackers, and don't like defending. By keeping them at the baseline and making them play in a away they aren't comfortable with also give you the mental edge.

You've probably guessed by now that all these strategies are basically finding your opponents Achilles heel and exposing it. Those players who are slow around the court need to be made to run all over the court so they are exhausted.

Your opponent literally won't know what's hit them when you play them at their own game. They will think they know your game and now you've caught them completely off guard and they are way out of their comfort zone. So next time you walk onto a court be aware of your opponents weaknesses or style of play so that if they start beating you it's easier to change your strategy and really confuse them.

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USTA's High-Performance Tennis: The Serve [VHS]

Great servers dominate the game of tennis with consistency, accuracy, power, disguise, and variety. Learn the technique of the top pros and apply it to your game! USTA's High-Performance Tennis: The Serve video features the top servers in the game,Pete Sampras, Venus and Serena Williams, Marat Safin, Richard Krajicek, Lindsay Davenport, Lleyton Hewitt.

Shot with a high-speed camera capable of producing super-slow-motion images, the video gives you an unparalleled ability to analyze every facet of serving. With this footage you'll be able to see precisely how top players deal with each phase of serving. You'll learn how to study the serve and improve your ability to analyze serves for yourself or your players.

The Serve takes you through the four phases of the serve: preparation, loading, hitting, and follow-through. Super- slow motion, stop action, graphics, and superb instruction help you analyze every facet of the stroke and see exactly what elements are needed for a dominating serve. Replays from numerous angles during U.S. Open television coverage allow you to see the servers' technique and see how to transfer that technique to the court.

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How and Where to Hit the Tennis Ball

How to hit it is described in tennis as 'technique'

Technique is learnt so you will be better in a match.

The first thing you will need in a match is to get the ball over the net and into the court.

The following basic advice will help you get the ball over and in when you are hitting forehands and backhands - otherwise known as ground strokes.

1. Hold the racket in a way that is comfortable for you. On the forehand, a good way is to hold it with the palm behind the handle (imagine you were hitting the ball with your palm, then put the racket there).

On the backhand, you can use two hands or one hand. If you use two hands, probably best to have your dominant hand at the bottom and your supporting hand just above it on the handle, though not overlapping.

2. Watch the flight of the ball. Move to where it will be after it has bounced and after it has stopped rising. Reading the flight path of the ball is vital to move to the right place. ...The right place involves the following...

3. Stance - for beginners on the forehand and backhand, sideways on is good enough.........tennis is a moving game so try to get your shoulders sideways to the ball, even if you can't get your feet sorted out!

4. Contact point - try to hit the ball ...

a) comfortably at the side of your body,

b) slightly in front of your body

c) between waist and shoulder high

5. Swing the racket at the ball .........from low along to high...make sure the strings are pointing where you want the ball to go as you swing - it is a bat and ball game, so use the bat to direct the ball!

To serve, the following advice is the basic stuff:

- Stand sideways on to the net.

- Throw the ball into the air so that it hangs nicely in the area where you want to contact the ball (see below for where that is!). The throw-up is also called the 'placement' coz that's what it should really be.

- The action of hitting the ball should be very much like a throw.

- Try to contact the ball in the middle of your throwing action at full stretch, slightly in front of you, and above your hitting shoulder. This sounds easy! Trouble is you can't do it if you've just thrown.... or even placed (!) the ball backwards and three feet away!

If you get to the net, volleys are without hitting the ball, and the action should be a simple blocking action. Because you are at the net, you can use the power.

Where to hit it

A 'tactic' is a plan to win the point.

There are five basic tactics.

First is to keep the ball in play - by getting the ball over the net into court. If your opponent can't do this and you can...you will win. If they can though...

.... Try to make your opponent move in order to hit the ball. Try to get them off balance or at least hitting on the move and test their skill on the move.

Whilst doing this...you will be better placed to hit each ball if you maintain a good position on the court before and after each shot. Be like a goalie defending the gaps - do not get caught out of position to one side of the court or stuck half way between the baseline and the net.

Once you can do the above tactics successfully, try to play to the weakness of your opponent ...this might be their forehand, but is usually their backhand.

Equally, use your own strength/s as much as possible. If you can use your strengths against their weaknesses... would be a fiendish plan to bring off.

Gavin Dye is the Author of ?Tennis For Everyone-A Beginners Guide To Tennis". now available online at his website, http://www.tennis-supply.com

The Mental Aspect of Tennis

This article will take its departure in tennis, but please keep in mind that many of the psychological tips I present can be applied to any other sport and loads of everyday situations.

There are basically two different phases: 1) Before you get on to the court and 2) when stand head-to-head with your opponent. We will call the first phase "Pregame" and the second phase "During-game".

I personally train 7-17-year-old Danish tennis players and teach them the different psychological tips you are about to read about, with great results. I can also tell from my own experience that I have beaten players with much better precision and techniques than me, only because I master the psychological aspect of the game.

Phase 1:

This phase is all the time you spend outside of the court, and the 60 minutes before an important match. The mind is an incredible tool you can train to improve your tennis performance because you can't overtrain when you are developing your psychological skills. This means you can get one step ahead of your opponents because while they just recover from a hard day of training, you can keep improving your game by training the most important organ in tennis: your brain, and thereby your mind.

The minutes before a match are very important because, as your muscles and joints, your brain has to be "warmed up". There are many different ways of preparing mentally for a match. Some listen to music, others stare into space thinking tactics, but the important issue here is to find the right state of mind. Rugby players have to be pumped up before a match. That's why you see them shout and push each other around to get in the right mood. Golf players, on the other hand, needs to be very calm and must therefore make sure to stay self-possessed and not get overly excited before going on to the golf course.

Phase 2:

The During-game phase is also very important. This is the part where you can lose everything if you can't control the psychological aspect.

You can train your whole life to master the perfect smash, or make the perfect serve, but if you doubt yourself for just a second, the hundreds of hours spend training has been wasted. You know this from your own game; for instance the situations where you have to serve a second serve against a match point. It suddenly becomes much harder to serve because you know that if you make one little mistake you will lose the whole game. This is where you will need certain techniques to keep you calm and control the psychological aspect that, in situations like that, is out of balance.

On the other hand, if you know how to stay focused, even when you're under pressure, you can win a lot of points and even beat opponents that should be able to beat you. As Boris Becker once said "The fifth set is not about tennis, it's about nerves". If your mind is occupied with anything else than how to play the next ball you will easily be distracted and lose focus. The techniques for training this are actually very simple and easy to learn, but represents a huge advantage if you can master it.

Bad days?

Hundreds of hours of practice can become worthless because of one small oversight. It's like pit stops in formula 1: They can spend millions on cutting 0.1 seconds of a lap, but if the pit crew screws up, all that money is lost. "A good tennis player never has a bad day!" - That's what my coach once told me. At first I didn't really pay attention to it and merely thought it was something he said to motivate me, but as I got better I started to understand what he meant and that he wasn't just talking rubbish.

"Bad days" do not exist! Well, think about it. If you play regularly, your technique will not become worse suddenly from one training to another (if so, you badly need a new coach;) ), on the contrary it will only get better every time you train. Your amount of muscles will be approximately the same and you will probably be just as physically fit from one week to the next, so what causes your performance to vary from day to day? Well there are a lot of answers to this question, but the most important one is: Your mind! The more self esteem you play with, the better you play. First time you make a bad serve you think "well, that happens" if it happens again you think "not again!" Third time you are already in the line of thought that says "I'm must really be having a bad day" and when that happens you are for sure going to have one. So what you need to think is: "Bad days do not exist!"

If you want to read more about the mental aspect of tennis, please read my other article on squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/mental-aspect-of-tennis

Tennis Lesson Tips - Exercises to Improve Your Game

Playing your best on the tennis court requires strength, endurance, flexibility and coordination. All of these things can be approved upon with the right exercises, thus making you stronger, faster and able to play harder and longer sets.

There are a lot of things you can do to increase your overall playing ability:

-Practice slow bursts of exercise like sprinting, jumping and fiercely swinging the racket.

-Allowing yourself minimal recovery periods during exercise. Tennis is a fast-paced game that lends itself to very little downtime on the court.

-Run using a lot of lateral movement.

-Work on increasing your endurance for longer playing times.

There are two main categories of fitness needed for improving your tennis game:

1. Physical - your fitness level, flexibility capabilities and strength are all important in order to play the best possible game.

2. Mental - coordination skills, and tactical ability are both needed in order to play tennis well.

So, what types of exercises should you be doing in order to play better and ward off injuries on the court? Try a few of these to both improve your play and your endurance:

Shuttle Sprints:

Run from the baseline to serving barrier and back again as fast as you can.

Ball Retrieval:

Place a line of balls along the fence, then run as fast as you can, picking one up at a time and running back to place it in the basket. Time yourself to see how fast you can do it.

Ball Drops:

Have a partner hold balls and drop them without notice while you try and grab them before they bounce on the ground.

Balloon and Foot Balance:

Blow up two balloons and try and keep them in the air by either hitting them with your racket or by using your foot. It may sound easy, but it isn't!

Ball and Shoulder Catch:

While looking straight ahead, have a partner drop balls over your shoulder as you try and hit them with your racket into the net.

Improving your tennis game requires a strong upper and lower body. To strengthen your lower body, try a few of these easy exercises:

-High knee run.

-Leg squats.

-Front and rear lunges and walking squats.

For a great upper body workout try these simple strengthening exercises:

-Punching.

-Three-quarter presses.

-Speedball.

-Swinging.

-Tricep dips.

Before attempting any of these exercises, be sure to stretch properly both before and after your workout to avoid injuries, pace yourself. Remember, it takes time to build up your body strength and endurance. Start with a 30 minute cardio workout three times a week, then when comfortable, add a day or two of strength training in addition to your regular exercise routine and watch your game on the court improve!

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How to Play Tennis - the Mental Game

Learning how to play tennis can be either a wonderful or a very frustrating experience. It depends on whether your approach and expectations to the game are realistic and whether your coach and his way of teaching the game of tennis are the best for your starting level of play.

When you start learning how to play tennis you probably don't know much about it. You've seen how good players play and they seem so effortless and the game seems easy. You decide that you want to try it too and enroll in one of the lessons at your local club.

There are 2 main areas when you are still learning how to play tennis:

- Technique (footwork, body, arm action)

- Tactics

And here are the main mental points for these two areas of your beginning lessons:

1. Be aware - when you learn how to play tennis you are soon overwhelmed with lots of information. This can cause you to lose focus on most important things - depending on your coach's instructions. Listen to your coach and do as he/she tells you to. Sometimes it's your arm movement, sometimes focusing on the feel of the racquet, sometimes on your movement. Be aware of what is happening so that you may correct that.

We coaches often come to the situation when the player wants to hit the ball in court while our main concern is correct form. And sometimes we don't care about form and just want the player to develop feel and put the ball in court but the beginner is still focused on the correct form. So stay with your coach's instructions and be aware of the outcome.

2. Don't take the game too seriously and don't try too hard - it's only a game. You are already too tense at the start since you don't feel which muscles you need and which you don't. So you use too many of them. If you add to this a too serious approach and you try too hard to hit the ball in or to please your coach, you will slow down your improvement and lose all the joy and fun when learning how to play tennis.

3. Accept mistakes as a part of this game. There will be probably quite some mistakes at the beginning. Don't let that discourage you, it's only feedback. You learn from them. You need mistakes, without them you can't explore your limits. And remember your tennis abilities have nothing to do with you - your inner self. There is no connection unless you make one.

4. Be patient and willing to wait before results come. Your brain and body need many repetitions before they adapt. Wait and be patient. You'll soon know how to play tennis. :)

5. Here are some mental qualities that lead you to success, regardless of your skill level or area of your involvement:

a) Focus on what you want instead of what you don't want

- playing better instead of not playing bad

- serving in the court instead of not making a double fault

- hitting an »easy« ball in rather than hoping that you won't miss again

b) Be decisive - when you decide what you want to do (hitting down the line or crosscourt, hitting close to lines or more in the middle, playing more attacking shots, playing more volleys, ...) do it. Stay with you decision. Decide quickly - remember: he who hesitates is lost.

Even if your decision turns out to be wrong, you'll get some feedback. When you are indecisive and don't decide what to do, you don't know when will such a situation present itself again.

c) Be courageous - there are many situations in the game where you'll feel the fear: of missing, of making a fool of yourself, of winning, of not improving ... There is only one way of beating the fear - courage. Doing the right thing regardless of your emotional tendencies. Just do it. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Learning how to play tennis can be a very fun, exciting and rewarding experience. Follow these mental steps when learning and playing and you are on your way to becoming a mental master of this beautiful game.

Tomaz Mencinger is a sports consultant and a tennis coach. Learn how to play tennis and many more tennis tips at his website http://www.tennismindgame.com.