Tennis has long been misunderstood and inadequately instructed as primarily a stroking game. The preoccupation of focusing simply on technique driven strokes has led to too many lessons where students are in a static position and unable to handle the realistic situations they will incur in match play.
To help students perform better on court, it is more appropriate to think of a continuous cycle of events that must occur during each point. I will break these events down into three basic parts.
- Sending: The act of hitting the ball to your opponent
- Recovering: The process in which you must regain balance and get to a specific spot on the court.
- Receiving: Using your footwork to get you into position in able to begin the "sending" again.
I like to think of the incoming ball as a "question" in which the "answer” lies in how you are going to hit it. Many students will come to take a lesson simply saying they need work on their forehand.
However, with more investigation it may be that: Their stroke is fine but their choosing to send the ball back into the wrong location = Sending.
They may have been watching their ball too long and were not ready for the next shot = Recovering.
They might not be setting up to strike the ball at the optimum contact point = Receiving
It is the Sending, Recovering, and Receiving skills that need to be in the forefront. After you begin to understand why problems occur it is much easier to diagnose how to fix them in future matches.
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for additional information or any questions you may have.
