Tennis' Hidden Challenge

Easing the transition for beginners to the intermediate level

Joe Dinoffer

Manny experts agree that tennis is the best lifelong sport in the world, offering more health, social, developmental, and competitive opportunities than any other activity. At the same time many will argue that tennis’ biggest challenge is that it is perceived as a difficult sport to learn. However, even more say that it’s not hard to learn how to hit tennis balls. In fact, just hitting the ball is relatively easy. What can be challenging for beginners is to learn how to keep a ball in play with friends and advance quickly and painlessly to the intermediate level. In other words, making that transition from beginner to intermediate — moving past the level of having a pro spoon feed balls at exactly the right height, speed, and place, a far cry from real tennis.

The issue of embarrassment — The key issue seems to be that people, especially adults, don’t want to make mistakes, particularly in front of other people. And, since beginning tennis players often take more readily affordable group lessons, beginners find themselves in exactly the environment they want to avoid — making many mistakes in front of their peers. Studies show one of the primary reasons that adults and juniors quit activities they are learning is because of the stress or anxiety of failure.

The challenge of the beginner — The challenge has always been that premature live ball drilling can frustrate new players since they waste more time picking up balls than hitting. The proposed article would then list alternatives with the several devices which are available that can help players comfortably “load up” with balls. The idea of a beginner playing with another beginning with one can of balls is borderline ridiculous. They will spend most of their time picking up balls — and how much fun is that?

One close-up view of the net while bending down to pick up balls is somewhat interesting but after that it just becomes painful. (editor's note: We timed several beginners walking to the net and back to the baseline to pick up balls. The average time needed? 25 seconds without stopping at the net to talk!) Beginners, in particular, do not need time to further dwell on the mistakes they make. They will make mistakes, granted, but then they need a tool which allows them to move on quickly to the next shot.

Optional tools — Whether it is simply loading up with 5 balls in each pocket, using a Hip Hopper pouch, ball clips around the waist, or a tube product around the waist which holds three extra balls, beginners need to come prepared with extra balls. A practice hopper is really not the best option since there is a guaranteed 10-second pause to go to the hopper to get another ball. Give beginners the freedom to make mistakes and immediately get an “instant replay.”

Increase fun by encouraging instant corrections — The rules are simple: Players are encouraged not to make the same mistake twice in a row. The only purpose of this exercise is to encourage continuous play and take the emphasis off of the errors. When a mistake is made, they stay in the same place and try the same shot again by simply taking another ball out of their pouch or pocket. This reduces the anxiety of making mistakes since they don’t have time to dwell on them. Players learn to simply see mistakes as part of the journey and make instant corrections. The positive mental and psychological freedom of this experience is powerful. Wouldn’t it be great if in real life we were given unlimited replays like this!

Cooperative skill building — One tremendous benefit of tennis as a lifelong sport is that it is fun and very social. All too often practice sessions become competitive with winners and losers — not an ideal learning and growing environment.

Here we see four players demonstrating a cooperative game which could easily apply to any practice situation focusing on any single shot or combination of shots. Our players are simply paired together hitting volleys back and forth.

They begin with an agreed upon number of balls in their ball pouches and simply volley back and forth until one team runs out of balls. The team which keeps their 20 balls in play longer is the winner. This motivates each pair to cooperate and, at the same time, introduces the fun and excitement of competition. And, to create synergy for the entire group, try rotating partners after each rally while maintaining cumulative individual scores of how long each pair keeps their twenty balls in play before emptying their pouches or hip clips.

Shot sequences without interruption — We all know that as players advance they must gradually perfect shot sequences. After all, one of tennis’ biggest attractions is the excitement that only an open sport like tennis can create. In contrast, closed sports like track, swimming, and even golf are very different. They don’t provide the same head-to-head competitive excitement where unexpected things happen all the time. However, at advanced beginner and intermediate levels, when players begin learning shot combinations, these random game situations can be challenging and players will initially make many mistakes. Using ball pouches meets this challenge by permitting repeated attempts to master a sequence without having to start all over again after each error … learning flows easily since there are no interruptions.

For example, players can practice a five-shot serve and volley sequence. As soon as one or the other misses a shot they can continue the sequence immediately without interruption. In normal practice this would be impossible, because after each error the players would have to go back to the baseline and start over. They never complete the entire sequence.

The slice serve — Most experts will agree that one of the requirements for arriving at the intermediate level is mastering a basic slice serve. Here’s a tip that will have you serving up slices in ten minutes. First you need something close to a continental grip. But, this is easier said than done. Most players learning the continental grip for serving change to the traditionally limiting frying pan grip right in the middle of their motion (photos can show this easily) that makes a slice virtually impossible.

A surefire tip to correct this problem (which has plagued millions of tennis players for 100 years) is to simply place your thumb under your third finger while holding this correct grip. This will effectively keep your grip from slipping. Then try a 360-degree serving drill. It goes like this: While holding your thumb with your hand in the continental grip position (try to keep your wrist relaxed while doing this) serve 6-10 balls and move in a circle standing on the baseline. Do not worry where the ball is going but just take notice of which one ends up in the area of the service box (one of them will).

Then stop in that starting position and hit another ten balls or so just noticing the spin and observing the flight of the ball. If you need to make it go more right or left, simply make a slight adjustment in the stance by turning your body and feet more to your right (for right-handers — lefties do the opposite) to make the ball go to the right, or to the left to make it to more to the left.

If your balls are landing in the net, simply aim higher and hit up as if you are trying to hit over the back fence. If the wrist feels tight when you are holding your thumb under your third finger, just drop your little finger off the bottom of the racquet. Finally, by taking away the target, i.e. having them intentionally move in a circle with no specific target to hit, players relax much more easily and will not worry about the fact that their balls will go more to the left than they are used to. Therefore they get used to the grip more quickly with less resistance to change.

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