TennisOne Lessons

Tennis For the Rest of Us: The Boxing/Chess Model

Scott H. Harris

If you have watched a professional match recently, either in person or on TV, you must have found yourself wondering on at least a few occasions, “How the *!@#% did he/she make that shot?” The short answer is, “Because that person isn’t built the same way as you are.” Pro tennis players are doing things that, if we are honest about it, we never really want to know how to do. It would hurt us. In fact, it hurts the pros. If you don’t believe me, just follow the injury reports through the course of an entire tennis season. The difference is, these pros are being paid to take those chances with their bodies. The rest of us are looking for some R & R and enjoyable exercise in a socially suitable setting with a little competition thrown in for good measure. We need to be able to walk into our office the next day and function pain-free at our chosen profession. It is to those of you who can relate to what I am talking about that I dedicate “Tennis For the Rest of Us.”

I read somewhere once that tennis is best described as a combination of boxing and chess – the mano a mano battle between two adversaries blended with the strategic and tactical execution of a Bobby Fischer looking 15 or 20 moves ahead to force the capitulation of his opponent. That image of our sport has always stuck with me for several reasons, most important of which is that it defines the uniqueness of tennis so clearly compared with other sports.

If we can accept the above analogy as a suitable description of tennis, then we may have stumbled across the underlying ailment for the sport in this country. While the rest of the world builds upon the boxing/chess model in developing its players, tennis players in America have become boxers, tennis ball hitters with the tactical finesse of playground bullies instead of tennis players playing as much to their opponents’ weaknesses as to their own strengths. Strategy for most American players consists of outhitting one’s opponents, burying them beneath a barrage of topspin-laden, baseline bashing bombs until either that opponent’s or our own failure of technique wilts under the pressure of the onslaught.

How did the game of tennis become so dependent on power? The answers most frequently offered to this question involve improvements in racquet technology which allow for more spin and force to be applied to the ball being struck, the shift away from clay onto hard courts, and/or better training techniques for the athletes.

In my mind, however, there are two very ignored, yet important, factors. The first is seduction. We, as tennis players and as teaching professionals, have allowed ourselves to be seduced by the possibility of power. We have sacrificed strategic point construction for the ability to crush one shot after another until one of the contestants is overwhelmed. In short, we have promoted power simply because it is there and we like it.

The second is the American cultural preference for the powerful. In his landmark book, The Inner Game of Tennis (published in 1974 before racquet technology could be considered a significant factor in this discussion), Tim Galwey observed of the American style of play that “in its extreme form the ball is hit for a winner every time. Every serve is designed to be an ace, every return of serve a clean passing shot, while volleys and overheads are all aimed to land within one or two inches of the line.” Improved racquet technology simply gave American players the opportunity to play out their inner predisposition for kill shots rather than point construction.

Without going into a tirade on the imbalanced, monolithic psyche of this nation in its search for the biggest, best, most powerful, testosterone-filled fantasies of domination and superiority, I would like to simply suggest that as individual tennis players, perhaps our interests on the court are better served by adopting a different attitude towards our opponents and the tennis balls they are hitting our way.

The development of tennis in this country will be greatly enhanced on the day that we give ourselves permission to be simply average tennis players. I will not even be elaborating on the social cost of going into Boot Camp-style training to achieve an international ranking. Its disadvantages are self-evident to the well adjusted person. Several years after the Boot Camp experience (sans international recognition, in most cases) one of the sadder comments on advanced tennis play that I have observed is how small the pool is of really good tennis players in any given community. Challenging matches for those players are much harder to come by.

The “sport of a lifetime” is much less so for the really advanced player. It is much more difficult to find a steady group of players with whom to share the sport at the appropriate skill level. This does not even factor in the number of Boot Campers who’ve permanently burned out on the sport and wouldn’t touch a tennis racquet again in their lives if they were shackled to the baseline with a gun pointed at their heads and given the option of the racquet or a premature departure from this existence.

By contrast, average is good. It means we will have lots of other average players with whom to play matches. And, there are many different levels of average. One can move up or down a couple notches on the talent scale without seriously skewing the competitive balance. The reality is that most of us do not have the physical skills to do what the best professionals do. If we are over the age of 40, even if we once had the skills, we don’t anymore. For most of us, focusing on strategic skills is the preferred method of learning the sport.

Here are some of the strategic skills that can enhance our game.

Ball Control

Hitting against a backboard is one of my favorite activities for honing ball control skills. Hit from different distances with different pace at each distance. Hit all forehands, all backhands; hit alternate forehands and backhands on successive shots. Allow yourself less than one step in each direction to adjust your stance. Then make yourself move at least two steps for each successive shot. Make games of these drills (ten in a row, fifty in a row, hit shots to the rhythm of music, keep all shots above or below a certain height marking on the wall, etc.).

Shot Placement

This skill follows closely on the heels of ball control. Start with play in the short court (the two service boxes). Vigorous games of mini tennis can be quite a good workout and will teach you all you need to know about the force required to hit any spot inside the service line. Alley rallies from the service line, base line and halfway between will go a long way towards instilling more precision in your shots.

From the base line rally at 3/4 pace both cross court and down the line. In all these rallying situations, cooperation towards a common goal of three, five or even ten minutes of uninterrupted groundstrokes should be the goal.

Shot Selection .

You cannot select different shots if you only hit the ball in one style. If your favorite groundstrokes are hit with topspin, learn to hit those same shots with slice (mini tennis is a great training ground for developing slice). If you are partial to slice shots on one side, develop a flat or topspin shot from the same side. If you are deficient at the net, volley against a wall until you can keep the ball returning to you with a consistently soft touch. None of these newly developed shots need to be as good as your “go to” shot, but they need to be functional.

Play Games .

Most importantly, play games. I am a strong proponent of Game-Based tennis instruction. Whether my young students are playing Alligator/Harry Potter or throwing tennis balls at their racquets propped up against the fence, they learn on Day 1 that tennis is fun. They figure out what needs to be done with the tennis ball to get Harry Potter to give them their arm back because the Alligator munched it after the last shot was missed. As adults we would do well to also adopt a more playful, light-hearted approach to our own on-court improvement.

In closing, strive to become chess players before the boxing lessons seduce us and addict us to power. That way, when we have come to acknowledge our individual shortcomings as boxers, we still have a full arsenal of tactics – opening gambits, midgame strategies, and endgame mating moves – to compensate for whatever physical deficiencies we might have. By training ourselves in this manner we will have expanded our own limitations and become more complete tennis players as a result.