I play high school tennis. What tips can you give me that would help me work on my game?
821280
The best thing for you to do is obviously hit  a ton of balls.  Practice your serve as much or more then you do other strokes.  It has become a game of serving and returns because of the advances it racket tech.  \n        Try and play USTA tournaments in your section as often as you can.  At a minimum one each month.  Matches are key.  If you do that you will find yourself feeling less pressure then you do  when playing for your high school.  \n         Matches are also the best way to identify what you have to work on.   Do some off court training as well.  Jumping rope, sit ups , push ups.  If possible take a private lesson every once in a while.  When you take your lesson , know going into it what you would like to work on going into your lesson.  Not only practice your weak areas , but work on your strengths also so you can develop a few weapons.  The best ones are as I said before Serve, return of serve.  Make your footwork a priority . of you are quick it is a major help.  Big forehands once you get into a rally are important.
1088556
Ian, spend a lot of time practice serving leading up to matches. If you spend an hour a day practicing your serve against targets you'll notice an improvement in your confidence and accuracy. \n\nConfidence is really a key to a good serve, be it a first or a second serve. Like I said earlier, spend enough time practicing to gain the results that you need to give yourself that confidence when it comes time to serve your second serve.\n\nThat said, Pete Sampras once commented that he put more physical effort into his second serve than his first. You may be wondering how that could be possible, but it's actually quite simple. A big flat serve is all technique, however a CONSISTENT second serve is both the technique and the physical effort. If you're not exploding into your second serve, then you're not going to give it the topspin that it needs to fall back into the court like it should (if you serve a kick second serve...but the principle is still the same if you slice it). Perhaps you don't know how to serve a kick serve. If that is the case (and because it's such a good high-percentage serve--not to mention a serve that is hard to return well), then you should talk to your coach about showing you how to do it.\n\nAnother option is that you get nervous because it's a big match. It happens to everyone. You find yourself serving in front of a bunch of other people and you start thinking, "Ian, don't mess this up..." and of course, you promptly frame the ball into a court three courts down from you. This all comes back to the idea of lots of practice. If you've spent the past month practicing your serve, when you get to this point in the match and you feel your nerves, then you can respond, "Hell yeah! This is what I've been practicing for, baby! Can you say 'second serve ace'?"\n\nTo sum things back up, you don't serve correctly with enough speed in big matches because you don't have confidence in your serve. Practice is really the name of the game, but calling on a coach's expertise isn't a bad idea either. In any case, it's normal to be nervous in a big match, but it's something you can get over.\n\nI hope this helps.
1120950
i'm always asking the beginners to learn the speed of tennis balls. by knowing the speed you will try to adjust your movement when you hit the ball. you need to understand that in a match the ball will never comes to you; you need to come and hit the ball. then you need to practice tennis strokes; study how other players hit the ball and try to duplicate. for this all you need is a never-ending practice.\ngood luck and enjoy tennis as i do.
193966
The flat serve is a very effective weapon, as it is the fastest serve. \n \n   \n  Steps:  \n1.   Grip the racket with a Continental grip, not a forehand grip (see the Related eHows).  \n  \n2.   Stand near the center mark for hitting down the centerline. Stand farther from the center mark for a wide, flat serve.  \n  \n3.   Assume the normal posture for a serve, with a sideways stance and your hands down.  \n  \n4.   Throw the racket to the "back-scratch" position as you toss the ball in front of you.  \n  \n5.   Toss the ball farther in front than you would for a slice, topspin or kick serve and farther to your right for right-handed hitters.  \n  \n6.   Throw your racket out of the back-scratch position, with your palm facing the net at contact with the ball.  \n  \n7.   Hit the ball with your arm fully extended.  \n  \n8.   Let your arm finish the serve on either the right or left side of your body.  \n  \n  \n  Tips:  \n Mix a flat serve with other service choices, so it will not be predictable to your opponent.  \n  \n Practice hitting down the line on the deuce side and serving wide on the ad side.  \n  \n  \n  Warnings:  \n Tennis is a physically demanding sport that can result in serious injury. We recommend that you seek the proper equipment and training before undertaking this activity.
1093425
You definitely can improve, obviously you are not just trying to learn basics skills, you already know that, what you need to do now is give tennis all your time, concentration and discipline.\nYour little brother beats you because he has been spending more time with it, as you keep on practicing, you will improve. Discipline yourself, set goal for yourself. I am sure its only a matter of time, you wil beat even your dad.
241623
I recommend going to a local pro shop and working with someone to find an appropriate racquet to match your physical characteristics and skill level.  You can often "demo" (try out) a few different frames at a time, allowing you to get a feel for the different technologies and vendors.\nSecond, enroll in a group lesson at a local tennis facility.  This is a low-cost way to be properly introduced to the game.  I highly discourage starting to play without getting professional instruction.  You will naturally develop bad habits that are nearly impossible to break once established.
269067
hitting to the wall is the first thing you should do.  Worry about swinging through and technique.\n\nWhen i started playing that was the first thing my coach had me do.  He told me to be consistent with it.  \n\nFrom that, you can start hitting around w/ a coach/friend.  From here you can work on shuffling right, and steping into your shots.  \n\nthe thing with tennis is that you use your whole body in your shots- groundstrokes, serve, volleys, and overheads.  It is not all arms.\n\nBasically, you need to hit a lot of balls for it to become a habit.\n\nGo to http://www.tennis.com , they have tutorials and articles by professional coaches.  Everything on improving strokes and strategy- which should only concern experts.
290322
I am going to assume that you already know how to play and practice every day(because that is what pros do).\n\nMake sure your health and nutrition are in check.\n\nJoin a local league. Once you can dominate that, go to regional competitions. Once you have mastered that, you can start going to USTA futures events. Woek your way up through the ranks. Then challenger events. Do well enough in those and you may get a wild card into a main draw in an official ATP event. \n\nIf you have a lot of money, you can attempt to bribe someone you know who has a challenger event to give you a wildcard. Even if you lose the first round, which you probably will no matter how good you are, you get enough ranking points to play in challengers for a while.\n\nI dont know how old you are. If you are in high school, one of the major problems with American tennis is that young people try to go straight to the pros and ignore the valuable resource that is college tennis. If you are good enough to go pro, you are good enough for a tennis scholarship, meaning you are getting four years of college education and top quality coaching for four years for free. You will also be able to get some buzz and contacts for your career. And, that way, if you have a bad injury or decide that you dont want to do tennis, you have something to fall back on.
715829
Well, work on your handles with tennis balls, and work on catching with tennis balls also. In the game, focus on getting your teammates involved, and also be agressive. Hustle, and even if you're nervous, don't let it show, and have poise. God Bless, and good luck this year!
1052414
ZZTOPSPIN, if you want to serve like a profesional, then you should find yourself a coach because it's really the best way to do it. But with that in mind, I'll try to help you the best that I can.\n\nAs a tennis instructor, we teach the serve in steps. The first things we work on are the toss and the contact. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart (and with your non-dominant foot forward) and place your racket on the ground with the strings about six inches from your front-most foot. Toss the ball so that it goes up about a foot and a half from your outstretched hand and lands on the racquet. Keep doing this until you can hit your racquet consistently. You may be thinking, "This is so stupid!" But how often do you see professional players toss the ball, and then have to take steps sideways to get themselves in position to hit their poorly performed toss? NEVER! And how many times do you see recreational players do it? ALWAYS! And so, I repeat, the toss is a key to a professional's serve.\n\nAlso, when you toss the ball, hold the ball with the tips of your fingers. This is because you want to release your toss such that the ball DOES NOT spin in the air. If you hold the ball in your palm, the ball will end up rolling up fingers, will spin in the air, and will respond differently every time. We want consistency here.\n\nNow that you've got your toss down consistently, you're going to want to work on your contact. Before we do that, we want to address your grip. Changing your grip is a good way to change the kind of spin that you put on the ball, but it usually isn't the way that pros do it. Spin comes later. Don't worry about that now. Hold your racquet with the "V" of your thumb and pointer finger on the middle bevel found by following the side edge of your racqued down to your grip. Start with your racquet in "back scratch position", or with the side of your racquet touching the middle of your back. Toss the ball, and extend up to contact and swing through the ball. Keep doing this until you gain comfort with the motion and consistent placement.\n\nCongratulations, you've made it past the first step. There are dozens of different drills that you could do to work on these different aspects of the first step. I've only mentioned two. You should really contact an instructor to help you if you struggle making it through this first step.\n\nStep Two: Now you're going to add the loopy motion that is typical of professional serves. This motion ends up being different for everyone. Pete Sampras, as was mentioned earlier, has a serve that is considered the perfect serve. Theoretically, it maximized momentum and power, however, Andy Roddick badly violates many of the principles of the Sampras serve and still manages to hit his serve harder than anyone ever before. And so, I can't tell you that there is ONE way to do things. All that I can suggest is that you start with your weight on your front foot, and that you transfer that weight to your back foot as you move through to your backscratch position. That way, you can spring out of backscratch and into the ball.\n\nFor you, do whatever you have to do to go from the resting position, to the back scratch position. Some players serve from a pinpoint stance (meaning their feet move together before springing into their serve) while others maintain the shoulder width distance. This is all up to you. The key is to explode up to the ball from the backscratch position. You already mentioned making contact at the highest point, you also want to try to "hit up" on the ball. You may think that you're going to send the ball into the next time zone, but if you tossed the ball at the correct height and make contact at the apex, "hitting up" on the ball will give you the explosion that you need to really power through the ball.\n\nAnother thing, is that you're going to want your serve to lead you i
934070
I played basketball when I was in high school and I won the Player of the Year Award. My suggestion to you would be that you completely focus on defensive drills. Simple things such as defensive slides (which I hated), boxing out, and closing out.  I know from experience that the best players in high school are always the best defensive players. Defense will get you respect from coaches and teammates. To me playing defense was more fun than shooting because you got the chance to embarrass your opponent by blocking him or stealing the ball from him.
648391
Everyone says "just relax" or "take a deep breathe"  But whenever I tried that I just got MORE nervous.  Just try to take your mind off of the score and off of HOW you're going to serve or what you NEED to do.  Just let your body feel it out.  When you tell yourself exactly how to bend your arm or how to or how much spin to put on the ball, you'll just mess it up.  Stop thinking about details and concentrate on getting the ball over and in.  And if you start messing WHILE you're playing just try not to overthink the score, yet don't undermind the score either.  When I constantly think about the score and what points I need to win, I'm too busy thinking about what I NEED to do instead of actually letting my body do it itself.  And if you lose, it's not the end of the world, and there's PLENTY of chances for a comeback in a tennis match.  \n\n"If you hit the ball INTO the net, you're absolutely sure you're not going to get that point.  If you think you've hit the ball too long, there could always be a gust of wind.  But only if you hit the ball into the net are you certain you've lost the point."
797091
Take a tennis ball with you at all times, and dribble it. It'll help you develop your ballhandling. Also, walk on your tiptoes, so you can increase your jumping ability...good luck & God bless!
516575
I agree with nyyjeterlover02.\n\n1.  Force your opponent out of their comfort zone. \nThe person your most likely playing has a pattern, or a winning formula in which they unknowingly stick to.  May be they like baseline-baseline play only.  May be they ring around your shot to return the ball only with their power forehand.  In cases like this, either draw him toward the net with drop shots, or concentrate your shot to his backhand.  In addition, vary your shots with topspins, chops, angle shots, and see how he reacts to them.  This all of course is easier said than done, but doable.\n\n2.  Know your opponent as well as yourself.\nWith all due respect, your probably thinking that there is nothing about your game that is wrong.  How do you react in a pressure situation game?  What will you do when he rushes you at the net all of a sudden?  How are you going to counteract any power serves he has?  What are your strengths and weaknesses, and how can you capitalize/compensate for it?\n\n3.  Feel the center.\nFeel the center of your opponent and the tennis court, and feel the balance/imbalance of your opponent.  Is your opponent's momentum gaining or losing?  How will you respond?\n\n4.  Tennis is mental.\nMaster the mental aspect of tennis, and you'll see your game improve.\n\nBest
848408
I shot 50 free throws a day, and practiced until I was tired, then kept going.....after only playing "ball" for 5 mos. I was a walk-on varsity player in high school my junior year and starter my senior year.  If you're dedicated enough, you WILL succeed.  Also work on your vertical jump, hang a string from your ceiling, goal at home or whatever is tall enough, and cut the end off just out of your vertical jump reach.  Jump at this every day until you touch the string, then cut it again out of your reach, etc.  I also dribbled a tennis ball to help with dribbling/ball control skills.  I hope some of this helps and good luck!!
1021702
When  ur not on the court at home for conditioning try running at least 1 mile ( i reccomend 2) 3 times a week.Do push ups, sit ups,wall sits,jump rope,frog jumps/squats.Strech. And then for court practice at home, try practing ur swings(like with no ball and in one place, swing like theres a ball comeing to u,correctly. lol), backhand,fore hand,underhand,etc. practice serves and practice serves. Then practice footwork (u can do this on court and off court.) then footwork with swings,(combation run from one end to another and swing when u reach the end)\nand during the games try to hit corners, and the front.make them get tired first, at first dont use all ur energy, play around with ur oppenent for a while.\nand then experment with him/her. see which one is his/her weakest point and keep hitting there. for example his/her backhand is the worst then keep on aiming for their backhand.\nand make sure to make them run! and during the game REMEBER  to use ur brain/tatics!Very Useful! alot of people who are skilled who  dont use their brains/tatics,  they lose the match.\ngood luck on tourment.
253936
First, forget about it being "obvious" that you should be on the varsity. If it was obvious, the coach would "obviously" see that.\nSecond, it's essential to learn to play under pressure. In high school matches, you definitely will play under much pressure, and it's not much different than the pressure you feel when you think the coach is watching you. In either case, if you let your mind focus on who's watching rather than on your game, you will play worse.\nAs for relaxing, even the best players in the world get nervous--that just means that you care. So learn to cope with the tension by using your mind to focus on what you need to do. An example is Sharapova, who systematically turns around, stares at her strings, and decides what to do for the next point. Also learn some simple relaxation techniques, such as breathing slowly from the diaphragm or relaxing your shoulders and arms--whatever gets most tight.\nAbove all, don't put yourself in the position of thinking you "have to" do well to impress the coach. This will make you tighten up and do worse. Just remind yourself to stay focused and relaxed, and let the rest take care of itself.