WE'RE TEACHING TENNIS ALL WRONG

As tennis teachers, we've become obsessed with teaching how the strokes should look, the outward appearance of the stroke, rather than the Fundamentals. It's as if we're more concerned with creating picture-perfect strokes than a fundamentally sound stroke.

We're trying to craft a visual masterpiece, but often at the expense of the core skills; the Fundamentals.

Fundamentals are our game's building blocks, 

while the way a stroke looks is the Form.

Whenever any new player reaches the top of the tennis rankings, Coaches look closely at that player's style and try to copy what the player is doing technically to have made them so successful. They're unable to diagnose the new player's strokes more deeply, so they are left with looking at the "cosmetics" of the player.

Anyone learning tennis through the form method never learns to adapt to different types of balls or correctly analyse what they must do on each stroke, nor what is causing their errors. 

That player will be forever confused by the unpredictability of tennis and never understand why their smooth stroking during practice sessions has deserted them during the match.

"Step into the ball and take it on the rise" might make sense in a YouTube video. The reality is that, against a good opponent, you need to get just the right ball to perform the stroke like that. Why are we still trying to teach players this "perfect scenario" rubbish?

"Fundamentals are not only the best 

way to control the ball; they can help you analyse 

mistakes better."

We need to teach and critique strokes based on fundamentals. Fundamentals are not only the best way to control the ball; they can help you analyse mistakes better. 

The three Fundamentals I always work with are: 

1. Contact
2. Ground 
3. Spin

CONTACT 

Contact originates from the racquet face and controls the height and direction of the ball. It is said that there are only 4 mistakes you can make in tennis; too long, too short/ too far left and too far right. All these mistakes can be corrected through awareness of the racquet face.

Contact controls the height
and the direction of the ball

GROUND

Ground involves inertia; the bio-mechanics that occur each time a player hits the ball start in the ground. Inertia is begun through the interaction of the feet and the court and is used as energy for the stroke. Ground also supplies the player with timing; the correct use of inertia creates timing.

Ground supplies inertia and
timing for your stroke

SPIN

Any ball you hit will rotate; it will have Spin. Sometimes, Spin is created on purpose, and at other times, it is not. An advanced player uses Spin to create angles. Bounce heights and control the ball inside the court.

Spin is used to control the ball and
to create angles

Teaching any stroke through the use of Fundamentals allows the player to develop their game quickly and naturally, i.e., once a stroke is being timed successfully, and good balance has been established, the player naturally begins to explore the possibilities, adding more power to the ball or better placement in the court.

Another advantage to learning or improving your game through Fundamentals is that players can begin to coach themselves as they approach a ball. They start to ask themselves questions such as how much Spin is needed or what type of timing is needed (in the case of the different speeds of the ball).

Lastly, after mistakes, the player who has learned to master the stroke fundamentals can quickly analyse why the error occurred and keep a mental note of the correction for the next time they get that ball. If a player begins to critique their mistakes in this way, they develop tennis intelligence. 

The alternative is that mistakes are a complete mystery to the player, or they have so much irrelevant detail in their heads that there is confusion. Instead of increasing knowledge, the player experiences increased frustration. 

We're teaching tennis all wrong. By asking players to expect predictability and not training them to make decisions quickly and accurately, we need to give them the tools to develop their games and reach their full potential.