5 Powerful Tennis Tips for Beginners

Picking the racquet up for the first time and hitting on the courts as a novice is an unforgettable experience. It is filled with excitement and motivation. Mastering the game or learning to play better takes some effort. Of course having a tennis coach can speed up this process.

There are a few things that you will learn in your beginner tennis lessons. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Here are 5 tips that will help you gain a grip over the game and advance at an exciting pace.

1. How to judge the ball better

Judging the ball is an extremely important aspect of tennis. Being able to track the ball and anticipate where it is going to bounce to is vital. Yes, your ball judgment improves with experience. But what can you do to improve your judgment right from an early stage?

Here’s a simple drill that can do the trick.

The drill – play the ball only after it bounces twice. How is this going to help you? It will allow you to watch the ball trajectory after the first bounce (when you are normally required to hit it) and makes you more familiarised with the ball’s motion after it bounces. Once you get used to how the ball moves, you can try to go back to one bounce and see if your judgement has gotten better.

2. Learn to take it easy

Quite often, beginners bring along a bit of stress to the courts. The long list of instructions about technique, positioning, etc combined with their own fears might act as a hurdle that prevents them from playing in a proper manner.

You need to take a deep breath and calm things down. Take it easy. Try to have fun while you play and enjoy the game. While on the court, whenever your stress levels rise, be quick to realize it. Then speak to yourself and tone it down. Such an attitude can help you improve your game by a great deal.

What you can do is; focus on 1 shot or 1 point at a time. Just completely focus on making clean contact with the ball and that’s all. Tune out other distractions and you will be able to calm down when you have a clear focus in mind.

3. Reach the ball in time

When you are new to tennis, you tend end up being late to reach the ball. This is mainly because of the lack of rhythm. By rhythm, we mean – how quickly the ball comes back to you and how quickly you need to move and prepare your racquet. Some might get hold of this rhythm rather easily while a few others might find it hard to adapt to.

There’s a simple drill that can help you in this regard.

Ask your drill partner to feed the ball to a particular side. Start running early to the side where the ball is coming and get there well before time. While waiting for the ball you will be able to get a better measure of the speed at which it is coming. You will also be able to understand how quickly you need to move. It will eventually help you get the rhythm.

Keep at it! It’ll come with practice and experience. You can start at the service line and then slowly progress to the baseline to take things progressively.

4. How to play with better control

Have you noticed how most beginners tend to hit the ball too hard? This is really common with beginners, so don’t sweat. There are many things and instructions that you are trying to digest PLUS a ball is coming towards you, it’s natural that you overcook the shot once in a while.

Firstly, you have to understand that power comes from the acceleration of the racquet, now really how “hard” to muscle the shot. So relax your and swing slowly but smoothly.

A great tennis mental tip to immediately play with control, is to focus on hitting the ball and getting it to bounce twice on your opponent’s court. With this goal, you will automatically understand that your can just let it rip anymore. At the start you may end up doing a half swing or just tapping the ball over, it’s okay. Just work towards developing a slow full swing.

Hitting hard is easy, hitting slow is the tricky one. Practice this well and you will have superior control and mastery of your shots

5. Hit the ball the correct way

Trying to hit the ball just above the net is risky and many beginners think that that’s how pros play. Not true. Most of the matches on the T.V are from a top down angle, so you can’t really see how high the ball clears the net.

After you learn how to hit the ball with the four main tennis strokes – tennis forehand, tennis backhand, tennis volley and tennis serve, the next thing to focus on is to consistently hit the ball into the court.

Yes, some shots and situation are made for low net clearance. But those are intentional and not done all the time. You should be focusing on clear the net with a good margin and shape the shot into an Arc or a Rainbow.

Tennis is a game of errors, not winners. With a higher net clearance, you will increase your consistency and lower the number of points your gift your opponent by hitting the net.

You can get the hang of this through a simple exercise. Use a prop. This can be something from a rope to your tennis bag. Place it close to the net and at a level above it. This is to give you a visual target or obstacle to clear and force you to get a higher net clearance. Practice hitting over it. This will get you acquainted with hitting the ball in an arc over the net. Follow this drill and with a bit of time hitting the ball in an arc will come more naturally to you.

Summing Up

Make use of these tips to ensure a quicker progression. They will help you get the basics right and make it easier for you to pick up on advanced skills. All the best! For more tips in video format, check out Banana Tennis YouTube channel.