9 Essential Tennis Tips

Tips from our head tennis pro - Kent Yee

If you find yourself struggling with some tennis basics, take a look at these quick tips to improve your game. It’s important to remember that there is no perfect way to play a tennis stroke, but these tips offer some fundamentals to help you hone your tennis skills.
 

1. Early Preparation

   • You can never prepare yourself soon enough. Turn your hips and shoulders before the oncoming ball bounces on your side.​

2. Exaggerate your follow through

   • It is as simple as watching the tennis ball on the follow through. Follow all the way through your shot after your hit. Hit the ball, follow through, and move your feet.​​

3. Hit – Recover

   • Instead of focusing on your shot after you’ve made it, focus on the recover. Hit, finish and get back into ready position.

4. Keep Your Head Still

   • If you find yourself miss-hitting shots, be sure that you aren’t moving your head as you swing. Follow the ball onto the racquet and keep your head still until the shot has been played. Watching the tennis ball again!

5. Get your back leg behind the ball

   • Getting your back leg and weight behind the ball allows for easier weight transfer and a more consistent shot.

6. Pull back on your Serve Speed

   • The serve is the most important shot in tennis, but that doesn’t mean you should wail on the ball. Focus on accuracy versus power.

7. Prepare Early for Groundstrokes

   • Once you know where the ball is going to bounce, move yourself into a position where you feel comfortable playing the shot, usually a racket length away from your body. The higher you make your backswing, the more power you will likely generate for the advanced players. Finding the right balance between the swing and the power is key. For those players learning the game, a lower backswing allows you time to hit the tennis ball.

8. Practice your Tennis Ball Toss

   • When serving, your ball toss should go straight up and come straight down in front of your leading foot. If you were tossing the ball, adjust yourself as if you were using a sun dial, toss it between 12 noon – 1:00 pm as a right hand serve and for a left hand serve, toss between 11 am – 12 noon. Grab a tennis ball and practice your toss, without actually hitting the ball and catch in your tossing hand.

9. Don’t be too hard on yourself during Tennis Matches

   • It’s easy to be overly critical of yourself, especially if you miss an otherwise easy shot in a competitive environment. If you miss a shot just move forward in the match and keep playing to the best of your ability. Practice your stroke afterward to improve and perfect your skills.