According to one study, about 60 million women and men play tennis all over the world.
If you’re one of the millions of tennis players, you might be looking for some tennis tips to help you improve your game and defeat your opponents.
While practice makes perfect, there are some things you can try to help give you an advantage. Keep reading to find out how to improve your game!
- Have the Right Gear
Before you can improve your game, you’ll need to make sure that you have all of the right gear. You’ll need a tennis racket, some shoes, clothes, and tennis balls, but you’ll need to get the best of the best to compete with others.
Racket
There are plenty of rackets out there, including cheap and expensive ones. If you’re new to tennis, you might want to get one that is budget-friendly, just so that you can get used to how it feels. However, if you’re an advanced player, you should go for a more expensive one because that’s likely what your competitors will be using.
When looking for a racket, you should focus on the size of it.
If you’re a little bit more petite or smaller, you should get a racket that is about 25 inches long. However, if you’re stronger and taller, you might want to get one that’s about 28 inches. Normally a racket for kids is about 17 inches long.
If your racket isn’t correctly sized, you might end up having pain in your elbow and wrist. Because of this, you should go to a sports store in-person and hold them to find the perfect one for you.
Shoes
Getting the right shoes is also important to ensure that you don’t hurt yourself while playing tennis.
Most people just end up wearing their running shoes, but that actually isn’t the best for playing tennis. These don’t offer the right ankle support, and in some cases, it can even increase your chances of getting a sprained ankle.
That’s why you should buy shoes designed for tennis because this helps give more stability to your ankle which is helpful as you sprint across the tennis court.
Tennis Balls
Lastly, make sure you have tennis balls as well. You should have plenty of them because you might end up hitting them out of the court.
When you keep having to chase the ball, you’ll be sacrificing time on the court that you could spend practicing.
- Try Different Drills
While playing games can be helpful for improving your skills, you might want to try out different drills. There are plenty of them out there that you can try.
Serving Drills
When looking for tennis serve tips, you can try doing some serving drills.
This will help you to improve the accuracy of your serve. To do this, try aiming for a certain spot on the serving box. Take the ball hopper and use that to aim your service.
You can also place cans on the box and then serve to hit the cans until you can hit them each time.
Backhand Drills
A backhand slice drill can also really help improve your game.
To do this drill, stand in the baseline. Make sure that your feet are perpendicular to the line. If you have a coach or a person to play with, ask them to send shots to you using their backhand.
They can adjust their speed, and if you feel like you don’t have a good balance, adjust your feet.
Try swinging your racket in a backward motion. This will make your racket lift up and send the ball over the net.
Forehand Drills
A forehand drill will help you improve your forehand hits.
Stand close to the service line. Your coach or another player can serve from a diagonal position of the court. They should serve it softly but hit the ball with a firm forehand.
By trying these different drills, you’ll be able to prepare for anything that could happen on the court.
- Work on Footwork
Next, make sure that you spend time working on your footwork.
If you ever want to be as good of a player as Prabir Purohit, you should realize that many people miss some shots just because their footwork was off. Many beginners don’t spend enough time focus on the footwork because they are just focused on hitting the ball.
However, if you’re not in a great position, you’ll find yourself a little bit off balance. When you’re off balance, you won’t be able to hit a shot into the strike zone. You may not be able to take control of a full swing to be able to send it back over the court.
There are plenty of footwork drills out there that you can try, and you can do some quick footwork either right before you practice or right after.
Tennis Ball Drills
One drill you could try is by tossing your racket away and having your coach throw the balls to you instead. This way you can focus more on catching the balls with your hands rather than the racket which gives you a chance to focus on your footwork.
Toe Drills
Another thing you should try is toe drills. You never want to be flat on your feet while playing a tennis game.
When you have your tiptoes, you can be more dynamic and reactive in chasing the ball and winning the game.
Stutter Steps
When you are approaching the ball or running toward it, many people slow themselves down by taking smaller steps. This helps you get into the right position and slows you down so that you can hit the ball back.
- Practice With Other Good Players
When you go to the tennis court and practice, try and find people who are better than you. Whenever you compete against difficult players after a competition, you can go and ask them if they’d like to practice with you at some point.
When you train with people better than you, you’ll be able to pick up on their gameplay more, and they might even be able to give you a few tips.
Once you start practicing with people who are more of a competition for you, you’ll realize that when you face difficult opponents in a tournament, that you’re not as nervous and more prepared.
- Focus on Your Grip
When you’re practicing, you should also pay attention to how you’re holding the tennis racket.
There are three main ways that you can hold the tennis racket: western grip, eastern grip, and continental grip. One grip doesn’t work the same for everyone, so you should find one that works for you. Many players even use a combination of both of these rackets because it’s more comfortable for them.
When you try and do a backhand with some of these grips, you’ll likely have to change it a little bit. For example, if you use the eastern forehand grip, you’ll probably use more of a continental grip when you do your backhand.
If you’re a beginner, make sure you try all three of them to find one that works best for you.
- Analyze Your Opponent
Lastly, make sure you analyze your opponent before you go out to compete against them.
If they’re famous, you can likely find videos of them playing before somewhere on the Internet. Spend hours taking notes and watching their videos to see what kind of hits and serves they do. What is their footwork like?
Do they have a bad backhand? Do they struggle with something else?
When you have all this information, you can come up with a strategy and start practicing with it on the court.
When you’re on the court, try using variations of shots. Hit some low balls, hard shots, slow shots, or anything else that comes to mind. They’ll be analyzing you too, so make sure that they can’t get a good read on you.
Discover More Tennis Tips to Help You Win
These are only a few of the popular tennis tips to ensure that you can win every game that you compete in.
There are plenty of things to remember when playing a tennis game, and it can be exhausting and overwhelming. Thankfully, we know how to help guide you through even the most difficult games.
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