Tennis players can decrease their effectiveness on court with poor behavior, strategy, strokes and fitness. Pinpointing specific areas of your game that affect your performance can help you improve your mental toughness, matchplay skills and conditioning. Take inventory of your strengths and weaknesses to take your game to the next level.
Poor Mental Toughness
Tennis players contribute to their own poor performance with negative thoughts. Tanking is the act of giving up, not trying for balls or purposely hitting balls into the net or long to end points. Anger implies that you still care but have lost control of your emotions. Choking is fear and causes you to hit shorter shots, toss the ball lower on your serve or begin playing slice strokes, which are easier to hit than topspin. Learn to spot these three types of behavior and develop plans to deal with them.
Poor Tactical Ability
Many tennis players spend most of their practice time learning how to hit the ball rather than where to hit the ball. This leads to the development of strong stroke skills but a lack of matchplay shot-making skills. Lower-level players hit more unforced errors than better players, often playing defensively or trying to hit winners. To improve your game, learn to place the ball left, right, deep and short so that you can force your opponent into making errors.
Poor Strokes
Even at higher levels of recreational play, tennis players tend to focus on power over placement. They hit just enough aces and winners to mask the fact that many of the balls they hit hard come back or miss. Swinging too hard to generate power is a result of strokes that rely too much on the arm instead of the torso and legs. This happens due to poor footwork and a lack of upper body rotation. To generate more power, learn to rotate your upper body on serves and groundstrokes, and how to get into position to do this.
Poor Conditioning
Tennis is an anaerobic sport, using different muscle fibers and energy sources than aerobic workouts. Tennis players who run for miles or use an elliptical or other aerobic training do not prepare themselves properly for the quick, high-energy demands of tennis. Incorporate interval, or sprint, training into your conditioning plan to get fit for tennis. Move very fast for 30 to 60 seconds, then take a one- or two-minute break. Keep repeating this pattern for 15 minutes or more. Move side to side, forward and back and on an angle, just as you do in tennis.
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