Volley to victory

The definition of a volley is playing a ball before it lands on the ground. Volleys in tennis can be fun to play particularly when you know the right techniques behind them. The volley can also become a critical tool in your play if you want to get a quick winner in a match. One additional advantage of the volley is that, it reduces the recovery time of your opponent and gives you the upper hand if you want to move in and finish them. The volley is also used in cases where the feels they may choke on a ball if they try to do the complete forehand swing or backhand swing. At such occasions, volleying a ball may save you from losing a point in a game. For these reasons, we’re going to treat the basic techniques behind hitting both the forehand and backhand volleys. Get yourself ready.
Key Principles
If you are now conversant with the right technique of the forehand, it will be much easier moving on to the forehand volley. Just as in the forehand, the forehand volley involves 3 principal points. They are;
Preparation for the ball
Getting your footwork right
Keeping your eye on the ball

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga playing a jump-forehand-volley at Wimbledon 2011

Forehand volley
First of, to volley the ball using the forehand, hold the racket using the “crab” hold. Learn more on the crab hold by checking out The Art of the Forehand . The footwork for the volley is slightly different from that of the forehand. In the case of the volley, you stand facing the net with your right foot moving in across the left. This way, your upper body weight rests completely on your right leg with your knee slightly bent. Your racket at this point is already released from the crab hold and is held with the face pointing to the side of the court you want the ball to go. Try to keep your elbow at an angle a little greater than 90 degrees. Your ability to keep your wrist and grip firm on the racket will play an important role in whether or not the ball will get to the angle you are sending it.

If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that's concentration. I didn't grow up playing at the country club.
Serena Williams
Quoted in The Sunday Times, June 2002.

Backhand volley
In playing the backhand volley, a left-handed player will move their left foot forward thereby transferring their weight unto their left leg. The player stretches out his arm such that it is almost straight as compared to the forehand volley where the arm is slightly bent. All this while, the racket is held in such a way that the face is pointing toward the position the ball is being directed. Caution must however be taken in this because, choosing a wrong angle can lead to having your balls being played off court or the balls failing  to leave your side of the court. Try playing several volleys and through that, select the right angle for yourself. Also keep in mind that each volley is different from the other so you have to learn to be flexible in your approach for each one.




The video embedded above shows you how to play the volley. Make sure you watch how exactly this is done. Go out and practice with your coach after this. It should be fun!

The tennis footwork- Get it right

Ana Ivanovic doing her forehand footwork

Footwork in tennis plays a major part in the effectiveness of your shots. As you’ve already read The Art of The Forehand and The Backhand , you should know that particularly for beginners, getting your footwork right will play an important role in how easily you return the ball.
For this reason, we have chosen to take a close look at the basic footwork that all tennis players require.

Want to learn tennis? ; Amazing; 4 simple steps to help you start playing tennis
What does it involve?
Footwork for the forehand, if you are a right handed person will essentially involve three steps.
 The ready position
The ready position or stance is one of the most natural positions all players adapt when playing tennis. The approach may be slightly different for each person but, it involves basically the same concepts and ideas.
  In tennis, being ready for the ball means that the player is in a comfortable position where he/she is facing the net with the racket in their hand in such a way that they can hit the ball when it arrives with their forehand or backhand, depending on where the ball goes. In the ready position, the player will need to have maximum concentration as this is the only time they have before the ball arrives.
A great tip to get you to be in the ready position more easily is to spread out your feet just so you are at ease for the arrival of the ball. Next, you would want to bend your knees a little because this helps you to get more easily into the right position when you are making contact with the arriving ball.

Contact with the ball
Now, when the ball arrives, the player moves their left foot across their right foot, such that their side is towards their opponent, they move in for the ball with this positioning and swing the racket across their shoulders fully. The key detail of the footwork at this stage is that, the player must not move in too closely from the ball or be too much further away from the ball either. They would want to find a perfect position just about enough for them to swing their arm with ease with an option of sending the ball where they want it to go instead of just hitting it back to their opponent. If a player does this footwork right and swings their arm fully, they stand a good chance of hitting a good forehand.

Adrian Mannari -backhand footwork

For more insight on the way to swing, read The Art of the Forehand

Recovery
Now that they have hit the ball, the next thing to do is to quickly move back into the ready position again. That means, they move their feet back to face the net and the racket in their hands in the “Crab” hold so that they can move in for your forehand or backhand when the ball is in their court. They then shuffle back to the baseline still keeping an eye on the ball. Recovery in tennis can make a huge difference when you start playing with people with people with different play styles. The extent of your recovery can sometimes determine the ease with which you can take the next ball.

Backhand footwork is not much different from the forehand, in this; the player moves their right foot in instead. I will be posting a short video on the footwork to guide you through the basic steps. However, if you do have any difficulty with it, contact me and I’ll be more than glad to help.

You may want to check out: Packing your backhand-Improve your tennis backhand the right way

Now that you know the basics, go out there, make sure you feel comfortable with the steps, try it out and have a blast! Tennis is fun so adding a new skill to improve your efficiency only makes it more interesting.

Predictions of the Atp world tour final

Video that shows my prediction of the finals between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Roger Federer at the 02 arena, London. I predicted that Federer would win even though he may not have an easy match. You may want to watch. Subscribe to my youtube profile for all my future predictions and discussions. We have a great interview with a top tennis player coming your way soon. Enjoy.

Amazing: 4 simple steps to help you start playing tennis

In this past month, we've been dealing with the basics of tennis and how to get beginner tennis players comfortable on the court.We have also addressed a some key ways of keeping you consistent, confident and constantly evolving in your tennis. The following topics have been looked at the in our discussions.

Finding a good sparring partner

This was the first topic we treated. It's purpose was to help you to aid you with the right tools to find a sparring partner for tennis. Later on, we realized that finding a good partner was one of the key ways of consistently improving your play. Also...

Get in the Game!

Under this topic, we dealt with ways of getting you to play a first match. We recommended you played against your sparring partner . We found that this was a way of getting you to understand the basic concepts of the game which involve the rules, scoring and play styles in tennis. This is one of the most practical ways, of getting you to understand how a game in tennis is played. And we hope you participated. You can read more here...

Building confidence in a game

We found that to play well in tennis, it is required that you are confident to take on challenges in a game. So, under this topic, we addressed 3 of the main ways by which you could build your confidence in a game. We provided some great tips which we believe you will love reading.

Next, we looked at Developing a play style. Here the emphasis was on getting you to understand the various playstyles that exist in the game of tennis and how each one can work to your advantage. We further went on add a short interesting quiz to help you determine which category you belonged to. Hope you enjoyed that. You can read the article here or try out the quiz here .

At this point in time, we brought to light the some few simple steps you could follow to improve your  tennis. This was to give you hope and provide you with some solutions to some challenges beginners are likely to encounter. Simple; 3 effective steps to improve your tennis. There was a follow up video (the essence of practice). From this point on, we believe that, anyone with an interest in the tennis would have all the right tools to commence their quest. We hope you enjoyed the 4 step program and have all the right tools to begin playing tennis.

Now that you're ready, we're going to discuss in our next article, The 6 basic things(skills) all tennis players should posses.

The giant move (Stepping on the court for the first time)

Typical tennis court

    

Stepping on a tennis court may seem really simple process to most on looker tennis fans. The truth is, stepping unto a tennis court is really simple. It is what you do when you step out on the court that actually matters. So in a great sense, your ability to learn and improve your tennis will depend on your level of confidence and how much passion you have for the game.

Other articles by this author;

The Art of the Forehand


Tips to make tennis fun for a you

If you are a passionate person seeking to learn something new, and you do have time and patience for a gradual development, tennis might be the sport for you.
Before you go out on a tennis court, arrange a good meeting time with your partner or colleague with whom you'd be playing.
Make sure you have well in advance, planned to meet a good coach who will be ready to take you through all the drills and exercises you require as a beginner.
Also make sure you have the right clothes, sneakers,  tennis racket and tennis balls with which you will be playing.
The next thing will be to psyche up yourself. If you have never been on a tennis court, you could be a little overwhelmed by the size of the court the very first time. If this happens, don't worry, just keep in mind that it is perfectly normal if you feel a little out of place during this period.

   The secret here is to stay calm and relaxed and to remember why you are here, to have fun!
Another important step in this phase is when you learn to adjust yourself to the court. Familiarize yourself with the tennis court. Most good tennis coaches get their students to do certain basic drills that make you a lot more relaxed and certainly more adjusted to the court you will be playing on.
 From  experience, it should take you about a week to get used to the court. After you have adjusted to the court , you may realize that the good thing about having the court being that huge is that, you can end up hitting some really wonderful shots because of its size.

   Now that you are on the court, try and rally (hit) a few balls with your partner before taking any lessons, this is an important step because it gives you a feel of the ball and an idea on how you play. If you're surprised you don't play like Nadal or Federer your first time, then welcome to the club! Don't by any means be discouraged if you make mistakes. The thing about tennis is, if you have fun while you play, you will develop a passion for it, and the drive to improve your play and enhance your techniques will naturally follow.

    If you have a coach, I highly recommend you let him guide you through the basic drills in tennis after your rallying session. If you want to know more about these drills, you can email me on emmSi90@yahoo.com .I would send you videos and links of some of these drills which would aid you to get warmed up as well as help develop your game play.
Hope you have a fun time out there today!
Also read; Amazing; 4 simple steps to help you start playing tennis

Tips to finding a good sparring partner

"Okay so now that we know what is required to start playing tennis, how then do we begin actually playing the game?" one may ask.

In my previous blog i recommended a few things you needed to begin playing tennis one of them was a good sparring partner.Today I'm going to discuss how you can get a good sparring partner and a few of the techniques you will need in order to start sparring.

The Good Sparring Partner

If you want to begin playing tennis, it would be good to let a few of your friends and your colleagues know about a couple of weeks before you start taking your lessons with a coach. This could very well be a good way of getting a friend you feel comfortable with to be your sparring partner. This makes it easier for you to concentrate more on the game and still enjoy the company of your friend. You can also choose to announce your interest to play tennis on media like facebook.com if you have an account there. Another way of getting a sparring partner is by asking the coaches at your local tennis club to pair you up with people who are of the same ITN ranking as yourself. You are encouraged to visit http://www.itftennis.com/itn/ for more information about ITN rankings.
Also you may want to create an advert or a poster which you can place on the notice board at your local tennis club for a partner. When you finally do get a sparring partner, find some time to meet them personally so that you both can visit the court together. It is also recommended that you arrange a suitable day in the week to have your first training session.
The techniques for sparring

If this is your first time of stepping on the tennis court, you may almost be overwhelmed by your inability to play like a mentor you most likely see on TV. Your experience could very much consist of one or all of the following.You may be all over the place chasing balls, going round and round in circles during the return of a ball, hit some really high balls that may even go over the fence and may even feel embarrased. The good news is, that's how everybody begins! This is why you need a sparring partner who is of the same standing in the ITN rankings as you are.This way you can motivate and encourage each other as you go along.

The first technique you should try out could be playing the ball on one side of the court. This technique improves your control of the ball and aids you play in the direction you want to instead of just anywhere on the court.

Try and master this technique, go out and have some fun with your new partner and always remember to be true to yourself. For more helpful tips on how to become part of Ghana's growing tennis community, just follow this blog.