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You have chosen the best sport in the world.

You’re at the beginning of your career and you’re still struggling with feeling for the ball. Sometimes you don’t yet know where your shot will fly. You can’t really control the ball on the racket yet.

This is not a problem. If you read this article carefully to the end, you will play tennis better tomorrow.

This is my personal guarantee.

As a beginner you have a big advantage in your tennis bag: You can first deal with the basic technical aspects.

In this article I will introduce you to exercises that will teach you the most important things as a beginner in tennis:

The feeling for the ball.

Your bonus: Improve your shots through improved concentration – look here .
Tennis is not about strength. You need to understand how a felt ball behaves when you hit it. You have to learn what the ball does after it bounces – how it ticks, how it spins.

So that you can soon cheer like this on the pitch:

nadal
As a beginner , you will quickly find that the ball has a life of its own. The more spins of the ball you understand, the easier the shots will be.

I’m going against the wind with what I’m saying.

Other internet or YouTube sites will give you different tips. My focus with beginners is on the feeling for the ball – I don’t think it works without that.

The best way to do this is as follows:

pick up your racket
grab a ball
tap the ball with the bat as many times as possible
The great thing about this exercise for beginners is that you can do it anywhere. You only need a level surface.

And a bit of luck with the weather 😉

I would like to give you key points for this exercise:

don’t cramp the arm holding the racket
find a rhythm quickly
don’t give up if it doesn’t work right away
keep the wrist loose and flexible
This exercise will help you understand that tennis is about rhythm. This should be firmly anchored in your mindset.

We talked here about Alexander Zverev and his mental strength.

You gain a feeling for the ball and the bat. If you are already good at this exercise, you should focus on a meeting point in the middle of your stringing.

Or Roger? 😉

roger gif
This is the second level of this exercise and requires you to have more feel for the ball and racquet.

At the beginning it is normal that you hit the ball on the frame with this simple exercise. Take this as an opportunity to focus more. Look closely at the ball. Don’t take your eyes off him for a second.

Try to figure out how the ball spins.

Keep Cool: Stay relaxed as a beginner in tennis
Try to keep everything simple.

We’ll explain in a moment which mistakes you should definitely avoid as a beginner.

If you take on too much, you quickly lose interest. Your first shots won’t always work out the way you see them on TV. Your first goal on the course as a beginner is to master the technical basics.

You will find your very own technique .

It’s difficult to give technical advice. You have to trust your local trainer.

What you should try, I have packed into a small keyword list:

hit the ball from bottom to top
learn to hang the club head early
finish each punch over the shoulder
ideally, you’re looking at your elbow after the punch, which is then in front of your nose
Never work with force, but with momentum.

Learn to use your hips and upper body rotation to build that momentum. Pure muscle power will not help you as a beginner in tennis – on the contrary.

When your coach passes the balls, don’t look at your coach or at your racquet. As we discussed earlier in this article, your attention is on the ball. Use your free arm to help.

You can point at the ball with your free hand.

Not only do you get more stability throughout your body, you have a scope to aim for the ball. If you let your free arm dangle down, you rob yourself of an important help.

Use your arm and get in the habit of pointing it at the ball.

You’ve already learned a lot.

Congratulations at this point 😉

Reading tip: Mental training in tennis

We are now taking the next step.

You know tennis is more about feel than speed. You also understood that you have to be patient and that not everything will go perfectly right from the start.

Especially on the kick serve .

You know the most important technical basics – your trainer will teach you the rest.

We now come to the things that stand between you as a beginner between the racket and the net: the beginner mistakes.

Don’t worry , we will definitely get this under control.

No Roger Federer has fallen from the sky yet 😉

Recommended reading: Serve: 18 Timeless Ways to Serve Great (+ 3 Strategies for Better Rates)

sampras neu
Where should you play as a tennis beginner?
When I started tennis I didn’t know where to aim.

That was a big problem at the beginning.

On the one hand you want to conjure up great winning shots from the stringing. On the other hand, annoying mistakes are made.

Before you can take any high risk in your matches, you should get a good feel for your groundstrokes. This rule applies not only to you as a beginner, but also to professionals.

I recommend that as a beginner you focus on playing the following areas of the course:

tennis beginner tip
you guess it

You will still make mistakes 😉

A high frustration tolerance is important to achieve constant development in tennis. You will always experience coaching sessions and games with many mistakes. Then three days later you’re playing great tennis – better than ever.

These fluctuations are part of tennis.

You make a lot of mistakes when you play too close to the sidelines. Or too close to the baseline.

Please refer:

tennis beginner mistake
After a mistake you can immediately check if you played too close to the lines. If you notice that you wanted to place the ball too precisely, then you can apply this knowledge directly in the next rally.

That’s one of the beautiful things about tennis. You learn quickly and can apply your new knowledge directly.

What mistakes should you avoid as a beginner in tennis?
We’ll come to many more tips for your success as a tennis newbie in a moment.

It is important to me that you, as a beginner, avoid certain mistakes.

Don’t hit the ball from top to bottom.

Logic explains this error by itself. If you swing and play the ball from top to bottom, the small felt ball will fly into the net.

Many beginners in tennis are so focused on everything else that they make this mistake. That’s why it’s important to let the clubhead hang in front of your shots – forehand and backhand . The top of your racket is pointing towards the ground, your wrist is folded away.

This makes it easier for you to play the ball from bottom to top and to get under the ball with your strings. With this technique, it is not so difficult for you to quickly learn a good feeling for the ball and the speed.

 

What to do with your ambition as a beginner?
You’ll quickly discover that tennis is an incredibly demanding sport.

Not only will you be challenged physically, but also mentally. You have to concentrate on many movements simultaneously and sequentially.

Then you have to prepare for the next shot immediately after the shot.

That’s a lot, isn’t it?! ????

Even advanced players have the problem of wanting too much in tournaments and team games. They are so-called training world champions . Of course, as a beginner, you also want to do a lot of things right on the pitch as quickly as possible.

Remember:

If you put ten things on your to-do list that you want to do right on the pitch, you’ll only succeed in two or three. But if you only find three things on your list and do two of them very well, you will improve faster and, above all, have more fun.

And having fun is not unimportant in the whole thing.

As a beginner, it is enough if you write two goals on your to-do list:

Let the club head hang down
Complete the over-the-shoulder punch
These are the cornerstones of your technique, which you should train on the tennis court when you start out as a beginner. Even if you’re playing against a wall, playing a few balls with a buddy or a buddy in a yard or even on the court – pay attention to these two movements.

Tips for beginners to smile in the face of frustration
Success is a ladder, but you always have to lean it against the right wall.

As you just learned, wanting too much at once is a worse tactic . Settle for little to have more fun with the big picture.

You shouldn’t make too much of a science of your club choice at the beginning either. Play a few racquets, see which model suits you best, and then literally hit it.

After a few years, you can still deal with the material and the various advantages of the different manufacturers.

If you have pain in your arm, shoulder or wrist, changing clubs is often a good solution.

You can’t play tennis too often.

I advise you to hit as many balls as possible.

When I was a little boy and just starting to play tennis, I always played against the wall of our house on the terrace – at that time I still used softer balls and my children’s racket, which always had a colorful string on it. The good thing about playing against a wall is that you play a lot of similar shots in a short period of time.

Through these many and identical shots you gain feeling and security for your technique.

If your tennis club has a ball wall, don’t be afraid to use it. Take a few balls with you, four of them, these are enough, and play against the wall for an hour. First half an hour forehand, then half an hour backhand.

Next time, alternate forehands and two-handed backhands .

This is an excellent workout.

I wish you a great career and above all a lot of fun on the tennis court.

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