The Geometry of Tennis
By Sandra Eggers

When you were a kid, did you hate having to learn math in school? Did you struggle with those meaningless theorems and word problems? Who really cares if Train A is approaching the station traveling at 60 miles per hour, and whether or not it will arrive before Train B? Once we completed that dreaded geometry class in school, it just wasn't all that important to remember how to find the radius of a circle inscribed in an isosceles triangle.

Well, come to find out, it really does matter. The tennis court is now a rectangle, bisected by a line which is the net. Depending where the ball is, and your relative position to it, the game of tennis has now become a complicated series of geometry problems, and your job is to come up with all the different possibilities of angles to hit for your next shot. Isn't math fun?

The key to hitting angles in tennis is positioning. Obviously, you are able to hit more of an extreme angle in doubles because you have more court to work with, but is still an effective shot in singles as well. The reason you hear so many coaches telling their students to keep the ball deep is to limit the angle coming back. A common strategy in doubles is to hit "deep and down the middle", which is also used to take away the angle.

Tennis can be broken down into a game of angles. Go back to what you learned in school about geometry, and apply that to the tennis court. To understand better what it means to tennis, take a piece of paper and draw a rectangle with a line across the middle. This is your tennis court. Now place a dot at what would be the baseline and draw a line from the dot to the other end of the rectangle. This is the path a tennis ball could travel given it's relative position. You will see that there are fewer angles possible if your original dot (the ball) is at the baseline as opposed to nearer the net.

You can use the game of angles to move your opponent around and as a way to set up points. It is much harder to change the direction of a ball, which is why you see so many cross-court rallies. Every once in awhile, you will see a pro come up with an awesome angle on a short ball. That's because there are more possibilities of a sharper angle on a ball that is not deep in the court.

The theories of geometry in tennis applies to all your strokes. If you're playing doubles, and want more action for the net player, try serving up the middle, or the "T". This will give your opponent fewer options for an angle, and will likely force him to hit back up the middle. As the net player, it is your job to watch for those deep serves up the middle and anticipate taking the volley. Of course, some players get really lucky and will manage to hit down the line or come up with an impressive cross-court shot, but it was probably luck. Give them the first one and see if they can do it again. Most likely, they will make more errors trying the lower percentage shot.

When you start thinking about tennis as a game of angles, it changes you whole perspective. Picture the court as a rectangle and imagine the possible trajectory you can hit the ball based on your depth and position. If your opponent doesn't understand the geometry of tennis, they won't know what hit them when you come away with a victory.