5 Mistakes when starting to play tennis

by: Tomaz Mencinger @ TennisMindGame

There are many ways you can go the wrong direction when starting to learn tennis.

Perhaps you already play tennis and have trouble with a stroke you learned the wrong way. Or perhaps you know someone who has learned a certain stroke the wrong way and just cannot correct it now.

As a tennis beginner, you are like a fresh painting canvas. Whatever you draw on it will be seen clearly. It's the same with your strokes.

Whatever you learn when you still know nothing is memorized deeply and forever. That's why it's crucial in this beginning stage that you learn the technique and the game in the proper way.

In my 20 years of tennis experience I have identified five mistakes that will haunt you, maybe forever, unless you commit to hours and hours of tennis lessons and practice to unlearn them, replacing wrong movement with the correct one.

1. No movement when learning the stroke's technique
By this I mean that you stand rooted to the ground and just move your arms. At most, you may sometimes step forward to the ball. You thus learn to be still prior to hitting the ball. That's wrong. Consequently, when the game gets faster for you, you are unable to progress and adapt. You'll always be slow.

2. First running to the ball and then preparing for the shot
This mistake always hurts, but you make things especially hard for yourself if you keep the racquet in front of you while chasing the ball. When you get to the ball and have only maybe 0.5 seconds to swing, you see that you aren't yet prepared to swing. So, you make your backswing and forward swing in a rush, with all your muscles tensed, trying to meet the ball in time. Imagine the problems you will have returning a fast serve!

3. Backswing with the arm instead of the unit/body turn
When tennis coaches started noticing that beginners are late hitting the ball, they tried to help. They over-corrected for this mistake by telling players to move their arm back as soon as they saw the ball coming. But this short-term fix grows into a problem in which the player has no rhythm, no timing and no power.

4. Controlling the follow-through
When a beginner starts playing tennis, their follow-through is inconsistent. When coaches overemphasize the follow-through and try to perfect it, the player becomes stiff and moves the arm in an unnatural motion. The result is, of course, that they cannot control the ball. Thus, ironically, too much control of the swinging motion causes loss of control of the ball.

5. Focusing only on technique
One of the biggest myths and misconceptions in tennis is that if you perform the technique correctly, the ball will go in. However, if you watch the professionals play for two minutes, you will undoubtedly see an unforced error or two. Their tennis technique is quite good, right?

The key to playing good tennis is to learn how to play it, not just how to move your arms and legs.

Learning to play tennis is an interesting journey that can end in two ways: you either (a) missed the right way and are now struggling with poor robot-like technique that doesn’t help you play better at all, or (b) started with sound guidance toward effortless and enjoyable playing where technique is the natural consequence of hitting the ball in the proper way.

So when choosing a tennis coach to guide you in the right direction, find out if they have been in touch with the modern approach to teaching tennis. Watch them teach, and see whether they are obsessed with perfect tennis technique or emphasize playing and developing technique in a personal style.

Making the right choice in the beginning can determine whether playing tennis will be fun or struggle.

Tomaz Mencinger is a tennis coach and a mental training coach. He teaches players of all ages how to play tennis with his step-by-step method of developing tennis technique and playing skills. Get more information at the tennis instruction section of his website.