Basics of Tennis

Hey, ‘the kid’ here.

Ahh, topspin. Love it, hate it, kill it, worship it. Those are the steps I’ve taken in topspin, consecutively.

Love it: I wasn’t even hitting topspin. It was just a cool flashy thing to show off to my 8 and 9 year old tennis playing friends which proved I was better than them! I think it was more of a slice which after bouncing would swerve way to one side or the other. Maybe not topspin, but it sure had a cool factor.

Hate it: The stage where I was beginning to figure out what topspin actually was. I was a complete failure at it, and only managed to hit a shot in 1 in 4 times. Whether I was hitting with topsin, I don’t know. But I never threw my racquet. Off the court.

Kill it: I reverted to my previous “slice everything” strategy. I became the expert of the dropshot, squash shot, and backhand slice. Even my serve started to get backspin on it! Unfortunately, I met someone who hits every ball flat, hard, and gets it in. So I was just batting practice for him. I couldn’t compete at the high school very well either.

Worship it: I got a PI. I hired one to find clues as to what the problem was with my groundstrokes. He just found out that I had gum on the bottom of my shoe. No, not really. I got a ‘private instructer’. He’s taught me often in group lessons before, so we know each other well. I fixed my forehand first, with a radically different stroke, and then went on to my pathetic backhand, which has now gained the ranking of ‘apathetic.

You’re always learning. I started with the basics, and went back to the basics again.