The Basics...
Grips || Spin || Footwork || Scoring || The Court || Doubles
Before going on to master the finer points of the game it is important to first develop an understanding of the basics. The basics will give you a firm foundation from which to further develop your skills.
This section will teach you how to hold the racket properly. In tennis there are 4 main grips: continental, eastern, semi-western, and western. They all serve various purposes, and are used at various times during a match. For example, most players hit their forehands with a semi-western grip, and their backhands with a continental grip. All advanced players hit their serves and volleys using a continental grip, and clay court players will often use an extreme western grip to generate tremendous amounts of topspin. Ultimately, the type of grip(s) you decide to use will influence the contact point (ie: the point in space where your racket makes contact with the ball) and the types of spin you can generate.
All tennis racket grips form an octagon. Each side of the octagon forms a “panel” of the grip. The location of your hand relative to the panels determines which of the 4 basic tennis grips you are using. In more concrete terms let’s start off by holding the racket so that the butt of the grip points towards you and in the orientation of the photo below.
Now, take your dominant hand and point your palm towards the ground. The webbing between your index finger and thumb should form a “V” shape. The location of this “V” on the grip’s panels determines what type of grip you have. The different types of grips include eastern, western, semi-western, and continental.
Now that you understand the different grips, we can start to discuss spin. In fact, your choice of grip determines which types of spin you can develop. Spin simply means ball rotation.
There are 3 categories of spin: flat, topspin, and slice (aka: under-spin). An eastern grip tends to result in shots that are flat with minimal amounts of spin. Continental grips are ideal at generating slice because the racket head and strings “carve” underneath the ball. In contrast, semi-western, and western grips are great for generating varying degrees of topspin.
Spin is a very important component of the game. First and foremost, spin allows you to throw your opponent off balance. For example, topspin will hit and “kick-up” into your opponent’s court allowing you to drive them deep. Watch Rafael Nadal and notice how much rotation his forehand gets! His topspin shots rotate at a ridiculous 3200 revolutions per minute! Now that is spin! Imaging trying to hit an effective shot back if the ball is coming towards you with that amount of rotation. Slice, on the other hand, will keep the ball low and slow, which can be helpful when playing tall individuals.
Varying different spins throughout a single point can keep your opponent consistently off balance, and not allow them to find a rhythm.
Footwork is a vital component of tennis. Great footwork can compensate for poor strokes, but great strokes cannot compensate for poor footwork! A great deal of a beginner’s training is spent learning the proper footwork for each shot. Most shots in tennis are not hit directly to you, so you’ll find yourself having to track down shots using your feet.
The first component of excellent footwork is staying on the “balls” of your feet. In other words, get off you heels! If your heels are touching the ground you are not ready to run to the next shot, and will be sorely out of position to hit an effective ball back to your opponent. Ensure that you are up on your toes at all times!!! This will get you in the mindset of having aggressive footwork.
The second component of excellent footwork is taking tiny steps. Effective footwork in tennis is not large lumbering movements, but rather small finely tuned steps. Watch any of the top professional players on television and you’ll notice that almost all of their energy is used taking small re-adjustment steps just before they hit each shot. This ensures that their contact point remains in the same spot each time allowing them to hit each ball with the maximum amount of power, spin, and consistency.
The reason footwork is vital is that it ultimately determines your contact point. The contact point is the point at which your strings make contact with the tennis ball. Your contact point can be anywhere from out in front of your body to high above your head. Ideally you want your great footwork to allow you to hit the ball at the same contact point for every shot. Contact points well above your head make controlling the ball very difficult, and the same applies to shots well below your knees.
A great analogy is baseball, and the batter’s box. A batter has the greatest chance of hitting a homerun when he swings at a pitch in the box compared to one that is either too high or too low. In baseball, the batter is not allowed to adjust his body in relationship to the pitch so he waits for the best pitch. Luckily, in tennis, we are able to constantly adjust the size and shape of our batter’s box by moving our feet! Most people hit their best when they contact the ball at about waist height. Therefore, if your opponent hits a short low shot, it is best to run up in the court, and set up quickly so that the ball doesn’t drop below your knees. Same thing for high ones! Shots above your shoulders are very difficult to control. Most beginning players will find it easier to take a few quick steps backwards and allow the ball to drop “back into the box” before swinging. Alternatively you can take the ball “on-the-rise”, but this requires lots of practice and superb timing. Andre Agassi was a master at catching the ball on-the-rise, which allowed him to dictate play.
In general, 90% of tennis is all about footwork! If you are not in great position, you will not hit an effective shot. The better you become, the wider your batter’s box will become, but in the beginning focus on moving your feet and hitting each shot at the same contact point. Agassi once joked that Roger Federer’s (arguably the greatest player in history) hitting zone is from his ankles to above his head. This type of skill only happens after years and years of training, but I can guarantee you that even Federer would prefer to hit a ball waist height than one well above his head. Great footwork can make that happen consistently!
In order to understand how tennis is played, it is necessary to understand the dimensions and lines of the court. There are several important characteristics I’d like to point out in the image below. The first is the baseline. This line is where every point in tennis begins, and on all courts there is a “hash” mark in the middle of the baseline that separates the court into deuce and ad sides. If you are facing the net and are to the right of the hash mark, you’re on the “deuce side” of the court; if you are to the left of the mark, you’re on the “ad side”. The first point of every game always starts on the deuce side, with each subsequent point rotating to the other side of the hash mark.
This brings us to the next line - the service line. This is the line roughly half way to the net that is parallel to the baseline. It is called the service line because the server must hit their serve in front of this line for the point to begin. More specifically, if you are serving from the deuce side you would aim for box A, if on the ad side for box B. In other words, the server aims for the service box diagonal to their location. If they miss that box it is a fault; two faults in a row and you lose a point. Regardless of whether or not you are playing singles or doubles, the serve must land in the box bounded by the service line, singles line, center line, and net.
Assuming a successfully placed serve, the returner can now hit the ball back over the net into his opponent’s side of the court. If you’re playing singles, the return can be anywhere in the rectangle bounded by the net, singles side lines, and baseline. If you’re playing doubles, the return can be anywhere in the rectangle bound by the net, doubles side lines, and baseline. Trace it out on the court below to make sure you understand the dimensions.
Now that we understand the lines of the court, let’s talk about tennis’ wacky scoring system. Keeping score properly may seem confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it is actually quite simple. The basic rules follow a 4-point game. However, rather than being scored 0… 1… 2… 3… 4… game, the points are scored love… 15… 30… 40 … game. In other words, you must win four points to win a game. To win a set you must win 6 games. In a singles match you and your opponent alternate serving games until someone has won the match. Most tennis matches are 2 out of 3 sets, except certain professional matches, which are 3 out of 5 sets.
Easy enough, right? The difficulty is what happens when your opponent also wins points during the same game. To remedy any confusion, the server’s score is always called first. For example, if both players have one point in a game, the score would be 15-15, or in tennis lingo, 15-all. Now, if the server loses the next point the score would be 15-30 (not 30-15, this would be the case if the server had won the point).
Just to make things more confusing you must win a game by a margin of 2 points. Therefore if you get to 40-40 (or deuce) then one player must win 2 points in a row to win the game. This is where the “ad system” comes into play.
If a player wins a point at 40-40 (deuce) they now have the “advantage”. If the server wins the deuce point the score would be “ad-in”, effectively meaning “advantage server”. If the returner wins the deuce point the score would be “ad-out”, or “advantage returner”. Once you have the advantage, you only need to win one more point to win the game. If you lose the point, the score returns back to deuce (or 40-40). Note: in an officiated match the advantage system is often called out by the main umpire (or “chair”) as “advantage + the player’s name” such as "advantage Federer" to avoid confusion.
Now let’s work through a mock game. Assume that I am serving the first game, and you are returning. We start the game at love-love (ie: 0-0), and each player is on their respective deuce side of the court (go back to the figure above if you’re unsure what side of the court this is).You blister a return and win the first point. I call the score correctly as love-15 (remember the server always calls his score first, with love meaning zero).
We both switch angles (not sides) of the court and now I’m serving to you from the ad-side. In retaliation, I hit an ace (an un-returnable serve) to make the score 15-15 (aka: 15-all).
Just as a game must be won by a margin of 2 points, a set must be won by a margin of 2 games. Now you could imagine that if both players had strong serves the set may go on forever, or at least until someone finally broke the other player’s serve! In fact this is what happens in the final set of a Grand Slam match (except the U.S. Open) where set scores can get as high as 13-11, 14-12, etc.! However, in all other matches you would play a tiebreak once the set score reached 6-6.
The tiebreak is one of the more confusing parts of tennis. The first point of a tiebreak is served from the deuce side just like the start of a normal game. However, the player serving only gets to serve one point. Once the first point is over, the serve returns back to the other player. Now here is where it gets very confusing! That player will serve 2 points, but they serve the 1st point from the ad-side, not the deuce side! The 2nd point is then served from the deuce side. The next two service points then go back to the other player, so on and so forth. In other words, after the 1st point, players switch serving every 2 points. Furthermore, in a normal tiebreak, players switch sides of the court every 6 points. The first player to 7 points wins the tiebreak, but they must get to 7 by a margin of 2.
One final note on the scoring system… Most matches you play will not have an umpire on the court keeping track of your score (this is generally reserved only for high level tournament play). Since you and your opponent will be keeping score you may run into disagreements about what the score actually is. Should this occur the proper course of action is to return to the closest previous score that you both agree on, and resume play from that point.
Congratulations! You’ve just managed to work through a very complicated and confusing scoring system. Go out and practice until you feel comfortable keeping track of the score...
As we’ve seen above singles is relatively straight forward. You start the first point of each game on the deuce side of the court and alternate angles of the court after each point. After each odd game you switch sides of the court. However, what happens when you’re playing doubles with an additional player on each side of the net? In this section we’ll spend some time explaining the rules of doubles and where you should stand so you don’t wander aimlessly around the court.
The scoring system is exactly the same in doubles as it is in singles, but there are a few additional rules that must be followed. The first rule is you and your partner must decide what angle of the court (ie: either the deuce or ad side) you’re going to return from. Once the first return is struck, you cannot switch angles until the beginning of the next set! So if you have a better return from the deuce side of the court you should consider playing that side while your partner returns from the ad side.
In the figure below let’s assume that you are player X, your partner is player Y, your opponents are players A and B, and you’ve decided to return from the deuce side of the court. Your opponents (specifically player A) are serving the first game of the set. The figure below shows the appropriate doubles configuration of each player for the first point of a game. The partner of the returner (player Y) generally stands at the service line on his angle of the court. This allows him/her to call a serve out that might be close to the service line. The partner of the server (player B) stands closest to the net with the goal of poaching (or “picking off”) any poor returns hit by the returner.
Once the first point is over the serving team switches angles. The server is still player A, but he/she now serves to player Y on the ad-side of the court. Player X is now near the service line on his angle of the court (the deuce side), and player B is still near the net, but has switched angles.
The remaining points follow the same pattern. Just like in singles teams switch sides of the court after every odd game. Your partner and you rotate service games so that each player on the court serves 1 game out of 4. After a set is over you may decide to switch returning angles with your partner, but once the first return is struck you’re locked into those angles until the beginning of the next set.
