I'm a baseliner "for now."

This is for the billions of tennis players out there who are playing at the baseline "for now," planning to develop a net game.

You won't. That day, when you have have developed a net game, will never come.

Why do you stay away from net? Answer: because your net game isn't good enough yet.

Oh, so you must have a good net game before you should play the net? That's what you think, isn't it?

What if you had thought that about a forehand groundstroke on Day 1? That you shouldn't play any forehand groundstrokes till you had perfected the shot?

You'd still have a pretty lousy forehand groundstroke, wouldn't you? In fact, you wouldn't be playing tennis at all today.

You learned the forehand not so much from practicing it as from USING IT, even in match play. There is no substitute for using a stroke or strategy in match play, where the emphasis is on where the ball goes, not how you swing.

The longer you delay learning/using new strokes and strategies, the farther ahead your old baseline game gets. Result: Part of your game is good and part of it sucks because you're still a beginner in that department.

So, of course, you're going to cling to the baseline like a security blanket. Trying anything new takes you out of that comfort zone.

Never lose the mentality of the beginner. His whole game sucks, equally, so he is game for learning anything new.

The same thing goes for learning strokes. Learn the volley, the serve, and the overhead immediately, so that all your strokes suck equally. Then you'll never develop an unnatural fear of a stroke or strategy that you simply haven't used and practiced nearly as much as you've used and practiced others.

It's a vicious cycle. Cut it out.

You're welcome ;-)

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