Operation Doubles Tennis: TM: Solve tennis problems in the order they come

By Tomaz Mencinger
TennisMindGame.com

The ball is coming towards you, and now you have to hit it. What I often notice with players is that they don't take care of problems in the order they come to them.

What I see is that they hit the ball, wanting to force an error from their opponent. What they forget to take care of is the net and out.

Or they decide to play the ball in a certain direction – not necessarily to win a point – and they take a lot of care not to hit too long by playing very low. And of course many of the shots end up in the net.

When you hit the ball, your first problem is the net. Take care of the net first with an arc. It may sound silly but you WILL LOSE the point every time you hit the net. Don't do it.

Your next problem is to keep the ball inside the lines. You MUST make the ball curve down after it has passed the net. Take care of the »out«. Again, if you hit too long, it's a point for your opponent.

Only your third »problem« may be your opponent and how to avoid their better shots or something in this manner.

Remember, first take care of tennis – the net and out - and only after that worry about how to outplay your opponent.

How to do this? Not by analytical thinking as we did here. This was only necessary for understanding.

When you are hitting the ball, you need to IMAGINE the ball flight – over net, curving down and into a certain target that hurts your opponent – in that order.

This takes a few milliseconds, and then your brain and body have the right information to produce a winning shot.