Understand The Tennis Court In Order To Understand Tennis

So you have decided to take up tennis? Or maybe you are content to be a spectator but you would like to expand your knowledge of the game. There are a lot of variables to tennis, from the proper clothes to the equipment, from the rules to the players, but there are some constants in the game too.

At seventy-eight feet long from baseline to baseline, and twenty-seven feet wide – thirty-six feet for doubles matches – the size of the tennis court is one of those constants, and one can learn a lot about the game simply by understanding this field of play.

While the size of a tennis court never changes, the surface of the court can vary from location to location. There are three basic types of surfaces on which tennis is played, and each surface dictates a particular style of play.

Clay courts are made of crushed stone, brick, or shale, and are usually reddish orange in color, although they can be green as well. Clay courts are considered slow courts where balls tend to bounce higher and more slowly than on other surfaces. Consequently, points often last longer on clay courts as players tend to stay near the baseline – the line farthest from the net – and play defensively because it is so difficult to simply blast one by their opponent.

Clay courts are more prevalent in Europe and South America than they are in the United States. Of the professional Grand Slam tournaments only the French Open – or the Tournoi de Roland-Garros as it is officially known – is played on a clay surface.

The second kind of playing surface that one would find on a tennis court is grass. Rarely seen because of their high maintenance costs, grass courts are grown on firmly packed soil, much like a golf green. Of all the playing surfaces, grass presents the most variables to players.

Wear and tear, moisture, firmness of soil, and the length of time the grass has grown since being mowed all play a role in the playing characteristics of a grass court. Despite these variables, grass court players can usually expect the ball to bounce low forcing the players to get to the ball faster if they are to have a chance at a return; hence, grass courts are fast courts.

Successful grass court players typically play a serve and volley style of game where they quickly rush to the net after serving in hopes of forcing their opponent to hit a fast and perfect return; not easy on a fast, grass court. The most famous grass court is most certainly Centre Court at Wimbledon, home of The Championships, Wimbledon, a Grand Slam event and the oldest event in championship tennis.

Faster than clay courts yet slower than grass courts, hard courts are the most common type of tennis court. Constructed of cement or synthetic materials, hard courts vary in speed and bounce, but generally fall in the middle of the spectrum on both fronts. Hard courts are also the most conducive to all styles of play and, unlike grass or clay, they do not provide significant advantage or disadvantage to players with different styles.

Consequently, hard courts are often considered to provide the fairest test of all around skill. The United States Open and Australian Open are both played on hard courts, although the US Open uses an acrylic surface while the Australian Open utilizes a synthetic surface. Indoor courts are a variable of hard courts that are usually made of cement, wood, or even artificial turf. They typically have similar playing characteristics that are similar to other variations of hard courts.

Now that you understand the different surfaces that can be found in tennis you can use that knowledge to enhance your strategies on the court, or your appreciation for the game as a spectator. Either way, you must understand the tennis court in order to fully understand tennis.

By: J. Lloyd

Tennis Mental Training is Just Like Tennis Fitness Training

Why tennis mental training?

You've got great looking shots and you can run all day!

You are now all set to win lots of tennis matches right?

Wrong!

It’s always too difficult to concentrate, you never play the way you practice and your opponents always control the match.

Things just don’t work out and getting angry makes things worse.

You know that this is a mental problem but……..

You understand the basics of how and why physical training can aid performance, but you are nowhere near as sure about what to do in terms of your tennis mental training.

You know it’s important but don’t know where to start with putting tennis psychology into your game without complicating it.

Well, tennis mental training is just like tennis fitness training. It has many areas that are important but there are four that stand out as being more important than the others.

Let’s look at them!

Tennis Mental Training vs Tennis Fitness Training

Just like your physical fitness, your tennis mental fitness has four critical components - strength, flexibility, speed and agility.

Strength:

Just as physical fitness is about your ability to provide a strong resistance to outside forces (i.e. the weight you are trying to lift), tennis mental strength is about you being able to provide strong resistance under sometimes high levels of emotional pressure.

Flexibility:

Good physical flexibility allows you to get into many different positions (quickly) to react to what your opponent throws at you, the more mentally flexible you can get will allow you to do the same in a mental sense.

Physical flexibility is all about increasing your range of motion around a joint and mental flexibility is all about increasing your control over a range of emotions around your game.

Speed:

Speed on the court is essential if you want to a) get to lots of balls and b) recover in order to get to the following balls.

Mental speed is needed to mentally move along at pace with the game.

If you are mentally slow then you can never react in time to what is needed on the court at any given time, never mind react and respond to a chain of events.

Agility:

Physical agility is the ability to move, stop & change direction at speed without losing control.

Often this requires recovering from "negative" situations such as when you lose balance.

The same can be said of your mental agility.

The game of tennis requires you to negotiate a wide range of emotional barriers not all of which are easy. In fact it is often the ability to stay "mentally balanced" in times of relative disappointment that separates the champions from the “others” and is therefore a vital part of the “Champions mentality” I often speak about.

There was no greater example of these skills in action than in the “Greatest Tennis Match Ever” - this years’ Wimbledon Men’s final where both Federer and Nadal showed their ability to bounce back from many disappointments and mistakes whilst still keeping themselves highly focused, aggressive and ultimately highly competitive.

In fact the greatest match ever showed possibly the greatest array of mental skills ever – a coincidence??

I think not!!

By: Paul Gold