My tennis rules

Tennis requires full concentration, use of the whole body, coordination, footwork, and the looping movement with lunging, hitting and swinging.

Thanks to Vic Bradon's tennis bible and many refreshing training sessions with our friend Sayed Moubarek, I now have some understanding of the biomechanical principles of tennis. Below I have summarized some basic tennis rules (as is usual among athletes, I use the "you").

• During the starting position on the baseline, support the racket held upwards loosely with your left hand on the racket neck, bend your knees slightly and lean forwards to achieve a good balance.
• Control the grip and racket position with your left hand.
• Always concentrate on the game, follow the ball continuously and focus on it with your eyes until it hits the racquet.
• Keep moving with small steps throughout the game so that you are always standing to the side of the ball to hit it optimally with the centre of the racquet ("sweet spot"). Move back to the baseline centre immediately after the shot.
• Decide early on whether you want to hit the ball forehand or backhand and prepare your grip accordingly.
• For the forehand shot: Start the lunging motion early with the racquet in a position behind the hitting hand, brace yourself with your left foot in front, stretch your left hand towards the ball, hit the ball with a stable wrist as far in front of the body as possible and carry out the swinging motion as long as possible.
• For the backhand shot: first switch to the backhand grip (racquet face and arm are perpendicular to each other), place the right foot forwards and use the right shoulder brought forwards as a pivot point around which the arm swing is performed with a stable wrist.
• Bend your knees as low as possible as the ball comes towards you. Straighten your body again at the point of hitting the ball.
• Hit each ball in front of your body as early as possible.
• Try to mentally hit "through the ball" on both the forehand and backhand shots and follow it as long as possible in the stroke movement.

Once you are familiar with the basics, tennis will seem like a simple sport and you will play your tennis at a higher level.

You can find information on the biomechanics of playing tennis with pictures of professional players on our website in the tennis movement analysis section.

Information on the biomechanics of tennis with pictures of professional players can be found on our website in the section Tennis - Motion analysis.