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How to Hit a Backhand - It's a Simple Question
By Craig Stanford

Yes, it's a simple question, but unfortunately, the answer is fairly complicated. How to hit a backhand is one of the first things that new tennis players ask about. New players realize pretty quickly that the forehand is fairly easy, especially when compared to the backhand. Most new players think that they can just pick up the game by watching other people. But soon they realize that it's not as simple as it looks. When someone asks me how to hit a backhand, this is what I tell them.

For the sake of this tutorial, I will just assume that you are a right hander. If you are a left hander, just make the appropriate reversals. I will also assume that you are using the one-handed backhand because some of the directions are different for the two-handed backhand. You can always add the two-handed backhand if you need more power.

The first thing is to use the Eastern grip

If you're playing a game and ball goes to your backhand side, it's important to keep both eyes on the ball. This isn't easy to do, because you have turned your body to run to the ball, but it's important because you need both eyes to determine depth perception in relation to the ball.

When you are running to the ball, you will be temped to use large steps. Try to resist the temptation to do this. Try to use small steps so you won't overrun the ball.

When you move to the ball, your shoulders and hips should be perpendicular to the net. You should keep them in this position while hitting the ball.

While you are running to the ball, start bringing your right arm back across your body. Your arm should be slightly bent, but your wrist should remain straight. Use your left hand to steady the racquet while you are waiting for the ball.

Once the ball starts to arrive, let go with your left hand and start your swing. Keep the face of the racquet perpendicular to the ground as you swing and gradually straighten your right arm. By the time you hit the ball, your arm should be straight. Rotate your hips and shoulders during the swing, this where your power comes from.

It is important to follow through with your swing even after you hit the ball. You should end up with a straight arm pointing in the direction of the net and your racquet should be above your head.

Even after hitting the ball, keep your eye on the contact point for half a second or so before you look up at the ball trajectory. This will help with your follow through.

Now that you know how to hit a backhand, it's important that you practice your backhand each time you play. Remember, the only way you'll get better is to practice. Knowing how you're supposed to do something and actually doing it are two different things. If you practice, you will get better. I guarantee it!

I live in a suburb of Portland, OR. I got my first tennis racquet for Christmas when I was 12. It was a wooden racquet so it would be a museum piece now. We lived close to a tennis court so my brother and I played a lot when we were kids. My backhand was always a sore point, as I know it is for most tennis players. During high school and college there were a lot of other distractions so I didn't get to play much. In my twenties, if I couldn't find anyone to play with, I would go up to the local high school and hit the ball against the wall. I had a stroke a few years ago and that put an end to my playing days. I know that a lot of people would rather watch demonstrations of a skill than read about it, so I've made a website where I sell links to tennis videos. It's at http://www.tennisbachand.com. I also have a Squidoo site about how to hit a backhand. It's at http://www.squidoo.com/How_To_Hit_A_Backhand My Squidoo lens has a couple of videos, one of which demonstrates the one-haneded backhand while the other one demonstrates the two-handed backhand.

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Hit a Slice Serve
By Alex Tsioukis

If you've been playing tennis for some time now, you must feel like there's something else, something new you should do. Something that will improve your overall game play. That could be if you learnt how to hit a slice serve.

Hitting aces is absolutely something you truly want, but if you want to be considered an effective server you have to be able to construct a point. That can be by learning how to use your serve. And that is why you need to learn how to hit a slice serve.

This of course is far from easy and will require quite many efforts from you. But the result, which will certainly come if you keep trying, will be amazing.

When you start out, the most important thing is to train yourself to develop a constant toss. Once you can master that, then you can concentrate on practicing the slice serve.

A good slice serve to learn is the slice out wide. That is tossing the ball at your 1 o'clock (11 o'clock if you're left handed) and hit the right outside edge (left edge for left handed) to create slice. The ball will be pulled to the edges of the court. That is a great strategy because when your opponent returns the serve you will then be able to send the ball to the open court.

Now you know how to hit a slice serve in tennis. You should keep that in mind for now and make sure that you practice the above before you move on to more intermediate strategies.

I was once trying to learn how to hit a slice server too, and it took me a lot of hard work and many wasted serves but in the end my persistence prevailed!

Over the months I did get even better and I started hitting more slice serve than regular ones! If you feel like reading my whole story, how i managed to hit a slice serve, and how I improved it go to http://www.squidoo.com/hit-a-slice-serve

The place I have found to have helped me more is:
http://www.mytennisserve.com

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How to Serve in Tennis
By Alex Tsioukis

Knowing how to serve in tennis, is a very crucial part of the game. Most of the time, when someone is only starting out playing tennis, their serves are quite awful.

It is perfectly normal, however it won't get better at its own, you have to practice if you want to learn how to serve in tennis.

I have wrote a small quick guide, that if put to practice, can teach you how to serve.

Step 1: The Grip

There are more than one techniques that can be used for a good serve, but for beginners I'd totally suggest the so-called "Continental Grip". If that doesn't really feel right for you, you can try the backhand grip which is mostly a variation of the continental.

Step 2: Stance-Body movement

During a tennis serve, there are many parts of the body coordinating. But if you want to achieve a good serve, you have to keep your body as still as possible. Just focus yourself on the swing and the contact of the ball.

Step 3: Toss

In order to learn how to serve in tennis, it is very important to learn how to toss. You have to practice tossing the ball every time at the correct spot, which can be found by extending the racquet upward. The correct spot is just above the top frame of the racquet.

Step 4: The Hit

Straighten your legs to propel yourself upward and drop your racquet head. As your racquet accelerates up to the ball, your shoulders should uncoil transferring energy from your legs and trunk to your arm.

Step 5: Follow-through

Try to keep your arm loose and allow it to finish naturally and help prepare you for your opponent's return. Players who pull this arm down too soon often hit serves into the net.

I was once a very tennis beginner, and I really didn't know how to serve, I admit. It took me some time, but now I am enjoying and winning most of my matches. If you want to read more about my story and how I achieved it, just click at:
http://www.squidoo.com/howtoservetennis

The most helpful place i've found online is: http://www.mytennisserve.com

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How to Improve Your Serve
By Mason Lee

Have you ever gotten mad at yourself during a match because your serve simply would just not go in? Well there are probably some small mistakes with your form and your serving technique, but we can fix that with a few simple steps. Serving is one of the hardest shots in tennis, but if mastered well, it will become the trump card of your career and will also be a deciding factor of the match.

Steps to Improving Your Serve:

1) Know how to prepare for the serve -Serving is a very important part of tennis, and if one cannot serve the tennis ball in, their game will be greatly affected. This usually causes the server to become nervous and feel pressured on their service game. Bouncing the ball a few times and breathing in and out a couple times will help to calm down your nerves and for you to focus better on your serving.

2) Learning the grip for serving -The grip you hold your racket with, is a main factor that decides the power, spin, and accuracy of your serve. Normally, the server would prefer a "continental grip", which is a grip in which your right knuckle is lined up with the right edge of your racket and causes your racket to become a straight line to your arm. This would enable the server to serve accurately with control and power.

3) Know your own style of play -Knowing your style of play and what shots you prefer to hit over others, will set the basis of which type of serve you want. Serving hard, will allow you to "serve and volley", which is when the server runs up to the net after the serve is in. Others, who are baseline players, may feel more comfortable hitting ground-strokes, rather than being vicious at the net would most likely be satisfied with a top-spin, or softer serve. If your style of play does not match the style of your serve, you will be troubled and find yourself cornered in a one-sided match.

4) Realize which type of serve you want and stick to it -This is a big problem for many people currently playing tennis. Perhaps one day they feel as if they would like to learn a flat serve, while the second day, they want to learn a top-spin serve. The maximum number of serves the server should focus on, is only one at a time. If you work on more than one serve at a time, chances are that both types of serves will not be trained to their full potential, and you will be stuck with weak serves.

5) Maintain the right form -Serving for a long period of time may allow a person to develop is his own form. But as a player takes a week or two off, they may start to forget their form. This will cause a problem in your serve, not only will it change the accuracy and power on the serve, but it will also break down your mental game.

6) Jump and Sudden Burst -Jumping for your serve allows you to get a height advantage and further increase your chances of getting the ball inside the service box. The sudden burst on the contact of the tennis ball will allow you to create a powerful spin and force on the ball, making it harder to return.

7) Pronation -This is a difficult technique used by many people who want a decent serve. This technique requires you to pronate your wrist downwards on the contact of the ball. This will add more power and spin on the ball, further increasing your chances of hitting the service box.

8) Second Serve -The most important serve of tennis is not the first, but the second. The first serve is generally the point-starter and sets the tone for the point, but the second serve is usually the reserve serve, which often has an 80-90% chance of getting in. After missing the first serve, do not feel intimidated by the fact that you did not ace your opponent. You have to realize that the second serve requires you to hit the ball harder and swing your racket faster on the point of contact, because this will allow you to put more spin on the ball, increasing its chances of going in.

9) Condition and Practice -People with a strong serve normally require a lot of energy in order to keep up their serve throughout the match. To keep yourself from losing stamina during a match, you should condition yourself daily, and practice your serve over and over again to ensure that you will not get tired or disrupted by fatigue.

10) Mental Game -Missing the first serve does not mean anything. A lot of players fail to realize the fact that after missing the first serve, they have another chance to get the serve in. When a player starts to doubt whether or not he can make the serve, this is the time where he will start to fault and keep faulting until he realizes his problems. Keeping yourself optimistic during your serve is one of the most important things to remember during a match. Losing because of doubts in your own game is unacceptable.

Hints - Practicing about 100 to 150 balls a day can help you increase your accuracy - Practice serving while your knees on on the ground. Once achieved, you have mastered the top-spin serve. - Check your grip every now and then to make sure you have not changed your form. - Do not lose faith. Keep practicing - Always remember to bounce a few balls before a serve. - Keep your cool. Once you're mad, you might as well forfeit the match. - Do not forget that serving is not all about arm strength, the power of a serve comes from the weight shifting caused by your legs and the pronation of your wrist. - Condition yourself so you are not worn out after your first service game. - Always serve in one breath, never breath in the middle of serving

Warnings - Do not practice at night. - Do not serve after eating. - Keep the ball basket about 6 feet away from you while you are serving - Always watch for people in case you hit them - Grip your racket so that it does not fly out - Warm up before serves so you do not end up pulling a muscle - Never fool around while serving.

Mason Lee

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Tennis Serve Tips
By Martin O' Flynn

The tennis serve is a complex stroke which requires a sequence of motions executed in the correct order. Basic fundamentals are critical if you want to be an excellent server.

These fundamentals include; tennis grip, position of feet, ball throwing method, and position of body prior to impact with the tennis racquet.

An accomplished Tennis player would be able to vary their technique to produce a different type of serve when required. The different types of service include;

1. Flat Serve - produces flat trajectory with minimum spin
2. Topspin Serve - high arc and bounce
3. Slice Serve - generates sidespin and topspin

Service StanceThe service being executed should determine the stance. Feet should be positioned shoulder width apart, approximately 2 feet distance from the center mark, front foot several inches from baseline and knees slightly bent.

Tennis Grip The best grip to create a powerful serve is the Continental Grip. This grip creates a powerful release of the wrist which imparts maximum spin on the ball.

If you currently use forehand grip and are serious about becoming a good server of the ball, you need to make the change to the continental grip. When you make the initial switch to the continental grip, it will feel clumsy and unnatural. Commence hitting shots at quarter your usual speed. Eventually through practice build the speed up to full power and the new grip will start to feel comfortable.

You can avoid the fear of a double fault by alternating between grips initially i.e. play you first serve with the continental grip and your second serve with you old grip. You won't double fault because you trust your old grip.

Ball Hold Hold the ball like you would an orange, between your thumb and all 4 fingers.

Position of Feet Foot alignment is determined by service type but toes should generally point toward target area.

Ball Throw The ball must be thrown high enough that it is several inches over the height of the racquet fully extended over head. This gives the player adequate time to swing the racquet to meet the falling ball. It should be thrown front right of the shoulder nearest the net i.e. the opposite shoulder to the hand on the grip. The ball should be release when the throwing arm is fully extended.

Flat Serve Tips

Straighten bent legs and shift weight forward and upwards in support of the racquet arm. Strike the racquet head towards the descending ball when it has fallen 5 to 7 inches.

Strike the ball with racquet arm fully extended and weight transferred to front foot.

Let the natural momentum of the strike continue to a full follow through with the back foot overtaking the front foot and completing with a balanced finish.

Topspin Serve Tips Throw the ball a little higher than for the flat serve shot and focus on moving the hitting shoulder away as the ball is released.

Straighten bent knees, and racquet arm simultaneously firing the racquet head up such that the springs grab the ball with a brushing up and across action.

Release the wrist towards the direction of the target so that the ball receives an ascending strike from below.

The back foot will naturally cross the baseline as you commit to a full follow through which ensures the ball arcs up and right.

Slice Serve Tips

The slice serve creates side spin which veer off to the forehand side in the right service court.

Using a continental grip the aim is to produce side spin by cutting across the outside of the ball.

Having thrown the ball high right of front shoulder release the wrist with the racquet swung head on and cutting across the ball just below its center right side.

General Service Tips

In order to generate power in the swing the racquet must be taken back as far away from the ball as possible. This creates greater leverage and more time to build up speed.

A good mental image is to view the racquet as an extension of your hitting arm and make the swing as if you were throwing the ball with the hitting hand.

The rhythm of your swing is important from a timing and power perspective. Don't intend to trash the ball as hard as you can as this will contract opposing muscles which will result in great effort with little useful power or direction. A good tip is to hit 5 serves each time focusing on generating an effortless swing but at the same time generating more and more power for each serve.

The last thought in you mind is what is going to happen to the ball. If the last mental image in your mind is the ball hitting the net, that will happen. Focus on positive expectancy and visualize a flawless serve this will produce a more confident strike.

Martin O' Flynn is Director of Hobeze.com - The Sports and Hobby Social Network that connects like minded people for over 680 sports & hobbies worldwide. Join today for FREEClick Here

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