Serve, groundstrokes, footwork, and the checkpoints that actually change a stroke — broken down into things you can test on court, not coaching clichés.
Your swing path is not the cause of your forehand errors. It is the receipt. That is a strange thing to say in a piece about swing path mechanics, and we mean it fairly literally: on a stroke this…
The verdict, stated plainly: forehand consistency is an adjustment skill, not a grooved swing. The players who miss least at 3.5 and 4.0 are not the ones who reproduce one stroke most faithfully…
The fastest way for most 3.0–4.0 players to win more matches is not a bigger first serve. It is a second serve that lands under pressure — and for the majority of players stuck double-faulting, that…
Reviewer's note, first person, just this once. Last winter I spent an afternoon with slow-motion phone footage of a 3.5 club player who was convinced his weak forehand came down to a weak body.
There is a number that ought to change how you think about the flat serve, and it is smaller than most players expect: roughly two degrees.
Call your opponent's first serve out, realize a beat later that you blew it — the ball was in — and you have not lost yourself the point. You have handed the server two fresh serves.
The serve is the only stroke in tennis you begin from a standstill, on your own terms, with the ball in your own hand. No one hits it to you.
Here is a claim that sounds wrong: the fault is not the thing costing you the match. A single serve landing in the net or long is worth nothing on its own. It is neutral.
You have stood at the baseline, down a break point, and asked yourself some version of this: what am I actually allowed to do here, and which serve gives me the best odds?
Few setup choices generate more conflicting advice at the pro-shop counter than string tension, and serve power is where that advice gets loudest.