Tennis Tips

Looking for a tennis coach in London?

There are hundreds of fantastic tennis coaches in London, so where to start in your search? Check out my directory of tennis coaches in London. This directory also includes dozens of tennis courts and tennis clubs in London, with full contact details. Let me know if there are any errors or omissions.

Tennis is a game of errors!

Before discussing tennis errors, check out the video clip above. It's a fantastic example of tennis instruction at its best, produced by a tennis coach in the States called Christophe Delavaut who has a growing number of tennis instruction video clips on YouTube. After watching this clip several times before my regular Saturday tennis match, my topspin backhand improved immediately, almost by magic. When you've seen the video, click the link to his TennisOxygen site where there's an enhanced membership for a small annual fee.

So how do you avoid errors? Here are three top tips:

Hit the ball high (a good 3-5 feet) over the net with topspin. This avoids you hitting the ball into the net. Sounds obvious, but easily forgotten.

Aim the ball comfortably inside the lines with cross-court shots to maximise the length of 'runway'. This avoids hitting the ball out. And if you hit over the middle of the net, you're less likely to hit into the net, as the net is lower at the centre.

Watch the ball like a hawk, right onto your racket strings, hit out in front, and keep your head still through contact. This avoids you miss-hitting the ball, or missing it altogether. It also ensures your contact point is the optimum for power, visual feedback, and balance.

Tennis Fitness

To play great tennis, you need a combination of strength, speed, agility, flexibility, and cardiovascular fitness. And the power of concentration and mental toughness.

Why not hire a personal trainer in London who can boost all these aspects of your fitness? You'll almost certainly win more matches as a result, and get a lot more fun out of the game. And just as important, you'll reduce your chances of injury.

While you're at it, hire a tennis coach to improve your technique, and you'll avoid getting tennis elbow, a painful condition that often results from bad technique. What do I mean by bad technique? Forcing your shots with over-reliance on your arm to do all the work, rather than rotating and driving forward your whole body into the shot. Another common error is late contact on the ball, which puts a lot of strain on the elbow tendons over time. There are lots of great tennis coaches in London who can explain this far better than I can.

Tennis Courts in London

If you're a member of a tennis club in London which prides itself in maintaining its courts to a high standard, you're in a fortunate position.

Many Londoners have to contend with public tennis courts in parks and recreation grounds, and more often than not, the quality is pretty poor.

Main gripes are:

- the back fence has so many holes (and gaps at the bottom) that tennis balls get lost all the time.
- the net is too low, and there's no way of adjusting it
- the tennis court surface is so uneven that bad bounces occur every minute.
- the lines on the tennis court are so faded that it's hard to see when the ball is in or out, particularly from the other end