[ad_1]
Footwork is very important when you're playing tennis. If you can not move correctly to hit the ball, you will feel uncomfortable and you may not be able to win the point. Roger Federer once said, "If I move well, I play well." Roger Federer is impeccable with his footwork, and that is one of the reasons why he is so good at playing tennis.
The first position to learn about is the ready position. In the ready position, your feet are comfortably spread apart and your knees are slightly bent. You should stand on the balls of each foot. Once you are in this position, it should be easy to run side to side. Now, the next step is the split step. When coming out of the ready position, take a slight jump in the air and land on the balls of your feet. If you do this correctly, you will feel like you are at your quickest when moving from side to side.
The key is to time the split step just before your opponent makes contact with the ball. If you see that you can not get to the ball as fast as you could, that means you need to time the split step a bit earlier. When a ball is close to you, step out to the right with your right foot to move to the ball. When a ball is far away, you will do something called a gravity step. The step out to the right with your right foot and gravity step happens naturally when you play tennis so you do not have to think about it. However, it's still good to know what these footwork patterns will do for your game. The step out happens after you're done with your split step. Your outside foot is your right foot and your inside foot is your left foot. You push off your inside foot and step out with your outside foot. It's the reverse when you're running to the backhand (it is the reverse if you're a lefty).
The gravity step is something that you do when a ball is far away and you really have to run to it. Your outside foot gets closer to your inside foot and you will push off your inside foot. This will give you an extra boost to get to the ball quicker. When you get to the ball there is something you have to do called adjusting steps. Adjusting steps makes sure you are balanced and you are in position to hit the ball. There are two adjusting steps. Stutter steps (short choppy steps to describe it better) and shuffle steps. You use shuffle steps if you need to move upward or backward on the court. You use stutter steps if you need to move from side to side. Stutter steps are basically you taking a set of little steps to the tennis ball. How many little steps you want to take is entirely up to you. I usually make 3 to 4 little steps when I'm adjusting myself to the ball.
Shuffle steps are when you take jumps from side to side and your feet get really close to each other while jumping. Use shuffle steps when you need to move up or back in the court. When you are recovering, you use shuffle steps to recover from side to side. Adjusting steps are very important for proper movement, so do not forget them. Now, there are times when you do not need to use adjusting steps. For example, when you have to run a lengthy distance, you're probably not going to be thinking about adjusting your steps. You'll just run to the ball to hit the shot. That is why you need to practice these footwork patterns so you can figure out the best time to use them in your game. There is also footwork for recovery.
If your opponent hits a shot out wide, but does not take you off the court, and you do not have a large distance to get back into the court, just simply take a couple of shuffle steps to recover back into the middle of the court. You do not want to run back into the middle of the court because your opponent would just hit behind you. There are times when shuffling back into the court just is not good enough to recover because your opponent hits a ball that takes you way off the court making it difficult to use shuffle steps in enough time to recover. In that case, you have to do something called a karaoke step or crossover step.
To do this move your right foot such that it cross over your left foot or your left foot cross over your right foot. It does not matter which foot you cross over. Do whatever feels comfortable. Make sure you use these steps one or two times and then the rest of your steps should be shuffle steps because you do not want your opponent to hit behind you. There are some advanced concepts in footwork when you are hitting ground strokes as well. When your opponent hits a loopy ball that's really high, there is a forehand footwork move called the scissor kick forehand that is very helpful in returning the shot with good control. This is when you jump up in the air to hit your forehand and your feet cross each other while you are hitting the ball.
This will allow you to get full body rotation into your shots when your opponent hits a high ball. There is also some advanced footwork when hitting overhead shots. This advanced concept is called the scissor kick overhead. While you're jumping in the air to hit the shot, your feet will cross each other. This will allow you to get your whole body to rotate to hit the overhead.
To . Read more To go The Http://www.tennisplayeronline.net .
[ad_2]
Source by Nanthela Brown