in the next 10 minutes you're gonna learn everything you need to get started in the game of tennis including all the major strokes plus at the very end we're gonna let you in on a secret that's critical to understand if you want to be a good player and we're gonna start by talking about the serve because the serve begins every point in the game of tennis and it has to be hit from back behind the baseline which is the line all the way in the back part of the courts and has to be aimed across to the opposite service box the serve is frequently referred to as the most important shot in tennis because it sets the tone for each and every point the most common mistake that tennis players make on their serve that holds them back from success is what we like to call a pushy motion and all that means is that the body is facing forwards the hand is facing forwards it's a low contact point and you just basically line your strings up with where you want to hit the ball and just pattycake the ball over to the other side sure that'll get you started and that'll technically get you in the game but it's never going to allow you to advance beyond very very beginner levels of play so getting away from that pushing motion as early as possible is gonna help you develop as a player much much faster to get a fast start on the serve it's critical you focus on three main elements number one you have to use your body to power the shot if you use your arm in your hand it's always going to be weak so start off turn to the side and make sure you rotate forwards as you swing up towards the ball and that leads us right into number two it's critical that you toss the ball in the right spot so that you can make contact in a comfortable place and that means if you're right-handed you want the ball to be just up over the right side of your body as you turn forwards you want the ball to be directly over your right shoulder if you're left-handed directly over your left shoulder and that leads to contact point your contact point should be directly over that shoulder and just out in front of your body so you have a little bit of room to transfer forwards and really use your body powerfully if you do those three things you'll be in a good position to start hitting solid serves the next night you really want to learn is a forehand ground stroke a forehand means that it's on the dominant side of your body for me that's my right side since I'm right-handed and a ground stroke means the ball bounces once before you make contact meaning you don't hit it out of the air but the ball bounces and then you hit it so that's how you get forehand ground stroke now you're also going to be making contact and hitting this ball most of the time from around the base line all the way up to inside the service line area to paint up on how short the ball lands this also becomes most players favorite shot and you can really use it to develop it into a weapon so it's really important that you really work on the forehand ground stroke for your tennis game one of the biggest mistakes that you're gonna see a lot of tennis players make on the forehand ground stroke is that they use all arm which means their turn to the side and they're only using the arm to be able to hit the ball that is going to cause a lot of injuries especially in your elbow and your shoulder so it's really important that you're trying to use your body and really using your body to swing through and your arm is really relaxed and you're just using both together to swing through the ball the other thing that you really want to think about is your swing path you want to start the racquet head which is this part of your racquet below where you're gonna make contact with the ball so you start below you come up to the contact point and then you finish above the contact point it does not have to be over your shoulder it just needs to make sure that it's above the contact point where you finish your swing now the other thing you want to talk about is the contact point exactly where it should be if you're stepping into your forehand I'm stepping with my left foot here because I'm right-handed I'm going to make contact right around my front foot that means my racket is going to be straight this way and not going to be down at contact and not going to be up when I'm making contact with the ball but it's going to be straight vertically this way and I'm going to be making contact right around my front foot again up to that point and then finish above that's gonna be really imperative body movement swing path and contact point to make sure that you're really getting the most out of your forehand ground stroke now it's time to talk about the backhand now there's two different flavors of the back end you have the two-handed backhand or the one-handed back in and this is all gonna be hitting your non-dominant side so just like we talked about the four in over here your non-dominant side with the backhand right here for your two-handed or your one-handed shot now in general your backhand you wanted to be a solid consistent shot you have your forehand that's gonna be maybe aggressive and your backhand can be something you can always rely on whether it's a one-handed or two-handed shot now where do you hit the backhand generally you hit the backhand around the baseline the ball has to bounce first and then you hit the ball so that's gonna put you in the position of the baseline or slightly inside the baseline when you're hitting now the biggest mistake most players make when they're hitting the backhand is that they're arming the shot they're not using the rest of their body so if you're a two-handed backhand user that you're just swinging like this and if you're a one-handed backhand user you're just poking like this the problem with this is that you're not gonna get a lot of consistency and power with your swing because you're not using the rest of your body now let's talk about how do you hit your backhand so let's start with the two-handed backhand now just like we were talking about before one of the biggest things we want to learn how to do is use your body so when we're using your body we're gonna get the racquet come under and turn all the way out and around now it's really important that you watch my body turning all the way out and round instead of just using my arms now some really important key points about when you're hitting the one hand the two-handed backhand scuze me is that you want to make contact right in front of your toe so as we're swinging with our body we're making contact right in front of our toe and the rack is gonna go out and come all the way around on your finish now this is so so important that as you use your body you're making that correct contact and everything flows together and it's nice and smooth now for the one-handed backhand slightly different obviously you have one hand on it so you're gonna start from here same thing with the swing path we're gonna cap the rack em up under and come up to the ball and make contact now the contact for the one-handed backhand is further in front then the two-handed backhand and that's one of the biggest differences that you're gonna have to contend with if you want to use a one-handed versus a two-minute backhand with the swing is contact it's gonna be way in front on the follow-through after this it's gonna come all the way up and around not like the two-handed but it's gonna be extended out in front of you and a little bit higher so again swing it's gonna come up come down just come up to the ball and all the way around one smooth motion is really important that even with the one-handed you're gonna slightly use your body not as much as it's a two hander but you're gonna slightly use your body and then complete that swing the next critical shot we're going to talk about is the volley the definition of a volley is a shot in tennis that you hit before the ball bounces on your side of the court volley does not mean hit the ball back and forth over the net that's actually a rally volley simply means that you're usually moving forwards and hitting the ball early before it bounces on your own side of the court so usually that means the player is closing inside the court getting closer to the net sometimes even inside the service line which is the line up in the middle of the courts and because of that you're taking time away from your opponent and it's something that players you to attack they're taking time away they're improving their position on the courts and the closer you get to the netting the closer you get to your opponents side of the courts the easier it is to attack and start to put the ball away and so this is a very aggressive thing to do as a tennis player is to move forwards and take the ball out of the air instead of waiting for it to bounce now unfortunately the mistake that a lot of tennis players make is as they close forwards in attack they get super panicked and and because of that lack of time they rush and they get really tight and jerky and they start punching the ball and everything starts to get really abrupt and tight and tense and they lose control and so they had an opportunity up there to attack but they end up throwing it away by making a lot of mistakes and getting really rigid and tight and tense the antidote to those mistakes is to be calm and smooth and the technique you want to use on volleys shouldn't be making contact way out in front and punching the ball really abruptly in jerkily but actually bringing contact back a little bit so you have some room that flows through the point of contact you also don't want to make contact way far back behind yourself because then you started getting handcuffed and things get awkward and and unnatural so just out in front of your front foot or just out in front of the front edge of your body is about where you want to make contact and your hand should be relaxed and loose so that you can smoothly flow through the point of contact and direct the ball where you want it to go you should be viewing volleys as redirecting energy not adding energy it should be about placement and finesse and accuracy and not raw power and strength a secret that is going to make everything that you've learned twice as effective is where the racket is faced where the strings are faced is where the ball is going to go so for instance on your ground strokes if your racket faces down the ball it's going to go down if your racket faces up the ball is going to go up and this applies to every stroke that you just learned it's important to make those small adjustments so that you can make more balls in the court