I'm not trying to write a comprehensive manual on how to play the game of tennis. I'm just giving my opinions on some aspects of the game. I've read some dubious advice on how to play tennis, so part of my purpose here is to correct what I think are the mistakes of others. Of course, tennis is a very individual game; different things work for different people.
This is where a tennis writer would normally say what a great game tennis is, how it can be enjoyed for a lifetime, etc. However, this is the internet, where brevity is a virtue (For more on virtues, click here.) So, let's just get on with it...
Spin
Rarely do players hit the ball flat (that is, with little or no spin). Most shots are hit either with topspin or with slice (also called underspin or, on the serve, sidespin).
The most common type of spin in tennis is topspin. If you saw a topspin shot in slow motion, it would look like the seams of the ball were rolling in the direction of the shot. To picture it another way, let's say you're standing to the right of a player who's just hit a topspin shot. If you could see the ball in slow-motion, you would see it rolling clockwise, like the wheel of a car moving forward.
As far as I'm concerned, topspin is king. It lets you clear the net by a larger margin on your shots, and you can hit the ball harder. That rolling forward spin actually works as a complement to gravity, pulling the ball down. And when the ball hits the court, topspin makes the ball bounce faster and higher than it otherwise would.
When you hit a topspin groundstroke, your racquet face should usually be vertical at the point of impact. Sometimes, on a very low ball, you have to open the racquet face; that is, you have to point the strings slightly skyward. But on most topspin shots, you keep the racquet face straight up and down; the low-to-high motion of the racquet will generate enough upward momentum to put topspin on the shot and to let it clear the net. Sometimes you even close the racquet face a little; in other words, the strings are angled slightly towards the ground. For example, when you hit a half-volley (a groundstroke struck right after the ball bounces), you often have to close the racquet face a little so your shot doesn't go long.
By contrast to topspin, a slice groundstroke is spinning in the opposite direction; the ball is spinning back towards you. The effect, not surprisingly, is the opposite of topspin. Underspin tends to keep the shot in the air; the ball doesn't dive for the court the way a topspun ball does. Also, as a slice shot moves through the air, it slows down; after all, the ball may be moving forward, but it's spinning backwards. When a slice groundstroke hits the court, it bounces lower and slower than a flat or topspin shot. For this reason, players use slice to make their drop shots more effective; slice makes the shot bounce almost straight up, or even back towards the net if the spin is great enough.
When you hit a slice groundstroke, the racquet actually goes on a forward path from high to low. What allows the ball to still clear the net, in spite of that downward motion of the stroke, is the fact that the racquet face is open -- in other words, the racquet face is angled towards the sky. How much you angle the face depends on what you're trying to do with the shot. If you're trying to hit a groundstroke deep into your opponent's court, the racquet face usually won't be as open as when you're trying to hit a drop shot. Of course, the forward momentum of the racquet also affects how far the shot goes.
The slice forehand is rarely seen in tennis, except on drop shots. The slice backhand, however, is the bread-and-butter of most amateurs and some pros. In the past, there were great players who only hit their backhand with slice, Ken Rosewall being the most famous of that breed. (Pam Shriver and John Newcombe were also slice-only on the backhand wing.) Today, however, virtually all pros hit both slice and topspin backhands. Usually, players with two-handed topspin backhands hit a one-handed slice.
The word "slice" has a different meaning when applied to the serve. A slice serve is hit with sidespin, not underspin. On a slice serve, the racquet face brushes sideways across the back of the ball. That sideways spin means that the ball changes course in flight; a right-hander's slice serve will break to the server's left, both in the air and off the bounce. So if I'm serving to the deuce court (the service box across the net on my left), and I hit a slice serve to the outer corner of that service box, the spin will pull my serve towards the left fence; the result, of course, is that my opponent will have to move to his right in order to hit the return. Back in the '40's, Jack Kramer was notorious for hitting serves with so much slice that, in the deuce court, his opponent would nearly have to run into the stands to get the ball back. In the '70's and '80's, John McEnroe employed a devastating slice serve, with a difference; since McEnroe was left-handed, his slice serve broke the other way, towards a righty's backhand. As a result, McEnroe could pull opponents off the court when serving to the ad court (the service box across the net on your right when you're the server). The reason that lefties are often thought to have an advantage in tennis is because their slice serve naturally breaks to a right-hander's backhand, and the majority of tennis players, of course, are right-handed.
Grips
(One quick note: I always assume the reader is right-handed, like myself. If you're left-handed, don't take offense; I'm pretty sure I should have been left-handed, but I had old-fashioned parents, who made sure I grew up right-handed. If you're a southpaw, just switch right and left when I give directions.)
I recommend a semi-western grip for the forehand ground stroke and a continental grip for all other shots. Do I practice what I preach? No. I like not having to change grips on the return of serve, so I use a full western forehand and an eastern topspin backhand. I hit my slice backhand with a continental grip, and I hit my serve with a grip about halfway in-between the continental and the eastern forehand. If you don't know a continental grip from a continental breakfast, read on.
If you don't know which grip is which, here's how to start. Hold a tennis racquet in front of you with your left hand. Hold it straight out, the tip of the racquet head pointing away from you, with the racquet face (i.e., the strings) straight up and down, perpendicular to the ground. Now grasp the racquet handle with your right hand as if you were shaking hands with it. Chances are, you just found the eastern forehand grip.
As you can see, the base of a tennis racquet is octagonal, giving the grip eight sides. When holding the racquet with an eastern forehand grip, the base knuckle of your right index finger is pretty much directly on top of the flat right side of the grip. This makes for a very natural forehand grip, and it's the one that beginners are usually taught. Even I will admit that it's the most versatile forehand grip.
The thing is, with the rise of oversized racquets, tennis has become more about topspin than ever, and the semi-western forehand will make it easier to put lots of topspin on the shot. To find the semi-western, simply move your hand 45 degrees clockwise on the grip. The knuckle at the base of your right index finger will now be above the side of the grip between the flat right side and the bottom. This grip makes it harder to put slice (underspin) on the forehand, but in my opinion, it more than compensates by making topspin come fairly easily. The great Mats Wilander had a picture-perfect semi-western forehand.
Move your hand another 45 degrees clockwise, so that the base knuckle of your right index finger is above the flat bottom side of the grip. What you have now is a western forehand grip. This grip makes it easiest to put topspin on balls hit at waist height or higher. Low balls, however, become awkward to hit, especially if they aren't moving very fast, forcing you to generate the pace on the shot. Andre Agassi hits a western forehand, as did Boris Becker.
One thing you'll notice about a full western forehand is that it forces you to change the angle of your fingers on the grip. With the other forehand grips, your fingers are angled slightly forward on the racquet handle. With a western grip, you're holding the racquet more in the way you would hold a hammer or an axe.
Hold the racquet with a western forehand grip and flip the racquet face over to your left side without changing your grip on the racquet. You now have an eastern backhand grip. As you can tell, this grip forces you to cock your wrist back when you hit a topspin backhand. That can be a little uncomfortable, but it does make it fairly easy to get the racquet face into the correct, perpendicular-to-the-ground position when you hit the backhand.
On the other hand, the eastern backhand grip makes it all but impossible to open the racquet face for a slice backhand; to slice the ball, go with the continental grip. The continental grip is halfway between the eastern backhand and the eastern forehand grips. When slicing with a continental grip, your fingers will be angled slightly forward on the racquet handle. If you hit the topspin backhand with a continental grip (like most pros do who hit a one-handed backhand), you may find it easier to grip the handle like a hammer, as you would with a western forehand. This is a bit awkward to explain without pictures. When I slice the ball using a continental grip, my fingers are angled on the grip in such a way that, if I extended them, they would be pointing somewhat forward, about 45 degrees away from the direction of the racquet handle. However, when I hit a topspin backhand using a continental grip, my fingers are angled more sharply; if I extended them, there would be almost a 90-degree angle between where my fingers were pointing and the line of the racquet handle.
If you go with a two-handed backhand, you have a couple options. I wouldn't use an eastern backhand grip with a two-handed backhand; it feels awkward to me. Personally, I would use a continental grip with my right hand; then I would grip the exposed upper part of the handle with my left hand in a semi-western grip. In effect, I'd be gripping the racquet as if I were going to hit a left-handed semi-western forehand, but my left hand would be choking up on the handle enough to allow my right hand to grasp the part of the handle under it.
The other option for a two-handed backhand is a good one for beginners: Hit all your groundstrokes with an eastern forehand grip, and simply add the left hand on the backhand.
On the serve, I use a grip halfway between the eastern forehand and the continental; this places my base right knuckle over the top-right bevel of the racquet handle. I recently found out that John McEnroe used this grip on his serve, which makes me feel good about recommending it. (From here on out, I'll call it the McEnroe grip.) An alternative is to use a regular continental grip. Don't use an eastern forehand grip to serve unless you're really a beginner; the eastern forehand grip doesn't allow your wrist to turn properly when hitting a hard serve. I've read teaching pros recommend using an eastern backhand grip on the serve. That feels very unnatural to me, but I guess it works for some people.
On the overhead smash, use the same grip you serve with. That seems pretty obvious.
When you volley, I recommend using a continental grip on both forehand and backhand sides. You don't have time at the net to be changing grips. Besides, volleys aren't like groundstrokes; you don't take a big swing. You just punch at the ball. On low balls, try to cut under it a little to give it some underspin, which will help you control the shot. (Incidentally, a volley is a shot hit before the ball bounces. A volley is not an exchange of groundstrokes; that's a rally.)
Some great players (Stefan Edberg, for example) used a continental grip on their forehand groundstrokes. Others, such as Fred Perry, used the McEnroe grip I described earlier. These forehand grips are now relics of the age of wooden racquets. I don't recommend that anyone use a continental grip on the forehand groundstroke anymore. It's been abandoned by the top tennis players, and that should tell you something.
Racquets
My fundamental piece of racquet advice is: Look at what the pros use. That tells you far more than any review or advertisement you might read. When widebody racquets (with absurdly thick cross-sections) were the rage, you didn't see pros flocking to them, for good reason: the pros want to win. Professional tennis players, as a rule, won't be conned by gimmicky "innovations" in racquet technology. They'll stick to what works.
Racquet ads always promise power and control. That's nice, but usually those two features are in conflict. The more power a racquet has, the less control it has. You just have to find the racquet that has the balance that works for you. Widebody racquets may be good for the elderly, since these racquets have so much inherent power that it's easy to drive the ball the length of the court. But for anyone who likes to take a full-blooded swing at the ball, the widebodies have far too much power.
In my opinion, the standard beam width, like that found on most graphite racquets of the '80's, is best. The widebodies have lots of power, but as a rule, you need control more than you need power. The Dunlop Max 200G was sort of a widebody before there were widebodies, and it was a terrific racquet, but it was an exception.
These days, I use a Head Radical Trisys 260, the same racquet Andre Agassi used to use. It has a narrow, constant beam and an oversized (about 110 square inches) face. For me, it's ideal. I like to take a big swing at the ball, so if a racquet has too much power, it just won't work for me.
I doubt if any racquet made today is really appreciably better than the old Prince Pro 110, the racquet Agassi used early in his career, and which was also used by Gabriela Sabatini and Michael Chang. Wilson used to make a couple great midsized (about 85 square inches) racquets, the Pro Staff (Pete Sampras' racquet) and the Ultra II.
I've heard that Pete Sampras says that he became so good because he learned to play using wooden racquets, and that he's going to teach his kids to play using wood. John McEnroe and others even suggest that the pros should go back to playing with wood.
I've played with wood racquets before, and I like them. They're amenable to many different styles of play, which is nice. But I don't see any way to put the genie back in the bottle. Metal racquets are here to stay, and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's much easier learning to play using an oversized racquet with a 110-square-inch face than it was using a wooden racquet with a 68-square-inch face. For kids learning to play, it's hard enough just learning to make contact with the ball, without giving them a heavy wood racquet with a tiny face to contend with. For recreational players with less-than-perfect timing, larger hitting areas enable them to use spin and to hit shots that only the pros could hit in the past.
I don't think the pros should be asked to go back to wooden racquets. Andre Agassi has said that he likes having that big racquet face to work with; it would be a huge adjustment for players like him to switch to a wooden racquet. I don't think we have to outlaw modern racquets in order to address the excess of power in the pro game. I'm sure that some objective way of measuring a racquet's inherent power could be devised. The easiest, low-tech way would simply be to secure a tennis racquet's handle in a vise, string it with standard gut in the middle of its recommended tension range, angle the racquet face 45 degrees towards the sky, and fire a tennis ball horizontally into the racquet's sweet spot at 100 miles per hour. If the ball landed more than a certain distance away, then the racquet would be deemed too powerful for tournament use. This is just a simple, common-sense method; I'm sure something more scientific could be devised.
When it comes to strings, I recommend that recreational players use kevlar. They're a little more expensive, but far more durable than synthetic gut. I string my racquets tight; like I said, I like to be able to whale away at the ball and still have it land in the court. Each racquet has a recommended tension range; most players should string it in the middle. String it at the tight end if you want more control, or at the loose end if you want more power. Thin strings (such as 17- or even 18-guage) bite into the ball more and help you put more spin on your shots, but obviously you pay a big price in durability. Ivan Lendl used to string his racquets super-tight, with an exceptionally-thin string; this gave him tremendous control, but the downside was that he went through several string-jobs each match.
I remember a few years back, two racquet manufacturers went in opposite directions trying to develop a racquet that would impart more spin on the ball. One manufacturer made their string pattern more open (i.e., with bigger gaps between the strings than usual); the other manufacturer made their string pattern more dense. From what I read, the open string pattern was clearly better; the ball sank into those gaps, allowing the player to put lots of spin on their shots. The dense pattern, on the other hand, played like a board. So if some future manufacturer tries the dense pattern again, think twice before you buy one.
Personally, I think that the best racquet manufacturers are Prince and Head; they consistently produce a wide variety of good racquets. Wilson racquets are also good, and usually a little cheaper. The other manufacturers are more hit-and-miss, though they do produce some first-rate models; Yonex, for example, has manufactured some great racquets.
Graphite construction is the norm for top-quality racquets, though other materials (such as titanium) are periodically introduced. For beginners or casual players, I think even aluminum is fine. Usually, the racquet will play better than you will. In other words, for most players, the racquet isn't what's holding them back. However, for some players, the racquet can undeniably make a huge difference.
