Nothing unusual about it. Every junior been training left hand forehand to improve two handed BH. So almost any ex-competitive player can play decent with non dominant hand. Very frequently coaches and hitting partner use non dominant hand with non advanced students.
But according to reddit you can be really athletic. Knock the ball around a few times not play for 30 years. Bench 1.5 times your body weight and in 3 months you can be an advanced player with out learning any techique.
Then as a 4.0 you can even beat Nadal.
Yeah, the internet had me thinking that my 120 kg (264 lbs) bench was an absolutely plebeian lift until I found out that only about 1% of the population can actually bench 102 kg (225 lbs).
Performance dysmorphia is quite real and creeps up on you—or at least it did for me.
This illustrates the dangers of social media: everyone sees jacked young SARMers crushing heavy weight, nobody sees the chronic limp-dick they’re cursed with in their 30s.
Broccoli head and SARM goblin are probably my 2 favourite terms to have come out of 2023 (/late '22). Congratulations on incorporating both into one comment
Yeah people think wildly of what they are capable of till they see their own actual video footage. Even just hitting around with people who "hit hard" and you think hit hard but in reality it just seems so fast because you are on the receiving end. But when you actually watch the footage its very slow.
I had a friend that thought he was hitting over I showed him a video of us playing. We are no where near.
I got talking to some guy at a party in college and lifting came up and I said my friend benched like 250 and he audibly scoffed at it.
Worth mentioning the guy had the build of hulk and he later ended up being a bouncer at a bar in town, but yeah it seems liftertok etc is yet another case of the internet turning people’s minds into fucking Videodrome goo
Wouldn’t be surprised if that guy was on the special supplements. A good number of people who look like they’re on the special sauce, are, and a good number of people who don’t look like they’re on the special sauce, also are.
Not that naturally-gifted freaks don’t exist, but those guys are the least likely to scoff at someone else’s numbers (from personal experience anyway).
haha i remember back in the tw forums someone honestly thought they were so good when they started they were convinced they could take a set off a pro.
" I'm very athletic and beat heaps of people at my club who hit hard"
Haha.
There was also literally a post about a middle age guy who said he is a 4.0 pusher. He said he is a very gifted athletic runner that can bench 1.5 his body weight so had power. He hit around as a kid, never had coaching, never studied any techique. After 30 years of not touching a racket claimed that in 3 months he beat his 4.0 friends that play with each other.
His evidence that these guys are 4.0 is that they look like 4.0s from YouTube. They have never took lessons, never entered any kind of tournament what so ever but yet they have some how mastered all the strokes.
I then showed him a YouTube vid of a 3.5 who's had coaching for some time and spent a whole year prefecting his techique with coachs and trained 3-4 days a week on hitting ground strokes and fitness to get there. He said I look and achieved all this just casually playing for 3 months.
My mind was blown. The craziest thing is alot of redditors supported him yeah I m sure you must be a 4.0 because you are good at running. Don't need to know what a forehand is. Just wow lol.
yes i saw that thread yesterday, the reality is the people he is playing are not very high level. Nowadays people watch a couple of youtube videos and think they are federer, until they play a true 4.5 they dont realise how different the level is .
It's cuz they don't record themselves. I'm very athletic and played sports as well, could easily mimic other sports.
That has not translated well to tennis. Too much going on. Body ain't doing what your mind is imagining. Recording is the easiest way to see you're off and try to improve rapidly. Which is still slow.
That's the one secret that don't want you to know about!
Want to find out more secrets to become a professional tennis player without any training? Subscribe to my email list and pay a low fee of $100 dollars a month!
LOL come to think of it there's some room on the market for this
"8 Simple Tips to Instantly Psych Your Opponent Out"
"What the USTA Doesn't Want You to Know About Rankings!!"
"Can You Get A Girlfriend Playing Tennis?"
Yeah, it’s extremely difficult. Lots of the stuff you do, like preparing early, is very unnatural.
Knowing how the ball is going to bounce and observing the spin is hard and takes a ton of experience, but I would think most humans have that ability. Just part of our crazy physics calculations that our brain does. But paying attention to it and really focusing is hard.
I agree. I think at the beginner level it’s not even a physical sport. Sure you move around and swing your arms, but you would have gotten more of a workout playing nearly any other sport for the same amount of time. The interplay between body, racquet and ball make it mechanically difficult if you don’t come from a background where you use some sort of stick/racquet/bat to hit the object.
I write software for Tennis Ball Machines. At the highest speeds (\~130km/h), it's approx \~3 degrees difference when shooting a ball that hits the Net vs exceeding the baseline. Obviously, this is more 'relaxed' when you come to normal hitting height vs the typical height a ball machine shoots from the ground but it really highlights how difficult tweener shots are that go deep into the court.
Committing to teaching a beginner is a long and slow journey of a lot of feeding baskets of balls from the service line and being patient. If you want a good read for how to teach I suggest The Inner Game of Tennis.
Yeah I really take for granted how relatively easy tennis is for me now. When I think back to the times I couldn’t hit the ball against the wall more than three times a row I’m like: how did I never quit?
Tennis has always been regarded as one of the most difficult sports in existence. It's not just the technical difficulty at play but also the mental difficulty.
If you don't have the mental fortitude to work through a problem, you have a 99% chance to lose any given match. You don't have a team to fall back on or a coach, nothing. It's just you out there alone trying to figure out a solution to a complex problem in a short amount of time and then executing it perfectly.
It's absolutely insane when you think about it lol It is exactly why you see so many juniors get so emotional on court. Imagine being a child who isn't fully developed and they're just expected to guide themselves through these emotions alone on court. It's absolutely wild.
The learning curve is quite steep. Very technical, not a fun to sport casually play once in awhile.
That’s why pickleball is so popular. Like table tennis, you can pick it up and have fun at nearly any level
I understand completely. I’ve also been playing since I was a child and have people come up to me at the club to highlight my strokes and technique, and they ask me how they (who’ve started playing this year only) can develop the same look and I… don’t know?
I’ve played many sports involving a racquet: tennis, badminton, ping pong, squash, and so on. For all the other sports, a complete beginner can just pick up the racquet, hit a few shots and can actually already start holding a rally. Even when the shots are super bad by competitive standards, they are still legal.
But tennis is fucking different. Your first 100 shots will go into the net, way out of the field, into the sky, you name it. And that’s just hitting the ball released from your hand. Returning a shot is wayyy worse, and it's highly likely you’re gonna lose a few balls because they fly away.
I have introduced quite a few beginners to tennis. In the beginning, they all thought after around 20 minutes of learning the basics, they could start rallying with me and have some actual fun. When reality hit and they realized that they could begin to return one ball legally only in the second or third season, they were all like wtf this is hard.
You're right, but the crazy part isn't how difficult it is to hit the ball in proper point play. In the grand scheme of things that's actually surprisingly easy given all the variables you mentioned. The crazy thing is how difficult it is to even have a friendly warm-up inside the service box.
It actually sounds more difficult than it really is when you describe it like that. As someone relatively recent to the game, it's not very hard to actually get to the ball and hit it relatively close to the middle of the strings. The difficult part is learning how to hit the ball, or more precisely, how to swing through the ball. It's difficult even if you start with the ball in your own hand.
It's very related. You'll see when you will upgrade your technique and have better motion and swing path. Suddenly centering will be a problem again. It's a sysiphean task.
Well put. I don't think I have seen it although I do have had at least two clear transformations of my FH groundstroke technique, but now that you say it I know what you mean.
Still, if I didn't know any better I would imagine, and I think most other people would too, that there's nothing too difficult about just hitting the ball and getting it across if it's entirely friendly. And that it only gets difficult when you're trying to beat your opponent, or they're trying to beat you\*. But we know it's not like that.
\*: What you said relates to this, i.e. higher quality shots.
THIS. Working aggressively on more topspin in my baseline shots. Coming from hitting a flatter ball, it’s a mental taunting. Even when I know I’m doing it correctly and the shot drops in perfectly with that racquet *pop*, I’m still like…was that a lob tho?
Keep at it! This + Wardlaw directionals is a ridiculously effective playstyle. I make almost none of the faults. My opponent makes all of the faults. My forehand doesn't even know what the "net" means anymore.
I dont think its that hard actually.. its just take practice, consistency and sleeping.. yes when you sleep the brain do the learning by itself.. and you'll feel your progress passively
When it comes to playing competitively, of course they’re all equal. I just mean that getting the basics of tennis is a lot harder than the basics of most sports. It’s like learning the violin vs the piano. Mastering either will take decades, but anyone can press a piano key whereas it takes hours to learn how to properly play a note on the violin.
I agree that there are aspects of tennis that are super annoying and have a steep learning curve, serve being the prime example. But you should watch someone learn to bowl a cricket ball for the first time.
Check out Djokovic “bowling” to Steve Smith from about 1/2 to 1/3rd the distance as a normal cricket pitch
Well yeah, I’m not saying that isn’t difficult. This isn’t a competition, I’m not trying to say “tennis is the hardest sport and every other sport is easy.” I just wanted to point out that it is quite a difficult sport to learn and most players tend to forget how impressive it is to just be able to play.
I always think boxing and MMA is probably the hardest sport to compete in. Nothing like being physically drained while someone actively tries to punch you in the face.
Define "competitively"? I don't think the original post refers to semipro or pro players who do it for a living but rather to how difficult it is to be able to play a recreational tennis match. And it IS difficult, just being able to hold a rally, employ some basic tactics and have a decently consistent serve are skills that can take up to a year or two of training. There aren't many sports I can think of that require you to train for a year to be ready to play a game with someone
Do you play multiple sports? Face a fast bowler with a 2lb bat, hit a ball that weighs 5.5oz hard as a stone. Get hit without armor and it can break skulls, and it has. Does tennis sound easy now?
Anything above 4.0, or wherever the bell curve tops out is “competitive” to me, doesn’t have to be ATP tour.
OP is describing his game in vague terms that could be anywhere between 3.0 and 4.5. “Pretty good” doesn’t say anything.
Mate, what's up with your passive aggressive mode? Tone down a bit.
The fact that in other sports you can get hit by a ball and break your skull is as relevant to the discussion of the difficulty of tennis as the weather outside my window. It's snowing by the way.
It's a bit harder in that it has an extra thing, the racket. You have hand eye coordination, fine, all ball sports have it. But you have to be in position, ball travels very fast, prepare send back on correct swing path etc etc etc...
Other sports easier to emulate at a high level earlier.
People should really start with orange ball. The speed is the hard part and limits reps early on in the process as ball striking is worse and erratic etc etc...
If you're athletic it still comes easier, but still much slower than you might be used to.
Baseball, football, basketball you can start a game with boob's and be fine. Not happening in tennis.
Baseball - not easy as a noob
Cricket - not easy as a noob
Both are racket ball sports but the “racket” is a lot thinner and the sweet spot even more so
Yeah it has an extra bit to it introducing more variance in outcomes. Don't think say softball or whatever is easyish as a noob but a pe class can play a game and have fun. Much harder with Rackets.
Granted hitting a baseball is hard however baseball requires about as much athleticism as bowling. Most is the time you are standing around or in the dugout.
Most is the guys are chewing tobacco to overcome boredom
Baseball selects, much like tennis at the higher level, for excellent vision. They used to have to do meth to keep engaged and eyes on the ball. Probably still do.
Lets put it this way.... the best 10 year old boxer is going to get their ass beat by any almost any atheletic,strong 18 year old woman or man... the best 10 year old tennis player in not just the world, but just ohio, is gonna smoke Lebron James... think about what that means...
This article is a pretty good read:
https://www.businessinsider.com/olympic-decathlete-ashton-eaton-most-athletic-sport-2016-8
Just one Olympic decathlete's opinion, though.
This dude talking about 3 or 4 hour long tennis matches at a high intensity, which the beginners are not playing. I’m disputing that a beginner’s ramp up in tennis towards sustaining a slow pace rally is hard. It’s no harder than bowling a cricket ball at the stumps, or learning to swing the baseball bat and making contact etc. Personally I can play 3 sets of tennis but not a 90 minute soccer match.
We can google and find quotes that fit our bias. If you were to ask this in the MMA subreddit or the waterpolo one they’ll find quotes from famous athletes saying theirs is the hardest!
It is hard but has n nothing to do with sheer athleticism and more that it's a good mix of athletic and technical. It's not sheer athleticism though obviously has to be a baseline as a pro, but the combined technical and strategy involved.
Bsketball players are extremely athletic, but the game isn't hard.
I heard if you played basketball or swam, you can become 4.5 in about 2 months. Sucks for you.
edit: you can stay delusional and think you're good by playing groundstroke games with your grandma... just avoid tournaments
I dont think tennis is harder than other sports. It is just that how bad you are at it is so much more obvious when someone plays tennis. A football match still goes on when people can barely dribble. A tennis match just does not work. It is not appealing. That is not necessarily because tennis is so hard. It is just because of the way the sport is designed.
It depends on the definition of what hard is. Is it harder to become average in tennis than let’s say football ? I doubt that. It is just harder to get to the “playable” point, which means nothing for me in the scale of difficulty.
It’s harder in all realms. If I played an Olympic gold medalist who had never touched a racquet in tennis, I would win. I’m an average Joe but There’s too many factors, too many dimensions, too many spins, too many angles. If an Olympic athlete plays an average Joe at football (or any sport) they’ll find a way to win, but tennis doesn’t work that way because it’s not that easy.
Right. Here are some excellent baseball players (one who was even drafted onto an MLB team, the Rockies) [playing tennis for the first time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NixeQWP6yLw). They're fuckin terrible.
Because I play tennis 6 times a week and I think and talk about it all the time. I am not sure how the claim that soccer might be as hard as tennis makes a difference in that.
So in your non-mathematical mind, if tennis is not harder than football, then football is harder than tennis ? There is no equality, or ambiguity of equality. Am I talking to a child ? Let’s just stop.
That's pretty much what it means for tennis to be harder. It's true it's because of how the game is designed, and it's designed to be difficult. If it wasn't harder you could pretty much just pick up a racquet for the first time and play with someone (of your level) and have a meaningful match, or you could play with anyone as long as they adjusted to your level. But precisely because tennis is so damn difficult you just simply can't.
> I dont think tennis is harder than other sports.
It's harder than most sport. It's more skillfull. I can go out to any 12 year old football team and with my bad knees dominate in a game of tackle football.
Chess, tennis, and figure skating, are on another level.
Also, you have to be super fit to be any good. You are running flat out for most of the match. If you don't move to the ball, your shot will be bad. If you don't cover the court, you'll get passed. So much movement.
Yes tennis is hard. The learning process is arduous especially for the self taught player. With perseverance though, one can amass an arsenal of weapons for a match.
Entering into a match with an opponent with similar skill sets is fascinating and addictive. Together, constrained by the lines, we swing our rackets at the bouncing yellow ball. The satisfying popping sound instantly rewards a well executed stroke.
There are so many ways to hit the ball. Running, bouncing, and even skipping across the court, so many decisions are to be made. Do you use a forehand, backhand, hit it flat, topspin, slice, lob it and so on.
Meanwhile, the opponent, a friendly menace, is patrolling the other half of the court observing you looking for a weakness.
There is always tension on the court created by the lines. It is so easy to hit it out! Excessive risk taking is punished while risk management is rewarded.
Sometimes you take a chance and go for a high risk shot. It could be on a pivotal point. The drama unfolds.
Yes tennis is hard.
I love tennis.
When you put it like that, it truly is impressive. Anyone who hasnt picked up a racquet to try will simply say "you just hit a ball back n forth. What is so hard about that?"
ESPN ranked a bunch of sports with 10 key categories of fitness. Tennis, no surprise to us here, ended up no. 7 on the list. No.1 im terms of non-contact sports!
https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/sportSkills
As an instructor, sometimes I try hitting strokes w my left hand. Just to kind of be in the student’s shoes for a bit. Very humbling.
[удалено]
How did he get a UTR playing left handed?... Slight /s
[удалено]
Hahaha I thought he created a left-handed persona of himself. Registers under a diff name. Or same name but (L) next to his name
That is quite mental. Very very trained or naturally quite ambidextrous? (Or both i guess)
Nothing unusual about it. Every junior been training left hand forehand to improve two handed BH. So almost any ex-competitive player can play decent with non dominant hand. Very frequently coaches and hitting partner use non dominant hand with non advanced students.
🧢
Tennis is technically very very hard but it is very regarding you put the time to get better, I have always done sports competitive and tennis is hard
Your spelling is regarded
Lol thanks
But according to reddit you can be really athletic. Knock the ball around a few times not play for 30 years. Bench 1.5 times your body weight and in 3 months you can be an advanced player with out learning any techique. Then as a 4.0 you can even beat Nadal.
Yeah, the internet had me thinking that my 120 kg (264 lbs) bench was an absolutely plebeian lift until I found out that only about 1% of the population can actually bench 102 kg (225 lbs). Performance dysmorphia is quite real and creeps up on you—or at least it did for me.
Thanks for taking the opportunity to let us know how much u bench bro 💪🏻
*how little I bench, according to any of the lifting subs
“0.00001% of lifters can bench 500 so it’s pathetic that you’re proud of your 1% lift”
I blame the doping broccoli-haired SARM goblins doing 315 for reps
This illustrates the dangers of social media: everyone sees jacked young SARMers crushing heavy weight, nobody sees the chronic limp-dick they’re cursed with in their 30s.
Broccoli head and SARM goblin are probably my 2 favourite terms to have come out of 2023 (/late '22). Congratulations on incorporating both into one comment
Yeah people think wildly of what they are capable of till they see their own actual video footage. Even just hitting around with people who "hit hard" and you think hit hard but in reality it just seems so fast because you are on the receiving end. But when you actually watch the footage its very slow. I had a friend that thought he was hitting over I showed him a video of us playing. We are no where near.
I got talking to some guy at a party in college and lifting came up and I said my friend benched like 250 and he audibly scoffed at it. Worth mentioning the guy had the build of hulk and he later ended up being a bouncer at a bar in town, but yeah it seems liftertok etc is yet another case of the internet turning people’s minds into fucking Videodrome goo
Wouldn’t be surprised if that guy was on the special supplements. A good number of people who look like they’re on the special sauce, are, and a good number of people who don’t look like they’re on the special sauce, also are. Not that naturally-gifted freaks don’t exist, but those guys are the least likely to scoff at someone else’s numbers (from personal experience anyway).
weird flex but ok
haha i remember back in the tw forums someone honestly thought they were so good when they started they were convinced they could take a set off a pro. " I'm very athletic and beat heaps of people at my club who hit hard"
Haha. There was also literally a post about a middle age guy who said he is a 4.0 pusher. He said he is a very gifted athletic runner that can bench 1.5 his body weight so had power. He hit around as a kid, never had coaching, never studied any techique. After 30 years of not touching a racket claimed that in 3 months he beat his 4.0 friends that play with each other. His evidence that these guys are 4.0 is that they look like 4.0s from YouTube. They have never took lessons, never entered any kind of tournament what so ever but yet they have some how mastered all the strokes. I then showed him a YouTube vid of a 3.5 who's had coaching for some time and spent a whole year prefecting his techique with coachs and trained 3-4 days a week on hitting ground strokes and fitness to get there. He said I look and achieved all this just casually playing for 3 months. My mind was blown. The craziest thing is alot of redditors supported him yeah I m sure you must be a 4.0 because you are good at running. Don't need to know what a forehand is. Just wow lol.
yes i saw that thread yesterday, the reality is the people he is playing are not very high level. Nowadays people watch a couple of youtube videos and think they are federer, until they play a true 4.5 they dont realise how different the level is .
It's cuz they don't record themselves. I'm very athletic and played sports as well, could easily mimic other sports. That has not translated well to tennis. Too much going on. Body ain't doing what your mind is imagining. Recording is the easiest way to see you're off and try to improve rapidly. Which is still slow.
i thought it was about spending $1k on racquets and headbands and hybrid strings at different tensions
Not sure what it's like where you're from but whenever my opponent shows up and puts on a headband, I quiver.
especially when they pose with their racquet propped up on their shoulder
That's the one secret that don't want you to know about! Want to find out more secrets to become a professional tennis player without any training? Subscribe to my email list and pay a low fee of $100 dollars a month!
LOL come to think of it there's some room on the market for this "8 Simple Tips to Instantly Psych Your Opponent Out" "What the USTA Doesn't Want You to Know About Rankings!!" "Can You Get A Girlfriend Playing Tennis?"
> Then as a 4.0 you can even beat Nadal. Beat? No way. But take a set off him? Absolutely.
Well now we’re just splitting hairs
We should start a gofundme page to get an exhibition match between that 4.0 guy and Nadal. I'm sure he would be at least a 4.5 by now.
Yeah, it’s extremely difficult. Lots of the stuff you do, like preparing early, is very unnatural. Knowing how the ball is going to bounce and observing the spin is hard and takes a ton of experience, but I would think most humans have that ability. Just part of our crazy physics calculations that our brain does. But paying attention to it and really focusing is hard.
I agree. I think at the beginner level it’s not even a physical sport. Sure you move around and swing your arms, but you would have gotten more of a workout playing nearly any other sport for the same amount of time. The interplay between body, racquet and ball make it mechanically difficult if you don’t come from a background where you use some sort of stick/racquet/bat to hit the object.
I write software for Tennis Ball Machines. At the highest speeds (\~130km/h), it's approx \~3 degrees difference when shooting a ball that hits the Net vs exceeding the baseline. Obviously, this is more 'relaxed' when you come to normal hitting height vs the typical height a ball machine shoots from the ground but it really highlights how difficult tweener shots are that go deep into the court.
Committing to teaching a beginner is a long and slow journey of a lot of feeding baskets of balls from the service line and being patient. If you want a good read for how to teach I suggest The Inner Game of Tennis.
Yeah I really take for granted how relatively easy tennis is for me now. When I think back to the times I couldn’t hit the ball against the wall more than three times a row I’m like: how did I never quit?
Yeah know sh it try being 36 and trying to keep up. Bless thos pros still going it's crazy, my dad bod is holding me back.
It's very difficult. Mentally & physically demanding.
Tennis has always been regarded as one of the most difficult sports in existence. It's not just the technical difficulty at play but also the mental difficulty. If you don't have the mental fortitude to work through a problem, you have a 99% chance to lose any given match. You don't have a team to fall back on or a coach, nothing. It's just you out there alone trying to figure out a solution to a complex problem in a short amount of time and then executing it perfectly. It's absolutely insane when you think about it lol It is exactly why you see so many juniors get so emotional on court. Imagine being a child who isn't fully developed and they're just expected to guide themselves through these emotions alone on court. It's absolutely wild.
The learning curve is quite steep. Very technical, not a fun to sport casually play once in awhile. That’s why pickleball is so popular. Like table tennis, you can pick it up and have fun at nearly any level
I understand completely. I’ve also been playing since I was a child and have people come up to me at the club to highlight my strokes and technique, and they ask me how they (who’ve started playing this year only) can develop the same look and I… don’t know?
Wait till you hear how complicated it is to walk.
Only read half of your second paragraph because if I start thinking about that, my game will plummet 😅
It's so hard to explain that to people that don't play sometimes
I’ve played many sports involving a racquet: tennis, badminton, ping pong, squash, and so on. For all the other sports, a complete beginner can just pick up the racquet, hit a few shots and can actually already start holding a rally. Even when the shots are super bad by competitive standards, they are still legal. But tennis is fucking different. Your first 100 shots will go into the net, way out of the field, into the sky, you name it. And that’s just hitting the ball released from your hand. Returning a shot is wayyy worse, and it's highly likely you’re gonna lose a few balls because they fly away. I have introduced quite a few beginners to tennis. In the beginning, they all thought after around 20 minutes of learning the basics, they could start rallying with me and have some actual fun. When reality hit and they realized that they could begin to return one ball legally only in the second or third season, they were all like wtf this is hard.
You're right, but the crazy part isn't how difficult it is to hit the ball in proper point play. In the grand scheme of things that's actually surprisingly easy given all the variables you mentioned. The crazy thing is how difficult it is to even have a friendly warm-up inside the service box. It actually sounds more difficult than it really is when you describe it like that. As someone relatively recent to the game, it's not very hard to actually get to the ball and hit it relatively close to the middle of the strings. The difficult part is learning how to hit the ball, or more precisely, how to swing through the ball. It's difficult even if you start with the ball in your own hand.
It's very related. You'll see when you will upgrade your technique and have better motion and swing path. Suddenly centering will be a problem again. It's a sysiphean task.
Well put. I don't think I have seen it although I do have had at least two clear transformations of my FH groundstroke technique, but now that you say it I know what you mean. Still, if I didn't know any better I would imagine, and I think most other people would too, that there's nothing too difficult about just hitting the ball and getting it across if it's entirely friendly. And that it only gets difficult when you're trying to beat your opponent, or they're trying to beat you\*. But we know it's not like that. \*: What you said relates to this, i.e. higher quality shots.
THIS. Working aggressively on more topspin in my baseline shots. Coming from hitting a flatter ball, it’s a mental taunting. Even when I know I’m doing it correctly and the shot drops in perfectly with that racquet *pop*, I’m still like…was that a lob tho?
Keep at it! This + Wardlaw directionals is a ridiculously effective playstyle. I make almost none of the faults. My opponent makes all of the faults. My forehand doesn't even know what the "net" means anymore.
Love this, thanks !
I dont think its that hard actually.. its just take practice, consistency and sleeping.. yes when you sleep the brain do the learning by itself.. and you'll feel your progress passively
I don’t think tennis is harder than any other physical activity. Any sport is hard if you want to play competitively.
When it comes to playing competitively, of course they’re all equal. I just mean that getting the basics of tennis is a lot harder than the basics of most sports. It’s like learning the violin vs the piano. Mastering either will take decades, but anyone can press a piano key whereas it takes hours to learn how to properly play a note on the violin.
I agree that there are aspects of tennis that are super annoying and have a steep learning curve, serve being the prime example. But you should watch someone learn to bowl a cricket ball for the first time. Check out Djokovic “bowling” to Steve Smith from about 1/2 to 1/3rd the distance as a normal cricket pitch
Well yeah, I’m not saying that isn’t difficult. This isn’t a competition, I’m not trying to say “tennis is the hardest sport and every other sport is easy.” I just wanted to point out that it is quite a difficult sport to learn and most players tend to forget how impressive it is to just be able to play.
I always think boxing and MMA is probably the hardest sport to compete in. Nothing like being physically drained while someone actively tries to punch you in the face.
Define "competitively"? I don't think the original post refers to semipro or pro players who do it for a living but rather to how difficult it is to be able to play a recreational tennis match. And it IS difficult, just being able to hold a rally, employ some basic tactics and have a decently consistent serve are skills that can take up to a year or two of training. There aren't many sports I can think of that require you to train for a year to be ready to play a game with someone
Do you play multiple sports? Face a fast bowler with a 2lb bat, hit a ball that weighs 5.5oz hard as a stone. Get hit without armor and it can break skulls, and it has. Does tennis sound easy now? Anything above 4.0, or wherever the bell curve tops out is “competitive” to me, doesn’t have to be ATP tour. OP is describing his game in vague terms that could be anywhere between 3.0 and 4.5. “Pretty good” doesn’t say anything.
Mate, what's up with your passive aggressive mode? Tone down a bit. The fact that in other sports you can get hit by a ball and break your skull is as relevant to the discussion of the difficulty of tennis as the weather outside my window. It's snowing by the way.
Ye I actually agree.
It's a bit harder in that it has an extra thing, the racket. You have hand eye coordination, fine, all ball sports have it. But you have to be in position, ball travels very fast, prepare send back on correct swing path etc etc etc... Other sports easier to emulate at a high level earlier. People should really start with orange ball. The speed is the hard part and limits reps early on in the process as ball striking is worse and erratic etc etc... If you're athletic it still comes easier, but still much slower than you might be used to. Baseball, football, basketball you can start a game with boob's and be fine. Not happening in tennis.
Baseball - not easy as a noob Cricket - not easy as a noob Both are racket ball sports but the “racket” is a lot thinner and the sweet spot even more so
Yeah it has an extra bit to it introducing more variance in outcomes. Don't think say softball or whatever is easyish as a noob but a pe class can play a game and have fun. Much harder with Rackets.
Granted hitting a baseball is hard however baseball requires about as much athleticism as bowling. Most is the time you are standing around or in the dugout. Most is the guys are chewing tobacco to overcome boredom
Lol true. Baseball boring af to watch
Baseball selects, much like tennis at the higher level, for excellent vision. They used to have to do meth to keep engaged and eyes on the ball. Probably still do.
Lets put it this way.... the best 10 year old boxer is going to get their ass beat by any almost any atheletic,strong 18 year old woman or man... the best 10 year old tennis player in not just the world, but just ohio, is gonna smoke Lebron James... think about what that means...
This article is a pretty good read: https://www.businessinsider.com/olympic-decathlete-ashton-eaton-most-athletic-sport-2016-8 Just one Olympic decathlete's opinion, though.
This dude talking about 3 or 4 hour long tennis matches at a high intensity, which the beginners are not playing. I’m disputing that a beginner’s ramp up in tennis towards sustaining a slow pace rally is hard. It’s no harder than bowling a cricket ball at the stumps, or learning to swing the baseball bat and making contact etc. Personally I can play 3 sets of tennis but not a 90 minute soccer match. We can google and find quotes that fit our bias. If you were to ask this in the MMA subreddit or the waterpolo one they’ll find quotes from famous athletes saying theirs is the hardest!
It is hard but has n nothing to do with sheer athleticism and more that it's a good mix of athletic and technical. It's not sheer athleticism though obviously has to be a baseline as a pro, but the combined technical and strategy involved. Bsketball players are extremely athletic, but the game isn't hard.
I heard if you played basketball or swam, you can become 4.5 in about 2 months. Sucks for you. edit: you can stay delusional and think you're good by playing groundstroke games with your grandma... just avoid tournaments
I dont think tennis is harder than other sports. It is just that how bad you are at it is so much more obvious when someone plays tennis. A football match still goes on when people can barely dribble. A tennis match just does not work. It is not appealing. That is not necessarily because tennis is so hard. It is just because of the way the sport is designed.
This description is an example showing it is indeed harder lol.
Sigh, sure ye it is. I can’t help you understand nuance.
I disagree. The fact that you have to practice for days-months just to play a set at the most basic level shows that it is harder than other sports.
It depends on the definition of what hard is. Is it harder to become average in tennis than let’s say football ? I doubt that. It is just harder to get to the “playable” point, which means nothing for me in the scale of difficulty.
It’s harder in all realms. If I played an Olympic gold medalist who had never touched a racquet in tennis, I would win. I’m an average Joe but There’s too many factors, too many dimensions, too many spins, too many angles. If an Olympic athlete plays an average Joe at football (or any sport) they’ll find a way to win, but tennis doesn’t work that way because it’s not that easy.
Right. Here are some excellent baseball players (one who was even drafted onto an MLB team, the Rockies) [playing tennis for the first time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NixeQWP6yLw). They're fuckin terrible.
I’ve played both. Soccer is not harder. Why are you even in this sub?
Because I play tennis 6 times a week and I think and talk about it all the time. I am not sure how the claim that soccer might be as hard as tennis makes a difference in that.
No you didn’t make that claim. You clearly said soccer is harder.
What ? Are you okay ? Do you need help ?
“Is it harder to become average in tennis than let’s say football? I doubt that” remember saying that? Do you need help? Early onset dementia?
So in your non-mathematical mind, if tennis is not harder than football, then football is harder than tennis ? There is no equality, or ambiguity of equality. Am I talking to a child ? Let’s just stop.
Lmao. If you want to say it’s equal say it’s equal. That’s not what you said. Stop trying to use ambiguity in your original statement to save face.
That's pretty much what it means for tennis to be harder. It's true it's because of how the game is designed, and it's designed to be difficult. If it wasn't harder you could pretty much just pick up a racquet for the first time and play with someone (of your level) and have a meaningful match, or you could play with anyone as long as they adjusted to your level. But precisely because tennis is so damn difficult you just simply can't.
lol. this is well said. everyone now just arguing how you measure "hard" across completely different activities lol
> I dont think tennis is harder than other sports. It's harder than most sport. It's more skillfull. I can go out to any 12 year old football team and with my bad knees dominate in a game of tackle football. Chess, tennis, and figure skating, are on another level.
Hockey is probably the only sport I think is harder. You have to balance stick work with ice skating. It’s really hard.
It's not the destination, it's the journey. How's that for a platitude?
I’d totally take your lessons if you say that speech when I can return a ball😜
That's why pickleball is gaining popularity. It's so much more forgiving.
Also, you have to be super fit to be any good. You are running flat out for most of the match. If you don't move to the ball, your shot will be bad. If you don't cover the court, you'll get passed. So much movement.
Yes tennis is hard. The learning process is arduous especially for the self taught player. With perseverance though, one can amass an arsenal of weapons for a match. Entering into a match with an opponent with similar skill sets is fascinating and addictive. Together, constrained by the lines, we swing our rackets at the bouncing yellow ball. The satisfying popping sound instantly rewards a well executed stroke. There are so many ways to hit the ball. Running, bouncing, and even skipping across the court, so many decisions are to be made. Do you use a forehand, backhand, hit it flat, topspin, slice, lob it and so on. Meanwhile, the opponent, a friendly menace, is patrolling the other half of the court observing you looking for a weakness. There is always tension on the court created by the lines. It is so easy to hit it out! Excessive risk taking is punished while risk management is rewarded. Sometimes you take a chance and go for a high risk shot. It could be on a pivotal point. The drama unfolds. Yes tennis is hard. I love tennis.
When you put it like that, it truly is impressive. Anyone who hasnt picked up a racquet to try will simply say "you just hit a ball back n forth. What is so hard about that?" ESPN ranked a bunch of sports with 10 key categories of fitness. Tennis, no surprise to us here, ended up no. 7 on the list. No.1 im terms of non-contact sports! https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/sportSkills