If you are wanting to improve your tennis game then the following tennis tips on how to hit the tennis ball and basic tennis tactics should help you improve your tennis game, and start you winning more games. Remember the main point of tennis is to get the ball over the net and into your opponents court in such a way that your opponent can’t return the ball. Lets start by looking at ways for you to improve your forehand and backhand strokes.

1. Make sure you are holding the tennis racket comfortably

2. On the forehand a good way is to hold it with your palm behind the handle.

3. You can use 2 hands for the backhand but do not overlap your hands. Keep your dominant hand at the bottom with the supporting hand just above the handle.

Keep an eye on the ball as reading the path of the ball will ensure you are in the right place to hit the ball. Move to where the ball will be after it has bounced and stopped rising.

Your Stance, in the beginning sideways on is good enough, if you can’t get your feet sorted out try and ensure that your shoulders are sideways to the ball.

Now you actually have to hit the ball, so try and hit it comfortably to the side of your body and slightly in front of your body and somewhere between the waist and shoulder height. When you hit the ball make sure the strings are pointing to where you want the ball to go in your opponents court.

To improve your serve, the following advice is the basic stuff:

Stand sideways on to the net, and throw the ball into the air so that it hangs nicely in the area where you want to contact the ball, it is no good throwing the ball 3 feet away. Then try and make contact with the ball in the middle of your throwing action at full stretch, slightly in front of you, and above your hitting shoulder.

Now you know the basics of how to hit the ball where are you going to hit the ball, after all you want to win the match and to do that you have to win points, so what are some tactics to make this happen.

Keep the ball in play which you do by getting the ball over the net into your opponents court. If your opponent can’t do this and you can…you will win, but lets hope your opponent is better than that. Make your opponent move in order to hit the ball and try to get them off balance and test their skill to see if they can hit the ball while moving. While doing this remember and keep yourself in a good position on the court and don’t get caught on one side of the court or between the baseline and the net.

Remember to look for your opponents weaknesses and try to play to them, and also try to play to your strengths. If you follow these tips hopefully your tennis game should start to improve.

About the Author: Gavin Dye is webmaster & author at Tennis Supply where you can learn more about how to improve your tennis game as well as some great tennis tips . So check it out today and improve your game now.

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Continued here: How Should You Hit the Tennis Ball and Where

Great tennis footwork is the key to great tennis, which is a fact that so many players overlook.

Here are the top 5 reasons why improving your tennis footwork improves your game!!

1. GREATER SHOT POWER

Developing your footwork skills results in greater power in your shots for the following (and very important) reason.

When you get to the ball and get set in a good position, you give youself the chance to hit the ball using as many body parts as you can.

If you don’t, you end up hitting the ball just using your arm or maybe off balance.

Think about it like this, a boxer doesn’t land a knockout punch by flicking out a jab.

The knockout blow is always made by getting the feet in the right position so that all the bodyweight can go into the punch.

The same is true in tennis.

2. MORE SHOT OPTIONS

Improving your tennis footwork gives you greater flexibility of shot choice because you get there earlier and in a better position.

You get to choose what stance you use to play the shot (open stance, closed stance, neutral etc).

You also get to choose where you play the shot and with what stroke (cross court, down the line, backhand, forehand, deep or short, passing shot or lob to name but a few.

Without it you will have fewer choices available and the choices you do have may well end up suffering from poor execution.

3. REDUCED ERRORS

FACT! As many as 70% of unforced are down to poor footwork – ATP statistic.

What would it mean to your game to reduce your unforced errors by as many as 7 out of 10?

Do I need to say any more?

4. STAY IN POINTS FOR LONGER

Improving your footwork for tennis will also improve your agility, balance and co-ordination which are all critical for higher levels of play.

You will be able to get to more balls, more often (even when under pressure) and that forces your opponent to play 1, 2 or 3 more shots than they expect to and maybe want to and that gives them more chances to miss.

5. BETTER TENNIS SPEED & TENNIS FITNESS

If you work on improving your footwork, you will have no choice but to improve your tennis speed and tennis fitness – no bad thing.

I have seen many many good “technical” players lose to so-called “lesser” players who had superior court speed, movement and fitness.

This goes back to the point above and links in with forcing your opponent to play as many shots as possible.

Not only wil it draw more errors in the short term but over the course of a match the tiredness they begin to feel has a major impact on their error rate as they get more tired.

So, if you really want to improve your game, it’s very simple – Leave your racket in the bag and work on your footwork.

HERE’S HOW TO DO IT!

The first thing you need to do is stop running so much on the court.

You should only run if you are a long way from the ball and it is the only way to get there quickly.

Apart from that most of your movements around the court should be made using side shuffles and cross over steps.

Start by incorporating tennis footwork patterns into the warm up routines of every one of your lesson/practice times.

Then progress up to using cones (for zig zags etc) and ladders as training aids.

Start slowly with simple footwork exercises and build up the speed of execution & difficulty of drill as you improve.

About the Author: I have some free tennis footwork videos and drills to help you along the way. You can get them from http://footwork4tennis.com

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More here: Tennis Footwork – 5 Big Ways it Helps You Play Great Tennis

Mention the names Roger Federer & Rafa Nadal in any tennis circles and you will normally set people off to wax lyrical about how great they both are.

And rightly so – they are two of the greatest tennis players of all time!

These guys gave us two of the greatest ever matches with the Wimbledon final of last year and the Australian Open of this year (2009)!

Now whilst we all get plenty of opportunity to marvel and chat about their shotmaking, their insane levels of super-human mental toughness and all the other qualities that go to make up a tennis champion most people get it wrong when asked to name the number 1 thing these guys do every single point!

The reason why you and nobody else seems to get it straight away is because it is so ……easy!!!

Apart from being ridiculously easy, it is also No1 on the list of what we call technical fundementals that govern good tennis playing and note I am not saying that every player must play a particular way or the same way, BUT every good player can/must have these fundementals in their shot production.

The good news is that SO CAN YOU!!

You can start working on it (and them) RIGHT AWAY and improve these 5 fundamentals and improve your stroke play and your tennis game dramatically.

Who knows, you may start winning more tennis matches as a result

You only need to work on them 1 at a time before moving on to the next and you will really see a difference.

So what is this ultra simple, all important first fundamental of good tennis technique that underpins the rest and is vital for great tennis?

The first of the 5 is………….wait for it……………WATCH THE TENNIS BALL!!

There, I told you it was easy.

Watching the tennis ball (not just looking at it – there IS a difference) allows you to most importantly judge the flight of the oncoming tennis ball.

It should go without too much further explaination that without doing this you will struggle to know where the ball is going to be, never mind trying to make a good contact.

It’s part of what we call your reception skills and Without this in place, the other 4 just won’t happen.

So, how do you do it?

How do you make a start?

Well the main things to work on are -

1. Keeping your head forward (and therefore your bodyweight)

2. Keeping your eyes level (not tilting your head to the side)

3. Keeping your shoulders level (not tilting your shoulders)

4. Starting with and keeping a balanced body position (try to incorporate balance type exercises into your training schedule to help you with this).

Basically if you can keep your head still and your shoulders level, it becomes much much easier to anticipate all of the oncoming shots as well as judge the balls flight.

Doing this on every shot you play and not just the first shot of the rally really needs to become a habit you get into.

Again, depending on your playing level and experience as well as how quickly you feel at ease with each element, you can decide to look at one element at a time or maybe tackle several of them.

The choice is yours (and you are free to change).

so, just like I said at the beginning of this piece – if you want to have a big impact on your strokes and indeed your tennis game as a whole, it is very very simple – start watching that ball.

START WATCHING THE TENNIS BALL TODAY!

About the Author: For the other 4 fundamentals plus lots of FREE Reports and tips go to http://www.tennisinfoproducts.com

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See the rest here: How Nadal and Federer Use the 5 Fundamentals of Tennis Technique to Rule Tennis

Ping Pong is a simple game that everyone can play. Because of the fact that it doesn’t demand as much as other sports do, ping pong is very popular. You can play it in any weather, indoors, and you can also play it with minimal space.

Playing ping pong doesn’t require you to be very fast on your feet or strong, you just need to have a good stamina, good reflexes and the ability to think fast.

To start playing ping pong, the first things that you need to have are the equipment. You need to have a ping pong table with a net, a ping pong ball, and two paddles. To keep score, simple pen and paper will do the trick. Or, you can try hanging a white board with a marker on the wall near the ping pong table.

Aside from the basics, you will see that ping pong is an inexpensive game. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on accessories as you will just need clothes and pants that can let you move freely and shoes that are comfortable to wear. You can simply pick out anything that is inside your closet that is comfortable to wear and can let you move freely.

When it comes to your physical fitness, you don’t have to be a star athlete in order to play ping pong. If you can climb a flight of stairs without wheezing when you reach the top, then you will have no problems playing ping pong.

To play ping pong effectively, you will need to have quick reflexes, good balance and agile wrists.

You need to have fast reflexes because ping pong will require you to hit the ball with your paddle back and forth between you and your opponent at a very fast rate until one of you misses the ball or makes a mistake. The wrists are also a factor as it will be the one that you will move to adjust the angle of the paddle. This is what controls where the ball will go.

Also, balance is important as ping pong is a fast paced game. Although you don’t need to run fast to catch the ball, you need to know how to shift your body’s weight and balance quickly in order to adjust to your next shot.

Lastly, ping pong is like playing chess but at a very fast rate. You need to know what strategy you should do on your next shot in order for you to win. Placing shots where you want them to be will trap your opponent and let you prepare for the big finish.

These are the basics things that you need to know about ping pong as a beginner. By remembering these things, you will have everything that you need to start paddling away.

I played football from the age of eight years old until age twenty and then continued in bodybuilding to this day at the age of 45. Even though I look younger than my age and younger guys approach me all the time to play rugby or sandlot football my knees and hips just can’t take the abuse anymore. If you are like me and you still want to stay involved in sports a good way to do it is though sports collectibles and memorabilia.

I never thought I would get into it but there is so much available that there is literally something for everyone no matter what sport you are interested in. Sports memorabilia collecting can help fill your time with an enjoyable hobby and give you a diversion from the hassles of life.

Sports collecting can run from collecting football jerseys or collecting photographs for scrapbooks to collecting every possible item you can find about the particular sport, team, or player you are interested in. It is fun to put together display cases with jerseys, helmets, and game balls along with pictures from particular events. There are some accessories that you can buy to help you with displaying your sports collectibles as well.

Another easy to start collectible hobby is by collecting pins. Almost all sports offer collectible pins of their teams and they are actually one of the most popular segments of the sports collectible market today. Other popular pins are those that commemorate specific events like the Olympics. Collecting antique sports equipment, such as vintage baseball gloves and bats is also a hot item.

Collecting sports cards like baseball cards is still hot as ever of course and over the years these cards which started as a hobby for many when they were kids are now bringing in huge sums of money for the owners. Rare cards like those of Babe Ruth or Willie Mays bring in unbelievable prices.

NASCAR is another area that is super hot right now. You can find replica race cars, leather jackets, helmets, etc. My dad is a huge Jeff Gordon fan and has just about everything in existence with his name or picture on it. If you are into NASCAR check into this area of sports memorabilia, you will find an item for whatever racer you like.

Some other sports collectors keep items that relate to their individual recreational sport such as fishing or golf. There are categories that cater to everyone so you are sure to find your niche.