Good question! It’s simply because you can “feel” more sensitively during
competitive matches, and because you can enjoy more by improving your tennis
skills. Frequently, by trying to improve your skill, you experience a little
down fall in the point getting consistency for a while, but in a long
range(1-10 years), you’ll get more consistency than before with the new part of
the skill. It’ll take some time for your mind and body to absorb a new skill,
so you have to be patient and open-minded. Experienced coaches can tell you the
general direction you can go in selection of tennis skills.
We are often told that you are as good as
the following:
(i) average number of small steps between your
shots.
(ii) quality of
your second serves.
(iii) easiness
of your grip.
An easy goal for beginners is to be able to
complete the warm-up routine for a match in the following steps.
(i) easy/gentle volleys over the net
(ii) easy/gentle small court(service boxes) ground
strokes
(iii) baseline
ground strokes (always use 2 balls down the line for doubles)
(iv) volleys
and overheads at the net(one stays at the baseline and take turns)
(v) services. Warm up 1st and 2nd
serves reachable to an opponent so that he/she can stop.
I used to ask a lot of WHY questions on
tennis to my tennis friends/teaching pros. Questions(must be of your interest)
will help you to find your direction to improve.
Anyway, tennis is lifetime sports. So let’s
not worry about MINOR ups and downs within a few years.
Good Luck and let’s make big smiles in
hitting balls.