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.