Tennis Singles Strategy: Common Mistakes and Solutions

Hitting cross court enhances positioning and consistency, making it a crucial strategy in tennis.

### Mastering Singles Strategy: Key Mistakes and Solutions
* 🎾 "When you are returning serve against a fast server, **stand farther back** to give yourself **more time to react**."
* 🏃 Hitting the ball cross court allows you to be in a **better position for your opponent's next shot**, as it requires **less movement** compared to hitting down the line.
* 📏 The length of the court is 78 feet, and hitting cross court, which is **82.5 feet**, gives you a **longer area to aim for**, increasing your chances of **consistency**.
* 📉 Many players fail to split step effectively, which can lead to them **getting caught out of position** as their opponent approaches the net.
* 🏅 To increase your winning percentage, aim to **hit higher over the net** during rallies, as this reduces the likelihood of **hitting into the net** and forces your opponent into **more errors**.
* ⚡ When approaching the net, executing a **split step** allows you to **react quickly** to your opponent's shot, making you **more balanced and agile**.
* 🗺 Positioning yourself opposite your opponent when they strike the ball will enable you to **bisect their potential shots more effectively**, enhancing your overall strategy.
* 🏆 Focus on hitting **down the line** when your opponent is at the net, as this often presents a **clearer opportunity for a successful passing shot** compared to cross-court attempts.

hey, it's Ryan over at Two Minute Tennis, and in this video, I'm going to share five common single strategy mistakes and what you should do instead. Please consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell, even share this video with a friend, as those are the best ways to support this channel. All right, mistake number one: you're playing somebody with a really fast serve, and you stand on or very near the baseline. You are allowed to stand as far back as you want against a very fast server. I'll do singles strategy clinics at the club where I coach, and you'll see players standing on the baseline, not able to react to this really fast 100-mile-an-hour serve, and they go, Oh man, they just have such a fast serve. It's almost like standing farther back didn't even occur to them. You'll be amazed how standing two steps back, two big steps back, gives you what feels to be twice as much time to react to the serve. Yes, this can give your opponent a chance to serve it out wide, but in my

experience. Most recreational players have a better flat serve than they do this slice out wide. And also, people with a fast serve, they want to show that they've got a fast serve. So even if you move back, they might actually take that as a little bit of a challenge and say, Oh, you think you're going to stand farther back? Well, watch this. And they start hitting it even harder, and then their percentages go down, they get frustrated, and you win that battle. So don't stand on the baseline when your opponent has a really fast serve. Stand two steps back, give yourself a lot more time, and your winning percentage will go way up. All right, mistake number two: hitting the ball too low over the net in a ground stroke rally. What I suggest to my students who take single strategy classes with me is to be the person hitting higher over the net on average compared to their opponent. So if you're playing someone, and let's say you have an opponent who you typically lose to, or it's always like a 50-50, right, it's

like a coin flip. I want you to go out the next match, and I want you to say, Okay, I'm going to hit higher over the net than I typically do. A couple of things are going to happen. Well, you're going to win, but a couple of things are going to happen. First is you're going to hit the net less. The net is the most common mistake players make. There are four places to miss: you can miss in the net, left, long, and right. The net accounts for the highest percentage of those mistakes. The second thing occurs when you hit the ball higher over the net: you hit the ball deeper. See, the higher you hit the ball, the longer the ball travels before it bounces, and all of a sudden, you're making your ball land very deep. We learned from Craig O'Shaughnessy that depth is the best way to force an error, and hitting low over the net is not going to allow you to hit deep. Hitting higher over the net will allow that. So, just kind of feel the situation when you're playing.

when you and your opponent are behind the baseline, try hitting the ball higher over the net than your opponent. On average, you're going to hit the net less, you're going to hit the ball deep, and you're going to force a lot of errors from your opponent. All right, single strategy mistake number three is hitting too many balls down the line from behind the baseline. Let me show you this. A couple of things you need to make sure that you are standing opposite your opponent when they are striking the ball. So, let's talk about this from a court positioning standpoint, and then we're just going to talk about this from a consistency standpoint. Let's say your opponent is standing here hitting the ball well. Being in the very center is actually not what you should try to do, but you should actually stand here. The center of the court is rarely the center of where your opponent can hit the ball. Your goal is to bisect where your opponent can hit. So, when your opponent is here, the best shot they can hit down the line.

is here, and the best shot they can hit cross court is here. So, we take our marker, and we just draw a straight line down the line and a straight line cross court. And all of a sudden, you see if we bisect this, that standing here is equidistant to those two shots. The reason this line is cutting in is because you want to run perpendicular to the path of the ball. Many players win the ball, by the way, this is a knight. We could make this tip number six, but when the ball goes cross court, many players run this way. They run laterally, or they run, let's say, parallel to the net. You want to run in at an angle and cut it off at an angle. It's actually the shortest distance to get there, and oftentimes, going straight across the baseline just gives the ball a chance to bounce a second time. We got to get that ball in one bounce, so we actually want to go in at an angle. And knowing that we're going to go in at an angle, we need to bisect those two directions.

so we end up standing on the opposite side of the court. By the way, the same thing is true when your opponent is over there. It's no different. The way I explain this is simple. When you are at the baseline, it's almost like you're see-sawing. Remember that look, that ride, or that little thing in the playgrounds when we were little kids, and you try to balance it? It's the same thing. I call this see-sawing. When your opponent is on the left side of the court, you want to be slightly on the right. When your opponent is on the right, you want to be slightly on the left. So, hitting the ball cross-court, the whole point of this is hitting the ball cross-court puts your opponent on the opposite side as compared to where you're standing. So, you're already in position. Let's say I'm standing here and I'm hitting a forehand. I'm right-handed, and I hit the ball cross-court. Well, remember, I need to see-saw, so I only have to go to here.

in order to bisect where he can hit his best two shots down the line and cross court. So when I hit cross court, I only have to go to right there. If I hit the ball down the line and my opponent is here and then there, his best two shots are down the line and cross court. All of a sudden, I've got to go over here in the same amount of time. It's actually less time because it's down the line, which is a shorter distance, and I'm out of position. Hitting the ball cross court will mean you are in position more often and correctly in position for your opponent's next shot. And another reason you want to hit cross court is because it's a longer distance, so you'll be more consistent down the line. The length of the court is 78 feet, so the length of the court is 78 feet from corner to corner, though is 82 and a half feet. It's an extra four and a half feet longer. So if you hit the ball down the line and the ball lands three

feet long three feet. It would have landed a foot and a half inside the court. If you would just hit it cross court, it's a lower part of the net, which we already talked about. You should be hitting higher anyway, so that little extra height down the line shouldn't make an enormous difference since you're trying to hit higher anyway. But when you hit the ball cross court, you're in position more often, and you're going to be more consistent because the court is longer now. Tip number four has to do with when you are going to the net, and it's going to allow you to be more balanced and get to a wider range of shots that your opponent can hit. Here's what it is, very simply stated. When your opponent hits the ball short, and you come forward and hit your approach shot, it is vital that when you're going forward and you see that your opponent is about to make contact with the ball, that you split step. The split step is a tennis player's braking mechanism. You ever been driving a car, and you go a

little too fast around the corner. You take a wide turn. If you had hit the brakes a little earlier and a little more firmly, you would be able to make a sharper turn. Well, when we come forward to the net, it's really important that we can make sharp turns, whether it's to our right or to our left. If our opponent lobs us, we've got to go back. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So, if I'm standing here and my opponent attempts a down-the-line pass, I don't want to take a curved line to get there. It's going to take longer to get there than if I can just go in a straight line. And I can instantly in a straight line get from point A to point B. Well, that's the beauty of the split step. It's a slight breaking mechanism that allows you to go anywhere. I'll see players, they'll be running to the net, and they'll just keep running. And as the opponent is hitting the ball and they lob, this player is just running forward.

and they're just running. They're running, and they just look up, and they watch the lob go over their head, and they're just running to the net. You don't know where your opponent is going to hit the ball. Roger Federer doesn't know where his opponent is going to hit the ball. That's why he split steps. When Serena Williams comes to the net, she split steps because they can see that they just don't know where the opponent is going to hit. So, they become balanced, able to move in any direction. When you are going to the net, move as quickly as you want to, but as your opponent is about to hit the ball, you split step, feet wide, knees bent, on the balls of your toes, balanced, ready to go in any direction, and you're going to cover a lot more court at net. And the last tip I'm going to share with you in this video is when your opponent comes to the net and you are attempting a passing shot. So, you hit a short ball, your opponent comes in and attacks.

and now you're running over to hit a forehand. Let's say now I am a big believer in what's called the two-shot passing shot strategy. So, I think most players, instead of going for a pass, they should just hit it low to the opponent's feet. But in order to play your best tennis, you are going to have to go for passing shots. And here's the mistake I see all the time: players almost always attempt a cross-court passing shot when the down-the-line passing shot is wide open. There are a few reasons why I want you to go for the down-the-line passing shot more often than the cross-court. The first reason is because your opponent, when they come to the net in recreational tennis, usually is standing too much in the center of the court. Players don't always stand shading slightly to the same side you are on, and they should. They should be slightly on the same side. It has to do with that bisecting thing. Remember that angle we drew or the bisecting, and I drew that dotted

line right well that dotted line is on the opposite side at the baseline, but the dotted line is actually on the same side of the court at the net. It's called shadowing. So, at the baseline, it's called see-sawing, but at the net, you actually are on the same side as your opponent, and it's called what I call shadowing, where you're like a shadow and you go with them. Most players, most people you play against, are not going to stand in the correct spot when they come to the net. They're going to be too much in the middle. Well, you can see the short distance to the cross-court pass and the long distance to the down the line. So, right there, hitting the ball down the line is going to be a more successful shot. Now, remember, it's a slightly higher net, so you're not going to, you know, you have to hit the ball a little higher just to make sure it clears the net. It is a shorter distance, so you don't need to blast the ball, but the down the line will be the shot.

where your opponent is farthest away. The second reason I'd want you to go down the line more often is because the cross-court passing shot requires, in most cases, more skill. See, when you hit a successful cross-court passing shot, the ball typically lands in the service box. See, down the line passing shots, you have the entire length of the court. You have the entire 78 feet. Remember that cross-court distance, 82 and a half feet. You don't get to use that entire distance on a passing shot; otherwise, the ball actually goes right through the opponent on its way to the opposite corner. So, you end up having to dip the ball with heavy topspin into this short cord or what I call the side T, where the singles line hits the service line. And because of that, there's more skill involved. You got to be able to brush more, and because of that, most players end up hitting their passing shots into the doubles alley because they don't quite have the spin, they hit the ball too fast, and the ball lands in the doubles alley. The last reason I

want you to go down the line more often is because if you think about the previous mistake I mentioned how most players don't split step as I was asking you make sure you split step when your opponent doesn't split step they're just going to continue moving forward which just naturally runs into the cross-court pass they're just going to be keep coming in and coming in and coming in and it gets harder and harder and harder to pass them and all of a sudden you can't pass them across court down the line no matter how close they get to the net they don't get any closer to that down the line passing shot so let's go over this again when you are returning serve against a fast server stand farther back to give yourself more time when you are in a rally exchange back and forth with your opponent be the player hitting higher over the net and you'll hit deeper you'll hit the net less you'll force them into more errors when you're behind the baseline rallying with your opponent be the person hitting

cross court more often and do it a lot. Let your cross court ground stroke be your favorite shot to hit. You're going to hit the net less, lower part of the net, but also it's a longer area to hit into. So even if you happen to hit the ball a little farther than you meant to, the ball still lands in because you got an extra four and a half feet, and you're in position better for your opponent's next shot. When you go to the net, make sure you split steps so you can react to anything your opponent does. And when your opponent comes to the net and you're gonna try a passing shot, hit the ball down the line more often. You'll have a lot more success. Please be sure to share this video with your friends, family members, your teammates. The better we play singles, the more fun we have in general. Just I'll ask you don't send this to your next opponent because then it's going to be harder for you to beat them. This is Ryan over at twominutetennis.net.

5 Singles Strategy Mistakes...Do THIS Instead

2MinuteTennis

Improving Your Tennis Game: Key Strategies

Standing two steps back during a fast serve can increase your winning percentage.

Hitting the ball higher over the net in a ground stroke rally gives you an advantage over your opponent.

Shadowing your opponent at the net and hitting down the line can lead to more successful shots.

Common Singles Strategy Mistakes in Tennis

Hitting the ball higher over the net can reduce net errors and lead to deeper shots, forcing opponent mistakes.

Players should stand further back from the baseline to better react to fast serves, increasing their reaction time.

The split step is crucial when approaching the net, allowing players to maintain balance and respond to their opponent's shots effectively.

Mastering Sharp Turns and Court Positioning in Tennis

Making sharp turns is crucial in tennis, whether moving to the right, left, or back to the net.

The split step is an effective technique for transitioning quickly in a straight line, allowing players to reach the ball faster.

Proper court positioning involves standing opposite the opponent's hitting zone to bisect their potential shots, rather than aiming for the center of the court.

Split stepping is crucial for players like Roger Federer and Serena Williams to maintain balance and react to their opponent's shots.

When approaching the net, players should split step just as their opponent hits the ball to cover more court.

For executing a passing shot, running at an angle to bisect the opponent's possible shots is the most effective way to cut off the ball's path.

The Importance of Down-the-Line Passing Shots

Down-the-line passing shots are advantageous because they target the opponent's farthest position and utilize the entire length of the court.

Cross-court passing shots require more skill due to the shorter distance and the need for heavy topspin, often leading to missed shots into the doubles alley.

The player's positioning, or "see-sawing," is crucial, as hitting the ball cross-court puts the opponent on the opposite side, creating an opportunity for a successful passing shot.

The Importance of Hitting Cross Court in Tennis

Hitting cross court allows for better positioning and consistency, as it covers a longer distance and gives more time to react.

The court's dimensions make cross court shots more effective in passing opponents.

Additionally, hitting cross court can exploit opponents' movement, making it harder for them to intercept the ball.