3 comments

1. 

   Comment by jack on 05/31/2010 at 1:01 pm

   stick with it, practice.

2. 

   Comment by Ziel on 05/31/2010 at 1:48 pm

   Okay… the first step here is to calm down and take things one at a time. If you seem this panicky now, by the time you actually get to try-outs you’re just going to be a bundle of nerves and then you won’t be able to play well at all. So, take a deep breath, exhale slowly… now we’ll address some of the things you’ve brought up here.

   First, let’s look at the reality of the situation here. It sounds to me like it’s been 4 years since you’ve played tennis. I don’t care if you’ve become a world-class runner in that time or have lifted every single day during those years. You could be in the greatest shape of your life, but that isn’t going to help your game near as much as having actually played tennis that whole time would have. You are going to be rusty due to that break, and it is going to take time to get back to where you could/should be. The best thing for you right now wouldn’t be running or lifting. You need to actually get on a court and knock as much of that rust off as you can before the season hits.

   As far as tennis is concerned, running and swimming serve the same purpose. They will just help with your overall fitness and endurance. It sounds to me like the problem with running is your knee, not your endurance. So why run distance? Just count your swimming as your fitness/endurance training, because it’ll be much easier on your knee.

   Long distance running actually isn’t as important as being able to move quickly. There’s a huge difference. If you want to supplement your swimming with something else, then do some quick sprints rather than running long distance. Suicides or shuttle runs would be great, as they actually work on the type of movement you use in tennis. Back in high school, I was one of the slower people on the team when it came to running long distance. But I was one of the quickest people on the team when actually moving on the court.

   Lifting isn’t particularly necessary, and if you do it you have to make sure you do it right. The goal is to build lean muscle, not bulky muscle. You need to keep your flexibility, as that is much more important for tennis than pure strength. There’s really no benchmarks as to how many push ups and sit ups you ‘should’ be able to do. Just as many as you can. If you want to lift, then lift. As long as you’re doing it right, you won’t hurt anything by doing it. But at this point, I still think you’re time would be better spent on-court than in the gym.

   As for the clothing, yes, they usually do have the girls wear tennis skirts during matches. At practice, it doesn’t really matter what you wear. And when it’s cold out, even during matches, they’ll let you wear long pants so you don’t freeze to death. As for the snow, well, you’ll probably just have to wait until its gone. Until then, they may just do various conditioning activities. If you are lucky, your school could have an agreement with a local club so that the team can practice there during bad weather. This isn’t particularly common though.

   And one last thing: do yourself a favor and don’t pressure yourself about making varsity. Just go out there and play as best you can. If you play as well as you can and still don’t make varsity, you can’t be mad with yourself. Just means that there were other people who played better than you. Take the year on JV as an opportunity to get back into tennis. You’ll be in a better situation for making varsity the next year.

   Sorry about the long answer, but there were lots of questions in there. Good luck with tennis this year!

3. 

   Comment by Tormander on 05/31/2010 at 2:25 pm

   i’m a highschool coach for both the boys and the girls teams for a school in california. Trust me, to play on a highschool team (even varsity) you do not need to be able to run 3 to 5 miles. You do not even need to be able to run 1. You just have to be able to play 3 sets in a row which is way different than running cuz you have plenty of breaks in between. The most important thing to do is to work on your technique. You probably want to start watching the tennis channel as much as possible and focus on copying the pros technique and strategy at first then you can create something that works for you. At my high school, even if you start out on jv you can challenge your way into varsity by beating a player who is ranked higher than you so don’t worry if you don’t make varsity right away.
   As for your strength, it seems that you are stronger than most of my boys when they started because many of them couldn’t do 20 real pushups, but you might want to be able to do 3 sets of 30 sit ups. Your core is very important in getting power in tennis; it is probably even more important than your arm strength. To beat high school players (especially boys) consistency is the key. most boys try to smash the ball so often that they will end up making a lot of unforced errors causing them to lose the match. you want to have solid technique that is consistent even if it doesn’t have that much power. It is also a good idea to make sure you can get your serves in (especially your 2nd). you want to work on hitting a real second serve instead of just tapping the ball in.
   generally high school tennis isn’t that hard to get into (at least in the us). this is because most hs players start as freshmen in highschool. i’m guessin most of the new players won’t even know how to keep score. you’ll do fine.
   BTW all the tennis girls at my school in sunny california always wear “cute little tennis skirts” as part of a uniform for their match.

   let me know how it goes and if you need advice just ask me. tatripp@gmail.com

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