Tennis Moves

Nylon

2011-09-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Man-made filament used for racquet strings. It is not damaged by damp weather, and is cheaper and more durable than the gut it largely has replaced for all except the most high-ranked and/or well-heeled players.

NTRP

2011-09-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

National Tennis Rating Program, the simple but useful self-placement method of evaluating one's skill level. Its value is that strangers can find opponents more or less of their caliber. There are 13 categories ranging from 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, etc., up to 7.0, and each specifies clearly just what you must be able to do consistently to justify being in each category. A player just starting the game is rated 1.0. A highly skilled tournament player who has achieved USTA national ranking is a 7.0. A 4.0 player isn't at all bad, and a 5.5 player is very good indeed, and would be a contender at the highest level club or park championship.

The Universal Tennis Court

2011-09-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

The tennis court, which you can see below, makes a rectangle measuring 78 feet long and 27 feet wide for singles, 36 feet wide for doubles. The doubles alleys (on either side of the singles court) account for the extra width of the doubles court.

Figure 1

Getting caught in the net

The court is divided into two equal halves by the net, which is anchored to the netposts just outside the boundary lines that make up the court. The net is usually made of a soft, mesh material, and it customarily has an adjustment strap in the center. (Some public courts have steel nets; just try not to run into them!)

You use the adjustment strap to achieve regulation net height. The net must be 36 inches high at the center strap and 42 inches high at either side of the court. Unfortunately, nets with center straps at some public courts are about as rare as basketball rims with nets! Not to worry. You don't have to cut down your favorite stickball bat to substitute for the center strap. You don't really need a center strap. Just take a cloth tape measure and check the center height of the net. If it's below 36 inches, give the net some slack. Don't worry about the height at the sides. When the net is 36 inches high at the center, you'll be fine.

Laying down the lines

The baselines define the farthest end of the court on both sides of the net. The baselines (78 feet) are the same regardless of whether you're playing singles or doubles. (See Figure 1)

Right smack dab in the middle of the baseline, you can see a center line, which (as you may suspect) divides the court into two equal parts. The center line becomes important when you serve, which you can read more about in my other posts.

The lines at the longer sides of the rectangle are called the sidelines. The sidelines are the only boundary lines that differ for singles and doubles. The singles sidelines run parallel to and inside of the sidelines created by the doubles alleys.

Inside the court you find the service lines, which are perpendicular to the sidelines and parallel with the baselines and the net. The service lines are 21 feet from the net, and each service line is divided in half by the center line.

The service lines, the center lines, and the net create four distinct boxes on either side of the net, each service box measuring 21 feet long and 13 1/2 feet wide.

On each side of the net, the center line divides the service boxes into an ad side and a deuce side, which you can see in Figure 2. Your serve always needs to clear the net and land inside the appropriate service box when you keep score.

Figure 2

No man's land

2011-08-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

That portion of a court just about midway between the net and the baseline. The term, borrowed from military vernacular, depicts the area on a court where one ought not to encamp, because it's a hazardous position. A person standing flat-footed there is too far forward to take a ball comfortably on the bounce, but not far enough forward to be able to volley one effectively. He/she is often forced to play a half-volley, usually a defensive shot that is more likely to lead to a losing point than a winning one.

No ad

2011-08-26T07:57:00.001-07:00

A scoring system in which the first player to score four points wins a game. It is not necessary to win by a two-point margin, so if and when 3-3 (the equivalent of deuce) is reached, the next point decides things. No ad scoring shortens the playing time of a set.

Nicking the line

2011-08-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

Hitting a ball so that it comes as close as possible to landing outside the limits of a court, but actually, even if most of the ball has landed out, has had a tiny portion of it clip the line, which means the shot was good. It is the role of the linesman, peering along that line, to render decision, and it invariably subjects him/her to catcalls, whistles, and jeers from partisans in the stands, regardless of how far away they may be sitting, or at how poor an angle.

Getting the Point: Singles, Doubles, and Winning at Both

2011-08-16T02:58:00.000-07:00

You can play tennis in one of two formats: singles or doubles. Singles involves two players, one on each side of the net, playing against each other. Doubles is just what its name implies - you've got four people on the court with two people playing as a team against another two-person team.

Singles is a slightly more competitive and demanding game than doubles, for two reasons:

You get the intensity of one-on-one competition.
You have more court to cover all by yourself.

Regardless of whether you play singles or doubles, your goal is always the same; to win points. A point begins with a serve, which puts the ball into play. The player who keeps the ball in play the longest wins the point. How do you keep the ball in play? Read on...

Clearing the Net
The biggest obstacle that you face on the tennis court (aside from the temptation to reach for a drink after each point) is the net that divides the court in two sides - your side and the opponent's side. The first thing you need to do, no matter how goofy you may look doing it, is to make sure that any ball you hit makes it back over the net. If the ball doesn't clear the net, the point is over. You've lost it.

Officially, the net must be 36 inches tall at the center strap. But even though 36 inches may not seem very high, I assure you that sometimes the darned net looks as tall as the Great Wall of China.

Keeping the ball inside the ballpark
Tennis is basically a game of controlled power. Ideally, you hit the ball pretty hard and pretty far, but it must always land inside the lines (or court boundaries) to remain in play. If you hit a ball and it first bounces outside of the lines that define the singles or doubles court, you've lost the point.

One bounce only, please
Tennis would be a snoozer if all you had to do was clear the net and keep the ball inside the lines. The real degree of difficulty comes from this little kink: The ball can bounce only once on your side before you hit it. Of course, if you're standing at the right place at the right time, you don't have to let the ball bounce once before you hit it. But more than one bounce, and you've lost the point.

Causing the ball to bounce twice on your opponent's side wins you the point outright, which is called a winner. Winners are by far the most satisfying way to win a point. Cherish them for all they're worth.

Scoring more points
The winner of a tennis match is almost always the player who wins more points. You win points by hitting winners, or because your opponent made errors (that is, hit the ball into the net or beyond the lines). You lose points because of your opponent's winners and your errors.

In some cases, the winner of a match may have won just one single, solitary point more than his opponent. For example, when Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic met in the semifinals of Wimbledon in 1995, Sampras won with a grand total of 146 points to Ivanisevic's 145 points. At other times, the victor may have won dozens more points than the loser. That's the difference between a blowout and a nail-biter.

Tennis: The Sport for a Lifetime

2011-08-09T05:18:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, the United States Tennis Association (or USTA) ran an ad campaign promoting tennis as "The Sport for a Lifetime." This slogan wasn't just a catchy phrase thought up by some advertising genius - tennis really is a game that you can enjoy long-term, both as player and a spectator.

Here's a quick list to show you why I believe that tennis can be the sport for a lifetime, for almost everyone:

You can play tennis at any age, even competitively, without killing yourself. If time and work haven't killed the weekend warrior living beneath your placid exterior, you can compete in organized tennis tournaments and league matches at virtually any age, at almost any skill level.
You don't need 17 other people with their own mitts to play a game. Unlike a sport such as baseball, you need only two people, a ball, and two racquets to play tennis. Of course, if you do have 17 other people who want to play tennis with you, then fine - you can get a great tournament going. But you may need a few more balls!
You don't need a whole bank full of money to play tennis. Although tennis can be expensive, it doesn't have to be so. If you want, you can spend all day at the public courts without spending a nickel on anything other than some sunblock and an occasional soft drink.

Because tennis can be a cheap game to get into, people from all kinds of backgrounds can get interested in (and get really good at) the game. Tennis isn't just a game for people who can afford to pay 100 USD a pop for lessons. In fact, some of the greatest players in history had pretty humble beginnings: Andre Agassi's father worked as a doorman at Las Vegas hotel; Jimmy Connors's father was a bridge operator on the Mississippi River near St. Louis; Steffi Graf's father was a used car salesman; Tony Trabert's father took out loans so that his son could take trips to compete in national junior tournaments; and the great Pancho Gonzalez grew up poor in the Latin barrio of Los Angeles, dropped out of school to further his tennis game, and became one of the game's all-time champions.
Tennis brings people together. No, I'm not getting all sentimental on you - in tennis, people of different ages and genders can match up well as partners. In tennis, you can find yourself in a spirited mixed-doubles game along with your spouse, your grandson, and your daughter-in-law, for example. The only thing you may have to worry about is initiating a family feud.
Tennis is great way to keep fit. Tennis has a high fitness rating, and you can dial in the degree of workout you want.

Net judge

2011-08-04T05:20:00.000-07:00

A tennis official who hasn't much to do. His job is to sit on a chair between the umpire's stand and the net post, keeping a finger or two on the top of the net cord on all serves, so as to judge officially whether a let ball should be called as the result of a service having nicked the cord, in which case he will feel the tremor on his finger. Since, when this happens, almost without exception everybody in the place realizes it happened, either because it's obvious visually, or the tick is heard, or both, the net judge is by-and-large an unnecessary official, and is more to be pitied than censured.

Net game

2011-08-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

The court strategy of a player who prefers to get up to net and stay there, instead of remaining in the backcourt. His instinct is to volley, so he tries to attain the best position from which to do so. It is the opposite of a backcourt, baseline game.

Net cord

2011-08-04T05:08:00.000-07:00

The white canvas band along the top of the net, which a low shot sometimes ticks and then sails over. During the play of a point, this is usually of no significance and play continues, but sometimes contact with a net cord produces so erratic a result that the ball is unreturnable. If a ball hits the net cord on a serve, and the serve lands in the proper box, a let is called and that attempted serve simply doesn't count at all and is retaken.

Moonball

2011-08-04T05:02:00.000-07:00

A ball hit extremely high in the air, like a lob, but not with the same offensive or defensive motives that inspire, or force, a lob. A moonball is hit during a baseline rally with the intention of upsetting an opponent's pace and rhythm, to possibly precipitate an error or a weak return shot. Moonballs are often answered with return moonballs, that being a rather safe way of circumventing danger, and when that happens and perhaps continues, the whole affair seems to degenerate, and the gallery starts whistling.

Monkey-on-my-back

2011-08-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

A jinx, involving a streak of defeats by a certain opponent. The term is not exclusively tennis's, but it belongs in the lexicon of tennis perhaps more than in any other sport. When players finally defeat opponents who have consistently been beating them over a long period of time, they are likely to claim, "I finally got the monkey off my back." (Maybe they did, and maybe they didn't. The next few matches will tell).

Mixed doubles

2011-08-04T04:45:00.000-07:00

A doubles game in which a male-female partnership opposes a similar pair. Under most conditions it's a pleasant form of tennis, but it is felt that a substantial portion of divorce lawyers' business stems from husbands and wives deciding to partner each other in their community's mixed doubles tournament.

Minibreak

2011-08-04T04:43:00.000-07:00

The loss of a point by the server at any time during the tiebreaker. It will cost him the set if his opponent then manages to win his remaining serves.

Midsize Racquet

2011-08-01T04:38:00.003-07:00

A compromise-size racquet head. When the oversize was developed a few years ago, it clearly had advantages over the traditional racquet's smaller racquet head, but so many nondescript players liked it that better players tended to be supercilious about it, and were reluctant to take it on. Then the midsize came into being, larger than the one but smaller than the other, and it has become the favorite of most of the tennis world.

Match point

2011-08-01T04:38:00.001-07:00

That nervous moment when the player who's ahead can win the match by winning one more point. The one who is trailing gains a reprieve if he scores instead, thereby “saving a match point.”

Match

2011-08-01T04:37:00.001-07:00

A tennis contest. Most matches are best-two-out-of-three affairs. That means that one has to win two sets to win the match, regardless of whether it's the first two in a row (in which case a third set is unnecessary), or the third set in case the first two sets are split. In the very biggest and most important men's tournaments, like the four Opens, matches call for greater stamina, since they are best-three-out-of-five contests, which may be decided in three sets but which may extend to the full five. Matches of more than four hours' duration are not at all uncommon, and some have gone more than six hours.

Low-percentage

2011-08-01T04:36:00.005-07:00

Choosing shots that are unnecessarily risky. Admittedly there are situations where a player simply must take a chance and risk trying what would normally be a poor choice of shots, but on the whole, steady players – those who only attempt the low-percentage shot when occasion demands it – come out on top.

Love

2011-08-01T04:36:00.003-07:00

A score of zero. When a player has not won any points, or games, or sets, the word “love” is used to indicate that fact. For example, one player may lead another fifteen – love in a game, or three – love in a set, or may have won a set six – love. It is claimed that the word derives from the French word for egg, “l'oeuf,” which would seem to ally it with that other piece of sporting vernacular, “the old goose egg.”

Loop

2011-08-01T04:36:00.001-07:00

A feature that is part of the stroking technique of some players. The loop sometimes is incorporated into the backswing of a serving motion. It's also a name used for a basic shot that is stroked from a point very low down, with the racquet head coming up extremely sharply and the wrist turning over during the course of it. This produces a topspin shot.

Lob

2011-08-01T04:35:00.004-07:00

A tennis stroke that lofts the ball. A lob is usually an attempt to clear the reach of an opponent whos is at the net, and if the lob is too short or too low, it presents an easy put-away for one's rival. A simple, uncomplicated lob back to one's opponent's baseline can be either an offensive weapon, or a defensive play when you re hard-pressed and need to gain time to get back into position. The lob is used more often in doubles than in singles, and the most skillful and satisfying lob is a topspin one, which requires a particular deftness of touch, and which is definitely an offensive weapon.

Lingering Death

2011-08-01T04:35:00.002-07:00

Slang for tiebreaker.

Linesman

2011-08-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

The officials who determine if a shot has struck safely within a line, or is out. They haven't gotten around yet to calling a linesperson, but they certainly should because a great number of them are women. Actually, regardless of sex, it is one of the worst jobs in the world. If you do it perfectly, no one notices or thanks you for it. On the other hand, you've a very good chance of being subjected to vilification if you make a call that one of the many bad actors on tennis circuit these days doesn't like. What's more, a conscientious linesperson glues his/her eyes to one particular line, and can't ever really relax and enjoy watching the match.

Let

2011-08-01T04:34:00.005-07:00

A shot or a point that is not scored and should be replayed. The most common form of let is a serve that ticks the net, or even hits the net cord, and lands in the proper receiver's box. A let point is also called occasionally when something that is nobody's fault interrupts or distracts play, such as a stray dog running across court, or an earthquake.