Hey Kyle,

I feel like you’re playing more like a racquetball player, probably because you are mostly hitting on the wall. In racquetball, from what I understand, you don’t need spin and you don’t need to worry about keeping the ball in the court like you do in tennis.

I get that you want to improve fast and read from a post of yours that being 4.0 or 4.5 wouldn’t be enjoyable to you. I think it’s realistic that you could get to 5.0, maybe 6.0, but not in 6 months or a year, and imo, not by trying to skip past all the other levels.

There are people that can jump in and be 4.0-4.5 within 6 months, but those guys do it with their athleticism, not by actually having strokes like a pro. It’s about doing it the easy way, never overhitting, and starting with small strokes. it’s overlooked, those people look like they cheating, like the game is too easy, like they aren’t earning their wins, but they are. They can keep the ball in when they ball is hit hard at them, they can hit their approach shots with depth and accuracy, they can make their overheads and put them in good spots, and close off volleys. They basically have every shot in the book, just not flashy shots. So they jump to 4.0 or 4.5 maybe (if they are fit af), pretty fast.

It’s easier for me to go use the analogy of golf. Say there a guy who will go out and hit the ball as hard as he can, and when he hits it perfect, the ball effin flies. But most of the time, he is hooking or slicing the ball out of bounds, over and over... then, there’s this other guy, good hand/eye, but he never takes a bigger swing than what he knows he can. He can feel it. He’s not tight, he’s not pushing the ball, he’s just making clean contact over and over and keeping the ball in the fairway, chipping up, one or two putting. The first guy may say to himself that the first guy “isn’t really playing golf” or that “anyone can do that”, but the truth is, it’s very hard: it takes nerves, it takes focus, and it takes a lot of skill to execute a quality shot with different clubs and different lies, etc... the game isn’t about swinging your hardest, it’s about the contact.

I know this isn’t really what you asked, but I don’t know how else to describe it.

Anyways, what I hope you find out is that tennis is not just about how good you are, it’s about what it feels like. I’m not saying it is wrong to learn to hit by hitting hard, I’m more referring to you saying you wouldn’t be happy as a 4.0. What I hope is that you end up getting so much out of tennis that you can be a 4.0 and be happy with that, and then you’re more likely to improve because you will be more present.

I’m a good 15 years older than you, so I know this is kind of hard, but you gotta slow down. I mean that in two ways. Firstly, don’t look ahead and focus on being in the top 2% of all tennis players. And secondly, slow down your swing. Be the golfer that plays within themselves and is only appreciated by good athletes and makes it look too easy for the other people. Aim for more awareness... if you wanna hit it hard sometimes to keep that live arm, go for it, but develop some control, start way closer to the wall (“short court” style), and the move back slowly and keep the rally going 50,80, 100 shots. I’m not joking, I’m not exaggerating. 100 balls, forehands and backhands. Hit the pace that you can keep it going 30 balls, and then start over, and start over, and start over, and start over. That’s how you’ll get good. Trust me. Eventually you’ll be at a hundred quality rally balls.

If you want more technique specific advice, practice that way and post some more. It’ll be a lot easier to see what’s going on when they are less moving parts, so to speak.

Keep playing dude!