If you are considering one or a two-handed backhand either as a tennis beginner or an advanced player, then you are probably trying to figure out what are the pros and cons of one and two-handed backhand.

In my experience, most children learn a two-handed backhand very quickly.

They are still weak for a one-handed backhand and can still develop good feel on the non-dominant side.

Adults learn a one-handed backhand faster since they are stronger and their non-dominant side improves slower.

The reason why I mention non-dominant side is because when you hit a two-handed backhand (right-hander), you need to drive forward mostly with your left hand.

You can improve the feel of the non-dominant arm with this simple drill for a two-handed backhand.

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After you have learned the basic tennis serve technique and have become quite consistent you feel the urge to really whack the ball and send a rocket towards your opponent.

You try to hit the ball hard, use all the strength in your body and somehow the serve just doesn’t seem to respond to your efforts.

In fact, it seems that it’s going even slower now. ;(

Here are 10 tips to help you serve faster:

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Did you ever wonder why a tennis serve is the way it is?

Why do all the pros serve in a similar way?

The picture below gives you a little clue…

A tennis serve has these certain movements because they are the CONSEQUENCE of what you are trying to achieve. (more…)

Q: Since three weeks I am training (again, after an interruption of some months) with a good tournament player.

He is telling me exactly the same as you did before!

I tried today to focus only on the ball and the game. The improvement is stunning!

A: Yes, I tried to make this clear in the “How to Play Tennis” bonus videos.

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It’s much easier to learn tennis technique if you understand where it comes from.

You don’t have to swing at the ball in a certain way just because coaches, players, books or “How To Play Tennis” videos tell you to do so.

If you just listen to that advice you can of course develop good tennis technique and strokes.

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How do you handle a top spin kick serve ?

Do you stay further back or take it before the ball bounces high ?

How do you take the ball on the rise ?

Yes, you can do it both ways - either go back and wait for the ball to lose some spin and speed and drop lower to a more comfortable hitting zone OR hit the ball on the rise, before it gets to high. (more…)

Hi Tomaz! I just ordered your videos today.

I have one question for you: do you lift or swing your racquet to the contact point?

Many thanks!

If I understand you correctly, then I would say that I swing to the contact point.

You would need to lift the racquet to the contact point if you started the forward swing below the ball.

The problem with that is that the racquet has no speed when it starts to move upwards. You start from zero speed.

But when you prepare with the racquet head up, then you just let go and the gravity pulls the racquet down and eventually it has to go up because that’s natural for your arm.

It will swing upwards.

Note that the feeling of moving racquet forward is similar to pulling since you initiate this movement with your legy, hips and whole body and you arm is the last segment of this kinetic chain.

I recently had a very interesting tennis lesson with a 10-year-old girl.

She never played tennis before and it’s been quite a while since I taught someone with no previous experience with tennis.

She was an extremely good learner and learned lots of technique and footwork in her first tennis lesson which lasted 2 hours.

I thought it would be interesting to document what she learned in 2 hours and how a coach needs to adapt to the player’s learning abilities.

For a full article go to “What a 10-Year-Old Tennis Beginner Learned in 2 Hours”.

There were a lot of very interesting and correct answers in the original quiz question “How do you know that you hit a top spin?”.

If we make a summary of your answers and differentiate between what is the proof of [tag]top spin[/tag] and what a possible indicator is, then here are my tennis thoughts:

First, we have 5 senses through which we perceive outer world: sight, hearing, feel, smell and taste.

So obviously we cannot smell or taste a top spin shot , but we can see it, hear it and feel it.

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I recently had a tennis lesson with an 11 year old girl in the tennis academy and we were working on top spin.

She was hitting sometimes with lots of spin and sometimes too flat.

So then I asked her: “Was this a top spin?”

She: “Yes.”

Me: “How do you know?”

She: no answer…

She knew that she hit a top spin backhand but she couldn’t explain to me how she knew.

2 days later I had a lesson with an adult advanced recreational player.

At one point, I asked him again: “Was this a top spin?”

He: “Yes, sure.”

Me: “How do you know?”

He: paused for 10 seconds then told me one thing right and two things that were not exactly necessarily true.

I realized that something what may be obvious to a tennis coach studying tennis for 20 years is not so obvious for a tennis player who hasn’t spent countless hours THINKING about tennis.

So here is a quiz question: How do you know that you hit a top spin?

Test your knowledge and reply in the comments box below.

The correct answer will be posted on Friday, 22nd of June here on the blog and in the next issue of the TennisMindGame.com newsletter.

You can check the past issues of the newsletter here.