Tennis and Golf

Hello Marco Island tennis players and fans and welcome to Net Notes. Net Notes will be a bi-weekly column covering all aspects of the game from techniques to tactics, to rules and etiquette.

I was a full-time teaching pro in the northern suburbs of Boston from 1972 until 1998 when I was offered the position of Tennis Director at the Island Country Club, which I promptly accepted! As a full-time resident of Marco for the last 24 years, I know many of you and may have even given you a lesson at one time or another. I look forward to addressing your tennis questions in a future column!

Tennis and Golf have a number of similarities. The obvious one is that you strike a ball with a stick. Less obvious is that each game has multiple zones of play.

Golf has the tee shot. Tennis has the serve. 

Golf employs the approach shot to get to the green. Tennis has a mid-court area transition shot (sometimes out of the air, sometimes off the bounce) in order to get to the net position. 

Golf then has chipping or putting according to the quality of the approach. Tennis players must hit either a volley (out of the air) or an overhead smash once they arrive at the net position in order to win the point.

The big difference is that golf has 14 tools tailored to each situation a player may face from those three areas and a tennis player has only one!

When you are practicing tennis, be sure to spend equal time working on the three zones of the court:

1. The backcourt rally zone (playing off the bounce) and serving positions to build consistency and placement skills.

2. The midcourt transition area (No, it’s not a no man’s land) in order to steal reaction time and hopefully degrade your opponent’s balance.

3. The forecourt (net position) to cut off the response from the opponent and place it decisively away from them.

If you are struggling to execute successfully from one particular zone of play, spend double the time honing that areas skill set.

Become a well-balanced all court player and you'll present your opponent a tough puzzle to solve!

If you have any tennis questions on technique, strategy, tactics, or rules please forward them to hb10s@me.com and I’ll be happy to answer them in a future column.