How to Play Against Everyone at Your Tennis Club

I love playing tennis. It's one of my favorite things to do. I can play everyday, and when weather and time permits I do just that. I also love to compete. I figure, if I have to do something, I might as well do it right.

I've been playing tennis for over five years now. I played one year on the high school varsity team and the rest in college rec clubs. I've grown a lot as a player, and I continue to grow as I play. Early on, I noticed that there were people that had better strokes than me, better racquets, and more training, but I could still even challenge or beat them. I wondered why I could do that. Then after some reflection i realized that I actually studied my opponents and changed my game to play against them.

You can do the same thing. Over the next few days I'll be giving you some tips on how to play against the types of players that you'll see on the court. The main thing to remember for all of these is to make your opponent beat you again and again with their worst stuff. Make them prove that the skills they have are enough to beat you.

Mr./Ms. Boom Boom

This is an explosive player. Their ground strokes are powerful and their serve can totally blow you off the map. Sometimes you're scared to blink because if you do you'll miss the ball.

A player like this can be very intimidating. But watch closely. You'll notice, especially at the club level, that explosive players like this are incredibly streaky. If a rally goes beyond four shots, they begin to fall apart. Defense probably isn't a strong suit, since they prefer to be the one forcing the action.

To play someone like this, give them room to hang themselves. Stand further back on the serve. Just get it back into play. And be sure to lunge for it no matter what. That will get into their head. When you get a second serve, attack. This will get into their head that they'll either have to take something off the first serve and hit a duck, or run the risk of double faulting. This works because most players like this don't have a middle ground. Either they hit bombs or sitting ducks at the club level.