Tennis Basics for Beginners

Tennis if you have ever realize, it is what can be called a fairly basic sport.  Because of this virtually everyone can learn how to play successfully, the hard part is the physical aspect.  In terms of how the game is actually played, there are some basic guidelines that will allow you to play successfully without feeling as if you are lost.  Even if you are not interested in playing but merely watching, having an idea about what is going on and why will give you a much better understanding of the tennis game overall.

The first thing to know is that tennis involves playing with at least 2 people, sometimes 4 if you are playing doubles and the equipment that is used is a tennis ball, tennis racquet and a tennis court.  For each individual player there is also tennis shoes and of course suitable tennis clothes.  Otherwise, there is no other equipment that is needed.  This makes it a sport that is fairly light to play, unlike football, which has a large amount of heavy equipment that is involved as well.

The tennis court that is used must be a regulation court.  This ensures that the overall size and maintenance are all the same so that games are not lost or won based upon the position of a player on a court.  The net goes in the center of the court and on each side there is a service line that runs parallel to the net.  Further back on the outer edge of the court there is another set of parallel lines with one on each side of the net, this is called the baseline.  This is typically where players start playing.

Along the side of the court are lines that mark the outer edges, and these edges are called the alleys.  It is important to understand the difference between singles and doubles now.  In singles tennis the alley is out of bounds and when a ball hits the alley it is immediately out.  However, in doubles tennis the alley is allowed to be used without a penalty.  This as you can imagine can cause a much different result in a doubles game than in a singles game.

To actually start the tame once you have at least two players you would need to serve the ball.  To serve the ball successfully you would be required to serve the ball into the other player’s side of the court and hit the service box on their side.  The service box is a small box on the left hand side of the court for each player.  There is a service box on each side and regardless of which player is serving the box must be hit during the initial serve.  Obviously, the ball should not just land in the service box, but it must bounce in the service box at least once in order for the serve to be considered good.  Otherwise the serve must be repeated.

Once the ball has successfully hit the service box, it is then the aspect of tennis that most people recognize.  That is the ball is to be hit back and forth across the tennis court until a player fails to hit the ball back across, or it hits the alley in a singles tennis match.  In order to score points you must not hit the ball into the alley and you must always hit the ball when it comes to you.  If you fail to hit the ball and your opponent has always hit it then you will not gain a point but they will.

Each time the ball is missed, it will need to be reserved, and for each time it is served the players will take turns serving.  This will allow both players to server equally during the game.  This is obviously the condensed version, which does not take into account specific scoring or even specific scoring strategies, but it gives you a good basic foundation of exactly how tennis is played successfully.