Ranting of a Tennis Player

So this is the last semester I can take tennis at FLC for credit, I decided to take the night class this time for a couple of reasons. I wanted to play under the lights, and one of my coworkers was taking it, so I thought I could help her if she was having trouble. I also thought it would be kind of nice to see what another instructor is like.Well I never knew how different another instructor could be. In the morning class we would start the semester by trying to hit the ball straight, then move onto hitting it over the net, followed by hitting it in play. We wouldn’t start serving until about two months in.

With this night class, the first thing he teaches is the serve. While it’s true that you can’t really start the point without the serve, it’s also true that if you can’t hit any ground strokes, you’ll never win a game. If you’re really desperate, you could always hit a ground stroke for your serve, but it would be easier to return.

That being said, it takes a lot of fun out of the game for someone who has never played before, and is taking the class to have fun with a new sport. The girl I was taking the class with ended up dropping after about a month because she wasn’t having fun at all. Our instructor kept using her as an example to all the new players of what not to do.

I had my own problems with him. I’ve been serving the same way for about a year and a half now. I bend over while I bounce the ball, then slowly look up at  my oppenent. I toss the ball kind of low and forward, then I uncoil and spring into the ball. This causes my server to be faster and stay lower than my old serving style of standing straight up.

Through the course of the class so far, I’ve learned to use an easier serve for most of the game, but in “green light” situations, I can use a stronger, lower percentage serve. The problem is that during our warm-ups, he came over and told us that this was a time to try stuff we wouldn’t normally do in a match. So I proceed to go to my crouch, thinking I can work on that serve at least a little bit. Right when I bend over he stops me and asks me what I’m doing.

Basically he’s trying to change my entire serve to fit his standards. All I want to do is play the game how I’ve been playing it for two years. To me, he seems like he might be a decent coach on a one on one interaction, but he’s way too strict for a class, where over half the people have never played, and want to enjoy tennis as a recreational sport, instead of a “pro or bust” mentality he seems to have.