Players who want to become great at tennis first need to be willing to learn, grow, and adapt. Use these coaching tips to improve your tennis game in the long run.

Prioritize Accuracy Over Power

A trap that is easy for tennis players to fall into is the temptation to focus on learning to make powerful shots and to do so quickly. Players who are behind in the score also make the mistake of increasing the energy on the court, even going so far as to waste valuable breaks due to the adrenaline rush.

Reigning yourself in to stop trying to hit the line in every shot and stop trying to get out the fastest, hardest serves possible allows you to spend more time practicing accurate and sustainable play. Instead of exhausting yourself quickly, allowing the momentum to build and preserving the ability to slow down allows players to keep their stamina.

Pay Attention to Your Opponent

A sign of a great tennis player is the ability to track and respond to not just the ball but also the opponent. Once a player can reliably reach and handle the ball, they should begin looking to their opponent and attempting to understand their play strategy during the game. Once the patterns and strategy are locked down, players can begin finding the holes in their play and begin scoring against them.

Watching an opponent also has an added benefit of learning from them, especially when they beat you. Much like in chess, noticing the play styles and pacing others use can help you grow your own game as well.

Use Quality Equipment

Playing with the right tools goes beyond using a great racquet. Players need a reliably maintained court and high-quality equipment to play their best. While playing with quality tennis court equipment familiarizes players with tournaments to come, the real benefit of playing on the best court possible is preventing injury.

Unmaintained clay courts tend to kick up dust, and improperly cleaned courts can cause unwanted slipping and injury. By seeking out a well-maintained place to practice, players can increase their confidence on the court and prevent injury from taking them out of the game.

These coaching tips to improve your tennis game are unlikely to produce instant results. Changing to high-quality equipment allows your body to adjust to playing with a focus not on where your feet land but on the game. Minding your opponents’ choices provides players a mental index of how they can adapt in the future. Prioritizing accuracy changes a player’s mindset from the immediate shot to the game as a whole. Each of these changes is a tool to practice implementing over time.