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Back in the 1960s, less than ten million people played tennis in the USA. In 1968, professionals and amateurs were allowed to compete together for the first time in open tournaments, sparking an explosion of interest and TV exposure for the game. By the late 1970s, close to forty million Americans were playing tennis.
At the beginning of 2000, industry figures show the number of players ranging between 16 and 23 million. Official figures from the United States Tennis Association show three times this number have left the game in the last twenty years.
How did this happen?
As unpalatable as it may seem, from incorrect instruction—tennis has been taught one way, while the top pros play in a completely different way.
When you watch a top tennis pro, you marvel at his ability to place the ball regardless of the power generated by the shot. You may also admire the player's focus, graceful moves, demeanor, attitude, will to win, and how he handles the power of the other player.
The skill level of these pros seems to be superhuman yet extremely simple and efficient. Tennis students have been led to believe they should not copy the pros, especially in the beginning stages of learning the game. But those top pros are so natural, why not copy their strokes?
One of the most frequent reasons people shy away from copying the top players is the consensus within the tennis teaching industry that this is an unreasonable proposition, that the pro players' style is only suited to the super-gifted, to those born with an unbelievable level of skill. They recommend that you only copy the top pros after you are good. This is nonsense. These pros are good because they started playing the way they play.
Shying away from the extreme simplicity of a top player's game is causing severe problems in the tennis teaching profession and in the popularity of the game.
And this is sad, because anyone can learn tennis quickly, and also reach a higher level by copying the best players in the world. In essence, you may be much more talented and have much more ability than you are credited with by conventional systems (or that you credit yourself with).
Tennis has been made too complicated. When focusing any player only on hand movement, I noticed the body coordinated itself naturally, resulting in the same fluid motions as the pros.
Just by adding very simple but specific instructions on how to stroke the ball, still focusing on the hand, players experienced an incredibly rapid rate of improvement. In the same way, you should expect to be a changed player after a couple of hours of practicing this fundamental truth.
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