Tennis! My favourite sport in the entire world! :D
It's great to play in summer! Even though it can get quite hot on the courts, its undoubtedly worth it.
There's so much thrill in playing tennis. The adrenaline rush of sprinting for the ball when your opponent hits a slice or a drop shot. The fun of playing with your friends and family, laughing about the game just played. And most of all, the thought that with every play your getting better than you were the shot before.
And with all the Australian tennis action on at the moment, its just so hard to not play it and learn from the professionals. In Australia, summer is THE season for tennis. There's 3 major Tournaments, the Hopman Cup in Perth, the Brisbane International in Brisbane, and the Australian Open in Melbourne. All 3 tournaments are played within the month of January.
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| World #1 in Men's Tennis at the moment, Rafael Nadal |
If you don't already know the basics of tennis, here a few things to help you get started :)
- The 2 most common shots are the forehand and backhand. Where with the forehand you stand with the opposite foot to your racket hand in front. With a backhand, you are on the opposite side to when you use a forehand shot and can either use one of 2 hands, swinging cross body (2 hands is easier for beginners as you get more control).
- The serve is the most important shot of the game. In a simple nutshell, to serve you
- start with your racket in your dominant hand and the ball in your other hand, with the ball on the racket in front of your body.
- swing your racket down past your toes, to where your almost touching them (to call it cutting off your toes)
- then bring your racket behind your back and throw the ball upwards in a relatively straight path (we say this is scratching your back and into the trophy position (as if your the player on the top of a trophy))
- then hit the ball with a slight downwards motion so the ball doesn't fly horizontally across court (:P)
3. When serving you want to hit it into the opposite service box from where your serving from (on the baseline).
Those a few tips to make the game a little easier :)
Hopefully they aren't too confusing :P
But anyway, tennis is a great and fun way to spend the summer outdoors being active, without running 10km or working out in the gym for an hour. :)
Plus, tennis in my opinion is a social sport, because you can have a good conversation whilst still playing the game and having fun :D
Have a great day/night :)
- Summer