Racquetball Fundamentals (Sports Fundamentals Series) (Paperback)

by Jim Winterton (Author) "Play begins with the serve..." (more)
Key Phrases: ceiling ball, pinch shot, serve returner (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Head to the court and learn to hit that winning kill shot in no time at all! Racquetball Fundamentals will have you playing and competing while you master the basics of the game.

You’ll learn shot techniques for the forehand, backhand, serve, return of serve, passing shot, side-wall shot, and kill shot. You will also become more competitive with instruction on shot selection, court positioning, and footwork. Soon you’ll be winning your share of matches as you employ those techniques with the tactics taught for both singles and doubles play.

More than 75 drills and games will speed your learning and improve your performance. You’ll also gain a greater understanding of the game’s rules, scoring, etiquette, and safety.

Racquetball Fundamentals is a better way to learn the basics in less time. Use it now and get a step--and point--ahead of your next opponent.

About the Author
With more than 30 years of experience coaching athletes from the beginner to the elite levels, Jim Winterton is recognized as one of the best racquetball coaches in the world. He is director of the High Performance Racquetball Camp in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and has coached the U.S. national team for 12 years. During this time he has led his teams to five Tournaments of the Americas team crowns (1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2002) and three first-place standings in the Pan American Games (1995, 1999, and 2003). Winterton also served a brief term as coach of the U.S. junior national team before accepting the position of head coach of the Mexican national team from 1999 to 2001.

He has been named Racquetball Coach of the Year by the United States Olympic Committee three times (1995, 1999, and 2003) and was a Racquetball Hall Of Fame inductee in 1999. Winterton is coaching clinician for the International Professional Racquetball Organization and is a certifying instructor for the American Professional Racquetball Organization. He also runs a racquetball program at Gold’s Gym in Syracuse, New York. His coaching philosophy is simple: Practice makes perfect is not true; perfect practice makes perfect is true.

Winterton resides in Liverpool, New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Human Kinetics Publishers; 1 edition (April 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 073605233X
• ISBN-13: 978-0736052337
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #324,588 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Recommended, May 20, 2008

By	Julia Truchsess "Julia Dee" (Sandy Hook, CT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm an advanced intermediate player with 16 years' experience but due to a lack of players in my area I often find myself playing opponents with beginner-level skills. Because unsolicited advice on the court is not always welcome or easily absorbed, I'd like to have a good book on fundamentals to suggest or loan to my friends. This isn't it. It's wildly scattered, rambling, and self-contradictory, with poor diagrams and useless photos. It jumps right in with drive-serve lessons without talking about fundamentals of grip, posture, body position, shot mechanics or footwork. The most common mistakes of beginners (apart from failure to get back to center court) are not strenuously identified and singled out for concentrated attention: watch your opponent make his/her shot; do not chase the ball, let it come to you; do not hit anything bound for the back wall at higher than waist-height - let it go to the back wall; the ceiling shot (hitting it and returning it) is the most important shot in the game at this level; always face the side wall when making a shot; aim your shot with your feet and body; hit drives and kills from knee-ankle height, etc. These are mentioned in passing (no pun intended) at random places and for sure there are bits and pieces of good advice (like the purpose of a return is to move the server from center court) scattered throughout the book, but they're buried in so much drivel, contradiction, and occasional downright misinformation that a beginner would never be able to tell what's important at their level and what's not. Mr. Winterton may be a fine player and coach in person, and his dropping names of top-level players may be impressive, but giving this book to a beginner would be doing them a genuine disservice.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good entry level book, February 16, 2006

By	E. Yager (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book does a good job teaching the fundamentals and my game has improved since reading it. My only gripe is that I would have liked to have seen more diagrams in the book (particularly the chapters on serves and returns) rather than photos of players, in the book. Overall, good book for the money.

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Special, February 8, 2008

By	dh - See all my reviews

This book can often be confusing or long winded to get across points that should be simplistic. It will give you a couple beginning techniques, but did not provide the "best practice" advise I was looking for.