Customer Reviews

Racquetball Fundamentals (Sports Fundamentals Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

It seems to be a really good book, specially for beginners who are worried about how to grasp the racquet, where to put the feet on the field, where to stand in order to be able to reply the ball. If you want to begin with "school" read this book to have a nice style at playing.

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.

I am a beginner at the sport and this book offers great insight and instruction on each aspect of the game.