Customer Reviews

Tennis Today (Wests Physical Activities Series Line-Up)

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A good book for beginners and advanced beginners. Advanced players will already know most of the stuff mentioned in it - but may gain new perspective. I've been playing tennis for two years without having undergone any formal coaching (and have read this book only recently) - so I found out lots of useful, new stuff.

The 1-2-3-4 approach to explain each new kind of stroke/shot is novel and players would do well to follow it till the shots come effortlessly. It also serves to explain each shot by breaking it into four essential parts. There are enough illustrations to follow what is being described in the text.

In addition to describing different strokes, they tell you about the strategy part of the game - the mental game after you've practiced the physical part enough. I still haven't got good enough to put these strategies into practice, but it helps to have them at the back of your mind.

Drills for players of different levels are suggested. I found some of them pretty obvious drills (e.g. Serve and return drill is to have some person serve and you return it) while others were non-trivial to think of (e.g. Two Up-One Back Passing Shots).

The last few chapters discuss the non-play aspects of tennis - like diet, fluid replacement. I am mostly interested in playing the game (infrequently, at that), so I did not benefit much from reading these. People who are planning to take up tennis as a regular or professional activity should pay more attention to these topics.

Overall, I would recommend this book for anyone who has not taken any formal coaching in tennis, or for people who have not played much tennis. Advanced players would be better advised to borrow the book from somewhere and glance through the pictures and see if they find anything they think they are weak on and read only those portions of the book.