Play Better Tennis in Two Hours (Paperback)

by Oscar Wegner (Author), Steven Ferry (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Oscar is a great coach. In a few days he helped me regain my strokes and my feel for the ball."-Bjorn Borg, 5 time Wimbledon Champion, 6 time French Open Champion."

Product Description
Known as the "father of modern tennis," Oscar Wegner singlehandedly revolutionized coaching with the proven methods he now offers in this comprehensive guide, Play Better Tennis in Two Hours. This surefire system, practiced and endorsed by tennis legends such as Bjorn Borg and Bud Collins, will have beginners playing competent tennis in no time, while helping advanced players to break bad habits and learn the new methods used by professional players.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press; 1 edition (November 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071437177
• ISBN-13: 978-0071437172
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #110,043 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Summary Start, February 5, 2006

By	R. Spell "raspell" (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I've played tennis for years and now play at a fairly high level. Always looking for the silver bullet to help my game I'm a sucker for any new books with a different angle. I would rate this book close to the tops of those but it still suffers from a significant issue: how to write a book for all levels of tennis.

The basic premise of this book is do what your body tells you and don't overanalyze or over-instruct. In this respect the book is very good and gives numerous examples including pros on why this works better. Also, it approaches the basic learning from this thought process. I would recommend this book highly for beginners as it has very simplistic initial tasks to help the beginner and they sound quite helpful.

Therefore I recommend this book but don't believe it to be the silver bullet that will make you a star.

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Destroy false miths!, June 12, 2005

By	TenArch (Seoul South Korea) - See all my reviews

Many people think tennis is a very difficult game to get to the level of enjoying. The biggest reason is that most coaches teach the wrong way to play. When we see the tennis tournaments in TV, pros are playing differently from what most coaches tell amateurs to do. Stance, running, backswing, arm bending, weight transfer, follow-thru finish... This is the point where Oscar Wegner focuses on, and I totally agree with him.

Amateur golfers are taught the very similar way to what pros are trained by. Compared to tennis lovers, Weekend golfers are well aware of theories of swing technics and physics.
The harder you are trained with wrong method, the hardlier you can advance to high quality tennis. I have played tennis for 34 years and I believe that the right concept is 70%, training is 30%.

I examined many books and videos on tennis and many of them gave me useful but functionally limited tips.
Oscar's book and videos destroyed the shell of miths and made this lovely sport more lovable.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If I started my tennis lesson this way......, November 9, 2006

By	Dawson Lin "Swordmaster" (Taiwan) - See all my reviews

This book is all about the so called Wegner method of learning modern tennis. You can see from the start that this method is somewhat different from the traditional way of learning tennis.
I myself started play tennis from 10 years old, trained all the way by the traditional method of course. I didn't play very good, just an average college level player. I have become a partime coach for some kids recent years which made me started to look for new coaching materials. And something I found making sense is this Wegner method.
From my traditional training, I doubt this book at first, maybe like a lot other readers who are trained by traditional methods. But after some thnking and trying, I found some new concept and the best of all....it works!!!
Not only can I use this on my teaching tennis to some great result on kids, my tennis had improved amazingly after I adjust my concept of play. And, I found out that I play more and more like the PROs...such as Federer!!! I remembered in the old days that I had asked my coach:" Why is Agasii amd Sampras played different from us, and different from what you taught us?..." I was scolded by the coach:" BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT AGASSI!!!" Now I know everyone can play the way the top pros play, it is just the concepts, not your physical diffenrence!!!
But, there are still some weakpoint in this book that makde me ranked it at a 4 stars rather than a 5 stars. The concepts are good but the description is a little misleading. Mr.Wegner tried to opposed the traditional way too much that sometimes he overexagerated his point. Which lead to some misunderstanding. For example, he keep exagerated the point " don't prepare too early"...whick is misleading in my point of view. What he is really trying to say is "prepare early, but do not take your racket back too early"......And if you try to practice by this misconcept, it will be a disaster...
If I started my tennis lessons this way(the correct concept way of course), I think maybe you would have heard my names in some grand slams, HAHAHA.....
Since I am too old now, I tried to teach some kids with these concepts , and now there are a lot of good and happy kid players in my team. I appreciate this book and this method. Think first and try this, you will like it!!!