Ground Shots in Tennis

Ground shots are the fundamental shots in tennis. If you have not grasped this in the most solid fashion you will not be able to go too far in tennis, assuming that, that is your goal in tennis. This is in contrast to what a lot of the players and coaches in this business believe. In this article I will expound on this principle of the ground shot. I will establish that the ground shots are the fundamental shots of the game of tennis and no amount of net charging or other tactics such as strong serve, is a substitute for them. The audience for this article is both the players and the coaches. Of course, I am talking about world class coaches and players. If you are not one of these, then you may play any which way like. You are then playing for fun and non-professionally and are not the intended audience for this article.

We shall call the ground shots as BASIC Shots to remind us of their importance and key function at all times.

Definition: A basic shot is a shot that you will hit from below the ad and duce court service lines on your side. If the ball is on the other side of the said lines then we will call it a Secondary Shot.

Remark : You must not ever miss a secondary shot unless it is forced. For if you do, you are making grievous errors and must examine your game. If you continue to do so you need help ( e.g., Marin Cilic and others when hitting the ball bouncing near the net, hit it long. There is no excuse for that!). More on the Secondary Shots later.

Now that we have our fundamental definitions in order I will establish the critical nature of the Basic Shot and hence that of the Ground Shots since all of the Basic Shots are ground shots.

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