Play tennis with your hands

Tennis is based off of an older French game, called "le jeu de paume,"  which in English means "the game of the hand.  In order to improve your game or learn how to play the game from scratch, I highly recommend mastering biting all your strokes "sans raquette," which in English means "without racquet."  The reason this is vital to your success is because whatever you are able to do technically with just your hands will simply be repeated once you place your racquet into your hands. Plus you will increase your hand's sensitivity to the stroke in question, which develops better touch and feel.  Hand-eye coordination will also be drastically improved.

As a tennis professional, refining technique by having students make technical corrections with just their hands (I use the 10 & under orange balls for this regardless of level) gives students a better understanding of what their body is doing on a given stroke.  It is also a sure fire way to get young kids to master the continental grip for volleys, serves, overheads and slices.  And, as mentioned in the first paragraph, your student is learning touch and feel because there isn't a racquet to death grip.

Remember, any stroke on the forehand side, overheads and serves are struck with the palm side of the hand.  One handed backhand strokes are struck with the knuckle side of the hand, while two handed strokes should be struck with both the palm side of the non-dominant hand and the knuckle side of the dominant hand.

As players improve improve their ability to play tennis with their hands, more and more movement, and more precise targets can be used. You can even play fun mini-tennis games using only your hands.

So bring the game back to its basic core - the hands - and see your game go to the next level and beyond!