Need help reaching the highest level possible in tennis

This post will be a bit long


To tell you my story in short, I am an adult male and I started playing tennis a few weeks ago.
Tennis totally obsessed me, and I started reading alot of internet, forums, youtube..


When I start something and it excites me so much, I really dedicate everything to that and I have the goal to reach the maximum level that is possible.

From my understanding tennis has various ratings from UTR1 to UTR16...and the highest level of recreational tennis is around UTR 11~ish, maybe max close to UTR12 I believe?
From what I read, the average recreational player will reach a level much lower than that and not even close to that.

I understand why this is the case, the majority who start tennis later in life simply do not have the time, money or the desire and passion so that tennis would be the main thing in their life and to be 100% devoted to it and do everything needed to really achieve a high goal.
Nor is it realistic to expect this because they have jobs, families, hobbies, friends..

Maybe 1 person per 10000 really has everything necessary to really realistically invest enough time, effort and everything to do everything systematically and even have the possibility to really reach the maximum level.
And even then, you need to be willing to make alot of sacrifices in life..to really have a shot..most are not willing to do that.




Some advantages I believe I have:


-I have no obligations and I have alot of time available.

-Money is not a problem for me.

-Willing to sacrifice things in life and make tennis my #1 priority.

-Unlike those who started 10, 20, 30 years ago, much more information and videos are available today on the internet, instead of needing to figure things out for yourself.

-I start from scratch and from the beginning I plan to start with coaching, so I will not develop and automate bad techniques.

-I have played a lot of sports since I was a kid and I am fairly athletic, I have good coordination and I quickly pick up things and compete well at various sports.

-Good physique for tennis (6'3, lean body and arms, lengthy arms..)

-Medicine, nutrition, training is constantly improving and gaining new knowledge, many top pro players are still playing high level performance in various sports at 34,35 or even close to 40s nowadays and keep pushing the age of peak performance as nutrition, medicine.. keeps progressing.

-I am still fairly young and I think that at 27 years age I still have enough of a time frame to have some chances to reach a fairly high recreational level or at the very least to at least to some extent reach a level that can somewhat compete with those high level players (Utr11-12)



Possible question mark:


I do not know how talented I am for tennis specifically yet because I have barely begun, I know that every sport is very specific and each person has different innate abilities and talents that are transfered better or worse to a specific sport and this will be very much a big determining factor of my maximum potential tennis level.




Two reasons why I opened this topic

I know that there are for sure a lot of high level of players here, and also a lot of high level recreational players here with a lot of experience that went through alot, so I ask you for two things:


1.In your opinion, depending on everything I wrote about myself, what UTR level do you think is my lowest ceiling assuming I do not have a lot of natural talent for tennis (although I will completely give my all and try to reach the max level in any case) and what UTR level do you think is my highest ceiling assuming I have a lot of natural talent for tennis.
I'm just interested out of curiosity, it does not affect in any way what I think, I believe that a lot is possible if someone really devotes to something with 100% and really works hard in something, and that a lot of things are seen as impossible until somebody does it


2. Assuming you have many years of experience and reached a good tennis level, and knowledge of past mistakes or new discoveries, from a similar goal as me or simply improving your tennis game, I would be very glad if you could write what would be the optimal plan to reach the highest tennis level as a long-term plan.
How to start, amount of coaching, amount of gameplay, what things are very important to do and how much, which are not so important, off court work how much and what… basically everything, a full proof best plan and schedule in your opinion to reach the max level possible in the long term.
Please do not spare with words, write as much as possible, I need the most information that I can get, the more the better.


RG
 

Erlang

Rookie
UTR 9-10 should be attainable if you are fairly athletic and put in enough effort. I know a guy who started even later and is now a decent 5.0

I started at 27 myself and I have somewhat realistic expectations to reach 4.5 NTRP. I'm 3.5 years in, and I am competitive with upper level 4.0 players in my neck of the woods. Dipping my feet at higher levels, I found that I can hold my own in rally games against better players but as soon as serving comes into the equation, I am easily outclassed. Maybe one day.
 
If you give it your all, you could reach UTR 9 or 10. But every poster who came on here with a first post like yours (and there have been tons of them) has consistently overestimated his ability, argued with posters about why he's special, and eventually gave up tennis before getting to a mediocre rec level. Having said that, if you still want to proceed, my advice is to find a tennis hotbed to play in and a coach who has a track record developing players who play at the level you want to reach. And never post again on Talk Tennis.
 

zaph

Professional
I hate say this but realistically starting as an adult will limit you. You can forget about reaching professional level, they all started as kids. Play it for fun but I would be realistic about the level you can achieve.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Please calm down. Jeeesus! Just relax man, come on here , have a seat. Can I get you something? A glass of water maybe? Hey hey, you’ll be okayyy, stop it. It happens. Now tell me, how long have you been hearing the voices?!
 
Wow a lot of posts..Thanks for so much interest in this topic, some posts are very useful.

However, no one has yet told the optimal long-term plan to achieve such a goal, how would he do it if he could start from the beginning with all possible means? What things are most important? What kind of systematic approach would you take?
 
If you want to achieve the highest level possible, don’t frequent this forum, get a coach and away you go

Why?

I mean I understand that working with a coach is the main thing and here at this forum I am not looking for technical advice, but I thought that as a tennis forum and as a subforum for tennis tips there are many good players here who may have gone through a similar thing and have some good advice/experience to share?
 

S&V-not_dead_yet

Talk Tennis Guru
Why?

I mean I understand that working with a coach is the main thing and here at this forum I am not looking for technical advice, but I thought that as a tennis forum and as a subforum for tennis tips there are many good players here who may have gone through a similar thing and have some good advice/experience to share?

Because you'll have to separate the wheat from the chaff: if you haven't been on the forum for a while, you won't know who is worth listening to and who to ignore.

My wheat/chaff opinion is to put a lot of emphasis on the 3Fs [Footwork, Fitness, Focus [mental toughness], and spacing]. However, remember that an opinion and $2 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
 
Wow a lot of posts..Thanks for so much interest in this topic, some posts are very useful.

However, no one has yet told the optimal long-term plan to achieve such a goal, how would he do it if he could start from the beginning with all possible means? What things are most important? What kind of systematic approach would you take?
Read my post, I explained the optimal long-term plan. As far as why you shouldn't stay on Talk Tennis, there are three types of posters on here. The first and most common type is the well-intentioned rec player who tries to give good advice but often isn't qualified to do so. The second type is the advanced player or professional coach who knows what he's talking about. This type is much rarer, and most of these guys no longer post here because they got fed up with it. The third type is the troll who has no idea what he's talking about and seemingly gives bad advice on purpose. The third type is as common as the second type. So rather than sort through all that muck, find people in person you know are qualified and go from there.
 

Wise one

Hall of Fame
This post will be a bit long


To tell you my story in short, I am an adult male and I started playing tennis a few weeks ago.
Tennis totally obsessed me, and I started reading alot of internet, forums, youtube..


When I start something and it excites me so much, I really dedicate everything to that and I have the goal to reach the maximum level that is possible.

From my understanding tennis has various ratings from UTR1 to UTR16...and the highest level of recreational tennis is around UTR 11~ish, maybe max close to UTR12 I believe?
From what I read, the average recreational player will reach a level much lower than that and not even close to that.

I understand why this is the case, the majority who start tennis later in life simply do not have the time, money or the desire and passion so that tennis would be the main thing in their life and to be 100% devoted to it and do everything needed to really achieve a high goal.
Nor is it realistic to expect this because they have jobs, families, hobbies, friends..

Maybe 1 person per 10000 really has everything necessary to really realistically invest enough time, effort and everything to do everything systematically and even have the possibility to really reach the maximum level.
And even then, you need to be willing to make alot of sacrifices in life..to really have a shot..most are not willing to do that.




Some advantages I believe I have:


-I have no obligations and I have alot of time available.

-Money is not a problem for me.

-Willing to sacrifice things in life and make tennis my #1 priority.

-Unlike those who started 10, 20, 30 years ago, much more information and videos are available today on the internet, instead of needing to figure things out for yourself.

-I start from scratch and from the beginning I plan to start with coaching, so I will not develop and automate bad techniques.

-I have played a lot of sports since I was a kid and I am fairly athletic, I have good coordination and I quickly pick up things and compete well at various sports.

-Good physique for tennis (6'3, lean body and arms, lengthy arms..)

-Medicine, nutrition, training is constantly improving and gaining new knowledge, many top pro players are still playing high level performance in various sports at 34,35 or even close to 40s nowadays and keep pushing the age of peak performance as nutrition, medicine.. keeps progressing.

-I am still fairly young and I think that at 27 years age I still have enough of a time frame to have some chances to reach a fairly high recreational level or at the very least to at least to some extent reach a level that can somewhat compete with those high level players (Utr11-12)



Possible question mark:


I do not know how talented I am for tennis specifically yet because I have barely begun, I know that every sport is very specific and each person has different innate abilities and talents that are transfered better or worse to a specific sport and this will be very much a big determining factor of my maximum potential tennis level.




Two reasons why I opened this topic

I know that there are for sure a lot of high level of players here, and also a lot of high level recreational players here with a lot of experience that went through alot, so I ask you for two things:


1.In your opinion, depending on everything I wrote about myself, what UTR level do you think is my lowest ceiling assuming I do not have a lot of natural talent for tennis (although I will completely give my all and try to reach the max level in any case) and what UTR level do you think is my highest ceiling assuming I have a lot of natural talent for tennis.
I'm just interested out of curiosity, it does not affect in any way what I think, I believe that a lot is possible if someone really devotes to something with 100% and really works hard in something, and that a lot of things are seen as impossible until somebody does it


2. Assuming you have many years of experience and reached a good tennis level, and knowledge of past mistakes or new discoveries, from a similar goal as me or simply improving your tennis game, I would be very glad if you could write what would be the optimal plan to reach the highest tennis level as a long-term plan.
How to start, amount of coaching, amount of gameplay, what things are very important to do and how much, which are not so important, off court work how much and what… basically everything, a full proof best plan and schedule in your opinion to reach the max level possible in the long term.
Please do not spare with words, write as much as possible, I need the most information that I can get, the more the better.


RG

I don't think anyone here is going to be able to help you. This requires personal instruction with a highly competent coach. Got dollars?
 

vex

Legend
Why?

I mean I understand that working with a coach is the main thing and here at this forum I am not looking for technical advice, but I thought that as a tennis forum and as a subforum for tennis tips there are many good players here who may have gone through a similar thing and have some good advice/experience to share?
Go read any post by TimeToPlaySets and you'll see why you shouldn't spend any time listening to these forums.

On topic, find a certified coach with D1 experience, bring enough money to pay for a Med school degree and devote all your time and diet to your efforts. It will take years and even if you have all the athleticism and you develop the skills you could still fail to reach even 5.0 if you're a headcase that can't handle pressure.
 
Average pro spent atleast 10 years to get to pro level. Your 27 now so roughly you would be 37. You still have time to reach atleast futures level IMO. If you were 100% committed and followed the best development plan. Keep in mind the development plan these pros go through is extremely serious and extremely expensive to get to those level. I don't think you can anyway shorten the process but good genetics will limit potential. I started tennis at 40 and I got to 5.0 level in 10 years. I am a coach now.
 
Last edited:
Sport Fanatic.

Your quote "I start from scratch and from the beginning I plan to start with coaching, so I will not develop and automate bad techniques"

You need to mix in "play/practice/play" from day 1. Don't think about technique in play situation, think tactically from start of your development.

Would focus on season and off season training scheduling. Lots and lots of matches during season. During off season lots of training and technical work along with matches. Having the right coach will help alot but I would suggest understanding the coaching process atleast the development process part, yourself to ensure you keep your coach in check.

The key ingredients

Money. LONG TERM committment/love of the game and Best development plan/coaching.

Talent is not a key ingredient but certainly will help with the other ingredients. Alot of pros are very average athletes just developed extremely well. Tennis is highly skilled sport and talent becomes less of a factor as compared to sports that require lesser skills.
 
Last edited:

Kobble

Hall of Fame
The main post question can literally be seen as loaded for the reason of, what is optimal? We are still trying to figure out what optimal is. On top of that, do you know how many hours it takes to learn skills? I can't literally remember how many hours I have spent watching recorded video, slow motion, live matches, reading articles, hitting on the wall, hitting with various people, practicing in a mirror, tennis video games etc. It is easily 1,000 hours total to get to about 4.5.

If you are talking about the maximum, you need a team of people.
Professional tennis coach - Like Brad Gilbert, Lundgren, etc.
Strength and conditioning - Gil Reyes, Kyle Pierce, Donnie Shankle. People who coach speed and explosive athletes.
Nutrition and PED doctor - You need a diet that works for you and a doping program.
Racquets - You need a racquet guru like Nate Ferguson.
Practice partners - Ones that are high level and vary in tactics.
Biomechanist/Physicist/Engineer - Someone who can get you the most up to date sport mechanics and applied physics. Someone who understands how multisegment pendulumns works and can explain it to you.

As far as just getting a good coach is concerned, or going to an academy. Those are meat grinders. The coach tells you what they teach and you can either do it, or you can't. No remembers the washouts.
 

leojramirez

Rookie
Train with a coach 3 times per week. Play people your level other 3 times per week. This might cause burn out though so make sure you take breaks when your mind tells you.
No proper competition for the first year at the least. Having friendly matches is fine.
Train conditioning, train your legs, cardio, balance, light weights.
My advice is the first thing you should do is get it into your head that consistency thumps power at the recreational level.
Within 2-3 years with proper coaching and if you take tennis like a religion you can make it to the 4.0 level probably. Probably a couple more years for 4.5 which is a good level where you enjoy tennis a lot if your not mental.
Anything above that is tough to say.
 
Another must, I forgot to mention is that you should start with using mixing in "progressive tennis" (red, orange, green balls)

This is not just for kids. It's proven to develop players faster including adults.
 

chetrbox

Rookie
If money is not a concern, go visit Tomaz Mercinger in Slovenia or Singapore or wherever he is. Get some lessons from him and/or ask him to draw up a long term plan for you.
 

dgold44

G.O.A.T.
This post will be a bit long


To tell you my story in short, I am an adult male and I started playing tennis a few weeks ago.
Tennis totally obsessed me, and I started reading alot of internet, forums, youtube..


When I start something and it excites me so much, I really dedicate everything to that and I have the goal to reach the maximum level that is possible.

From my understanding tennis has various ratings from UTR1 to UTR16...and the highest level of recreational tennis is around UTR 11~ish, maybe max close to UTR12 I believe?
From what I read, the average recreational player will reach a level much lower than that and not even close to that.

I understand why this is the case, the majority who start tennis later in life simply do not have the time, money or the desire and passion so that tennis would be the main thing in their life and to be 100% devoted to it and do everything needed to really achieve a high goal.
Nor is it realistic to expect this because they have jobs, families, hobbies, friends..

Maybe 1 person per 10000 really has everything necessary to really realistically invest enough time, effort and everything to do everything systematically and even have the possibility to really reach the maximum level.
And even then, you need to be willing to make alot of sacrifices in life..to really have a shot..most are not willing to do that.




Some advantages I believe I have:


-I have no obligations and I have alot of time available.

-Money is not a problem for me.

-Willing to sacrifice things in life and make tennis my #1 priority.

-Unlike those who started 10, 20, 30 years ago, much more information and videos are available today on the internet, instead of needing to figure things out for yourself.

-I start from scratch and from the beginning I plan to start with coaching, so I will not develop and automate bad techniques.

-I have played a lot of sports since I was a kid and I am fairly athletic, I have good coordination and I quickly pick up things and compete well at various sports.

-Good physique for tennis (6'3, lean body and arms, lengthy arms..)

-Medicine, nutrition, training is constantly improving and gaining new knowledge, many top pro players are still playing high level performance in various sports at 34,35 or even close to 40s nowadays and keep pushing the age of peak performance as nutrition, medicine.. keeps progressing.

-I am still fairly young and I think that at 27 years age I still have enough of a time frame to have some chances to reach a fairly high recreational level or at the very least to at least to some extent reach a level that can somewhat compete with those high level players (Utr11-12)



Possible question mark:


I do not know how talented I am for tennis specifically yet because I have barely begun, I know that every sport is very specific and each person has different innate abilities and talents that are transfered better or worse to a specific sport and this will be very much a big determining factor of my maximum potential tennis level.




Two reasons why I opened this topic

I know that there are for sure a lot of high level of players here, and also a lot of high level recreational players here with a lot of experience that went through alot, so I ask you for two things:


1.In your opinion, depending on everything I wrote about myself, what UTR level do you think is my lowest ceiling assuming I do not have a lot of natural talent for tennis (although I will completely give my all and try to reach the max level in any case) and what UTR level do you think is my highest ceiling assuming I have a lot of natural talent for tennis.
I'm just interested out of curiosity, it does not affect in any way what I think, I believe that a lot is possible if someone really devotes to something with 100% and really works hard in something, and that a lot of things are seen as impossible until somebody does it


2. Assuming you have many years of experience and reached a good tennis level, and knowledge of past mistakes or new discoveries, from a similar goal as me or simply improving your tennis game, I would be very glad if you could write what would be the optimal plan to reach the highest tennis level as a long-term plan.
How to start, amount of coaching, amount of gameplay, what things are very important to do and how much, which are not so important, off court work how much and what… basically everything, a full proof best plan and schedule in your opinion to reach the max level possible in the long term.
Please do not spare with words, write as much as possible, I need the most information that I can get, the more the better.


RG

Let me add a few things :

You have $$) snd time and youth

Find a good pro and get the correct grips first
If your grips are wrong you will take yrs fixing them
Learn proper FH and BH for several months with lessons and ball machine
Do not start just playing on your own as it’s a DEAD end
 

dgold44

G.O.A.T.
Here is an odd story to motivate you :
If a 42 yr old male can learn submission grappling and wrestling this will be easy
. Yes that’s me
A former 4.5
 

Kevo

Legend
I think your plan to find a coach is probably the best thing to do based on what you've said thus far. In fact, I'd suggest you schedule court time with several coaches and discuss with them your goals and find one you feel you can work well with. Let them guide you. If I were coaching you I'd want to talk to you seriously about your goals and then based on that setup an initial schedule and see how you do. I'd probably work with you for a few sessions to get some idea of where you're at and then reassess based on your goals what the plan might be moving forward.

In all seriousness, tennis is a great sport for progressing quickly if you have the talent and drive. Given your height and build and depending on your seriousness, I'd probably spend a lot of time on serves and returns along with fitness. I think if you have the talent for it you could be playing qualies in a year or so. Of course it's entirely possible I'd also be telling you in a few months that it might be best to find some other obsession to spend your money on, or maybe reduce your expectations and see if you can do well in a 4.0 or 4.5 league and just be happy having fun playing one of the best sports on the planet.

However it works out, getting the best coach you feel you can work well with will get you the farthest the fastest.
 

Kevo

Legend
Talking about 4.5 to a guy who has been playing a few weeks
is like discussing Mr. Olympia contests with someone who just got a gym membership.

Not even close. 4.5 for a big strong athletic 27yr old is easily attainable. Let's just say that tennis does not get the top tier athletes. I imagine you could take almost any athlete that played high level high school basketball and turn them into a 4.5 within a year if they were willing to dedicate all their time to it. Sure there would be some that just couldn't do it for whatever reason. But, it's got to be a dream of many tennis coaches to get hold of just a small portion of the athletic talent that is readily available on any 4a or 5a high school basketball team.

Mr Olympia is not like 4.5 at all. Mr. Olympia is more like Masters 1000 level. 4.5 is probably not even like high school power lifting. It's just the relatively large group of players that did better than average in high school tennis and stuck with it long enough to get good at tennis and have stayed relatively fit. I don't think you start to really winnow the herd until you get to 5.0. That's when you start to see things come together on a whole range of levels.
 
Not even close. 4.5 for a big strong athletic 27yr old is easily attainable. Let's just say that tennis does not get the top tier athletes. I imagine you could take almost any athlete that played high level high school basketball and turn them into a 4.5 within a year if they were willing to dedicate all their time to it. Sure there would be some that just couldn't do it for whatever reason. But, it's got to be a dream of many tennis coaches to get hold of just a small portion of the athletic talent that is readily available on any 4a or 5a high school basketball team.

Mr Olympia is not like 4.5 at all. Mr. Olympia is more like Masters 1000 level. 4.5 is probably not even like high school power lifting. It's just the relatively large group of players that did better than average in high school tennis and stuck with it long enough to get good at tennis and have stayed relatively fit. I don't think you start to really winnow the herd until you get to 5.0. That's when you start to see things come together on a whole range of levels.
Not really, 4.5 isn't an easy level to attain. I've hit with a guy who took up tennis in his late 20s who was an elite D1 hockey player. Almost good enough for the NHL, and he played goalie so his hand-eye is off the charts. His wife played college tennis at an Ivy and was top 700 in the world, so he decided to take up tennis. A few years later and he's a 4.5 player. If he trained full-time he could've gotten to 4.5 quicker, but I don't think he could've done it in a year. And he's a terrific athlete.
 
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4.5 in one year would be much harder to achieve than 6.0 in 10 years. You would have to be super talented and literally play and practice 365 days... Even then it would be remotely improbable.
 

Dartagnan64

G.O.A.T.
I'm not sure why people can't just play tennis for the joy of competing. These quests to develop their skills to pro levels in adulthood keep showing up and I wonder "why?" Is this important to your ego somehow? Why not accept tennis as a hobby and dedicate yourself to a well rounded life that includes trying to get better at tennis without the masochistic efforts to get to upper echelons.

I never stop trying to improve in the sports I play but at the same time recognize that I have friends and family and job commitments that don't allow me to spend 4 hours a day practicing a single sport. It seems it would be more fun to learn the basics from a coach, work on improving while having fun playing against similar level players and see where it takes you. Being a UTR 11 might be fun until you realize there's no one in your area to play against.

You will very likely be able to get good at tennis (UTR 7-8 level) with a much lesser degree of commitment and will have a good range of opponents to play against and fulfill your competitive needs.
 

jm1980

Talk Tennis Guru
Not really, 4.5 isn't an easy level to attain. I've hit with a guy who took up tennis in his late 20s who was an elite D1 hockey player. Almost good enough for the NHL, and he played goalie so his hand-eye is off the charts. His wife played college tennis at an Ivy and was top 700 in the world, so he decided to take up tennis. A few years later and he's a 4.5 player. If he trained full-time he could've gotten to 4.5 quicker, but I don't think he could've done it in a year. And he's a terrific athlete.
You can easily reach 4.5 within a couple of months if you have a background in basketball.

The only problem is your opponents will start to quit on you and refuse to play you again due to your meteoric rise through the ranks
 

BlueB

Legend
I'm not sure why people can't just play tennis for the joy of competing. These quests to develop their skills to pro levels in adulthood keep showing up and I wonder "why?" Is this important to your ego somehow? Why not accept tennis as a hobby and dedicate yourself to a well rounded life that includes trying to get better at tennis without the masochistic efforts to get to upper echelons.

I never stop trying to improve in the sports I play but at the same time recognize that I have friends and family and job commitments that don't allow me to spend 4 hours a day practicing a single sport. It seems it would be more fun to learn the basics from a coach, work on improving while having fun playing against similar level players and see where it takes you. Being a UTR 11 might be fun until you realize there's no one in your area to play against.

You will very likely be able to get good at tennis (UTR 7-8 level) with a much lesser degree of commitment and will have a good range of opponents to play against and fulfill your competitive needs.
Excellent post!
I was about to type something similar.

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
Highest level of tennis:

whtc1-550x412.jpg
 
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