How important is a warm up before a match?

[Sephiroth619]

In your opinion, how important is warming up minutes before a match?

If very important, how do you warm up? Practicing your strokes lightly, moderately, or go all out?

 

[JoelDali]

I find bending my hands in injurious positions a good way to warm up.

 

[JavierLW]

Im answering this in reference to having A warmup, not just that 5 or 10 minute thing before the match.

Usually some decent volleys at the net are good, then on the baseline with the focus on rhythm and placement (near the other player so they can give you a good ball back) versus just whacking the ball as hard as possible.

Then hitting some serves if there is time is good as well.

Im not sure my match is ruined without a warmup, but having a "bad" warmup is kind of useless and can screw up rhythm.

 

[Ripper014]

Warmups prior to a match let me get out some prematch jitters that is about all. I have warmed up well and played bad and vise versa... What I do now is just work on centering the ball on my racket with full strokes.

The truth of the matter is you are not going to get any better in warmup, what you bring to the court before that is what you will have to rely on to win.

But then I have not played a tourney in 15 years.

 

[jrod]

It's definitely important, although at my age I cannot rely on the warm-up to get my body loosened up enough so I work out for about 15 minutes to get the body going. I primarily use the warm-up to gauge the court speed, find my timing and most importantly, assess my opponent(s) strengths/weakness/tendancies. Usually involves some combination of groundies, volleys, overheads and serves.

 

[Carlito]

If you come out cold, and the guy jumps out 3-0 on you with a hold-break-hold its hard to come back from that. A few jittery serves or loose forehands because you aren't quite adjusted to your surroundings and it could easily happen.

 

[Steady Eddy]

I'm always good to go. I'd like to start the match right away, it would be a good way for me to grab some games from a cold opponent. After you've played a long time, you don't need warm ups. You don't need to rediscover how to play.

 

[tacotanium]

warm up gets your muscle ready, just like stretching.

 

[SuperLotto]

Treadmill for 15 mins works great for me. Get the body moving. I don't have the patience for a lot of dinky hitting at the net and balls flying all over the place. I play 3.5 ladies doubles morning leagues. Get there early, warm up serves on my own, do the treadmill. The ladies daytime version of warmup is more frustrating than anything else. Who wants to start off frustrated, not me!

 

[retlod]

I like 10 or so minutes of medium paced groundstrokes, a few volleys, and about a dozen serves. Any more than that and it's just using up energy that I could use in the match. Mostly, this work is just to loosen up, but as others have said, it's nice to get a feel for different courts and size up an opponent's strenghts and weaknesses.

 

[35ft6]

It's pretty important. The regular 10 minute warm up with your opponent is better than nothing but it's more of a formality than a real warm up. Better to hit for 20 minutes or a half hour with a friend before the match. It's not a coincidence that all pros do this. Before the US Open finals between Martin and Agassi, Martin hit for over an hour comprehensively going over all his strokes with Jose Higueras. Whereas Agassi came out groundstrokes blazing, hit 4 or 5 overheads, a few serves, and was done in about 15 or 20 minutes. Amazingly, Brad Gilbert could get back anything Agassi threw at him so long as he didn't have to move. Agassi was amazing. Never seen anybody hitting that hard. Martin was really grooving all his shots knowing all his shots would need to be working to beat Andre. Andre was just there to make sure nothing was broke that day.

Foremost, go through all your strokes, and see if any particular shot feels super off that day. If so, try to work on it. Maybe a friend can hit serves from the service line to get your returns going. Or feed you some crosscourt backhands that you can hit up the line. Or feed you short balls for you to put away. At that point, of course you're not going to develop a new stroke, it's about walking onto the court with confidence, knowing you just hit several good shots fresh on your mind. You want to go out there a sweaty and knowing that all the shots are working and win or lose, you brought everything you need with you.