Need good intro Tennis book

GlennK

GlennK

Rookie
I have been asked to teach a physical ed Tennis class at my local university branch this fall. I normally teach Math courses as an adjunct but the rec center manager knows I play tennis.

As this has never been taught at our university branch, I need to develop the course material. This course is geared towards beginners (either completely new to tennis or just learning). I need a good book that teaches the basics like grips, forehands, backhands, serves, etc.

I am looking for a good book that teaches these basics. If anyone has suggestions, I would highly appreciate it. Also, if anyone can suggest easy evaluation drills, that would be helpful also.
 
1. What is your level?

2. It is strange that the University is allowing someone to teach tennis who has no certification whatsoever. It is leaving them open to liability. I have heard of high schools allowing volunteer parents without tennis teaching credentials to come and teach, but a University doing this seems strange.

3. Is the book for you or for your students?
 
sureshs said:
1. What is your level?

2. It is strange that the University is allowing someone to teach tennis who has no certification whatsoever. It is leaving them open to liability. I have heard of high schools allowing volunteer parents without tennis teaching credentials to come and teach, but a University doing this seems strange.

3. Is the book for you or for your students?
Click to expand...

1. 3.5
2. Beginner tennis. I am already an adjunct professor that has shown the ability to pass on knowledge. I will NOT be coaching a tennis team.
3. Book is for me to use to develop material to pass out. But if there is a relatively inexpensive book I could make required for the students, then that would be OK also.
 
GlennK said:
1. 3.5
2. Beginner tennis. I am already an adjunct professor that has shown the ability to pass on knowledge. I will NOT be coaching a tennis team.
3. Book is for me to use to develop material to pass out. But if there is a relatively inexpensive book I could make required for the students, then that would be OK also.
Click to expand...

I have used Oscar Wegner's "learn tennis in two hours" when teaching primary school students new to the game. Found it very helpful. Clear and simple progressions.
 
GlennK said:
1. 3.5
2. Beginner tennis. I am already an adjunct professor that has shown the ability to pass on knowledge. I will NOT be coaching a tennis team.
3. Book is for me to use to develop material to pass out. But if there is a relatively inexpensive book I could make required for the students, then that would be OK also.
Click to expand...

Remember not to put things directly from the book into your materials. That might be construed as cheating the author of revenue by not making the students buy the book.

Re: liability, it is not about the knowledge of tennis which I am sure you have. It is about knowledge of enforcing warm-up drills, knowing likely sources of injury (like stray balls and students hitting each other with rackets during drills), knowing how to deal with students with slight physical challenges, etc. You may know all that but that is where a USPTA/PTR certification gives more peace of mind to the parents and to the organization.
 
Flatballs said:
I have used Oscar Wegner's "learn tennis in two hours" when teaching primary school students new to the game. Found it very helpful. Clear and simple progressions.
Click to expand...

fan of Oscar's book as well.
If I were to buy any one book from my library (of 20 or so books), for your purposes, I'd probably buy Tennis Mastery (who also posts here on ttw). covers beginner stuff, like grip (which I struggled with for decades due to no one ever point it out... guessing which grip is correct, grip changes, etc...), to advanced stuff, like conditioning, etc..
 
nytennisaddict said:
fan of Oscar's book as well.
If I were to buy any one book from my library (of 20 or so books), for your purposes, I'd probably buy Tennis Mastery (who also posts here on ttw). covers beginner stuff, like grip (which I struggled with for decades due to no one ever point it out... guessing which grip is correct, grip changes, etc...), to advanced stuff, like conditioning, etc..
Click to expand...

It is available on TW through the link in my post above.
 
GlennK said:
I have been asked to teach a physical ed Tennis class at my local university branch this fall. ................ This course is geared towards beginners (either completely new to tennis or just learning). I need a good book that teaches the basics like grips, forehands, backhands, serves, etc.

I am looking for a good book that teaches these basics. ...............
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Technique Development for Tennis Stroke Production, B. Elliott, M. Reid, M. Crespo, available ITF Store & Kindle.
https://store.itftennis.com/product.asp?pid=86

I was disappointed with the chapter on the one hand backhand. My copy has typos in that chapter.

A review paper, that gives the mix of simple biomechanics necessary for understanding tennis, a sample of what you can expect in the book is Biomechanics and Tennis. The book has more detail.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2577481/

The beginners are university students, correct?
 
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Tennis Mastery by Dave Smith who sometimes posts here is definitely worth checking into.

I have his Coaching Mastery book and it was helpful to me when I was coaching high school tennis. I suspect his other book is also quite good.
 
There's a book put out in English by the German Tennis Federation that is very detailed and technical, if you like that approach.
 
A book by Oscar Wegner is suggested

MethodTennis said:
I have been asked to teach a mathematics class at my local university branch this fall. I normally coach tennis but the head of the maths school knows I can do sums.

As this has never been taught at our university branch, I need to develop the course material. This course is geared towards beginners. I need a good book that teaches the basics like adding. taking away, algebra, calculus etc.

I am looking for a good book that teaches these basics. If anyone has suggestions, I would highly appreciate it. Also, if anyone can suggest easy evaluation drills, that would be helpful also.
Click to expand...
A book by Oscar Wegner is suggested to teach mathematics.
 
MethodTennis said:
I have been asked to teach a mathematics class at my local university branch this fall. I normally coach tennis but the head of the maths school knows I can do sums.

As this has never been taught at our university branch, I need to develop the course material. This course is geared towards beginners. I need a good book that teaches the basics like adding. taking away, algebra, calculus etc.

I am looking for a good book that teaches these basics. If anyone has suggestions, I would highly appreciate it. Also, if anyone can suggest easy evaluation drills, that would be helpful also.
Click to expand...

Exactly what point are you trying to prove?
 
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Chas Tennis said:
Technique Development for Tennis Stroke Production, B. Elliott, M. Reid, M. Crespo, available ITF Store & Kindle.
https://store.itftennis.com/product.asp?pid=86

I was disappointed with the chapter on the one hand backhand. My copy has typos in that chapter.

A review paper, that gives the mix of simple biomechanics necessary for understanding tennis, a sample of what you can expect in the book is Biomechanics and Tennis. The book has more detail.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2577481/

The beginners are university students, correct?
Click to expand...

Would these books really be geared towards beginners?
 
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Suresh, the math goes like this. Basically, the pros hit the ball so hard that the ball splits into entangled pieces of fur, which pass through the strings like a wave through a diffraction grating. And that explains why when we amateurs face these guys all we see is a diffraction pattern, aka the greenish blur!
 
Flatballs said:
Would these books really be geared towards beginners?
Click to expand...

I don't know what people at various levels should be allowed to see, or where that information is, or who is claiming to draw the line. ? Do you have any references that say what should be taught and when? I vote that everybody be exposed to the best and clearest information that is available.

Certainly, university students are long overdue to being exposed to the basic concepts of the stretch shortening cycle, body turn and hip-shoulder 'separation' on strokes, and other first line biomechanical concepts, etc. whether they are 'beginners' or not. The general approach in education is to present theory first and then application. Many important biomechanical ideas are very simple.

Also, I do notice a lot of explanations being presented for why things are done on strokes that are not related to the biomechanical reasons for what is going on, as already established by research.

Having <5% of average tennis players understanding how a serve works and constantly discussing the issue indicates a very poor situation.

Teaching/learning the strokes involves more.
 
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Thanks to those that posted suggestions.

For the person that will be teaching Mathematics, can I ask what level? Most universities do have Math classes that are meant to help those students without a strong math background get up to beginner college level. In other words, it covers Math the student should have had in high school. As long as you have a master's degree and have been using Math regularly and taking Math drills for the past 20 years or so, you could probably teach that.

But if you will be teaching Calculus, try this one:

Let me know if I can help you out in your preparation.
 
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GlennK said:
Thanks to those that posted suggestions.

For the person that will be teaching Mathematics, can I ask what level? Most universities do have Math classes that are meant to help those students without a strong math background get up to beginner college level. In other words, it covers Math the student should have had in high school. As long as you have a master's degree and have been using Math regularly and taking Math drills for the past 20 years or so, you could probably teach that.
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The infamous "Remedial Math" course :-)

Nowadays it is named differently due to its negative connotations.
 
sureshs said:
The infamous "Remedial Math" course :-)

Nowadays it is named differently due to its negative connotations.
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That is so funny. I had typed in the word remedial. But decided I shouldn't use that term. So I just described it. Good call on the political correctness.
 
RajS said:
Suresh, the math goes like this. Basically, the pros hit the ball so hard that the ball splits into entangled pieces of fur, which pass through the strings like a wave through a diffraction grating. And that explains why when we amateurs face these guys all we see is a diffraction pattern, aka the greenish blur!
Click to expand...

That is all right, but I just want the link from Julian about Oscar's math book. I hope he was not trolling.
 
Bartelby said:
There's a book put out in English by the German Tennis Federation that is very detailed and technical, if you like that approach.
Click to expand...

I have copies of Tennis Course, Vol 1, Techniques and Tactics, and Vol 2, Lessons and Training. Mine are copyrighted 1995. I consider them dated for information on current strokes. For example, I just opened one and it said to have the racket face "essentially" level at impact. I believe for the current forehand drive that the racket face is closed at impact. One misleading description such as that can stop progress for a very long time (from personal experience). The Elliott et al serve research was first published in the mid-nineties so those books would be very misleading regarding how the serve works. Are there more recent editions?

They seem to present a lot of information well but the strokes and related biomechanical information has changed.
 
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GlennK said:
I have been asked to teach a physical ed Tennis class at my local university branch this fall. I normally teach Math courses as an adjunct but the rec center manager knows I play tennis.

As this has never been taught at our university branch, I need to develop the course material. This course is geared towards beginners (either completely new to tennis or just learning). I need a good book that teaches the basics like grips, forehands, backhands, serves, etc.

I am looking for a good book that teaches these basics. If anyone has suggestions, I would highly appreciate it. Also, if anyone can suggest easy evaluation drills, that would be helpful also.
Click to expand...
If I were a math teacher and had to give this a try, I'd go with the fourth chapter in _Technical Tennis_ and see if they could then use that knowledge to figure out the grips and such themselves in order to make the face angle and swing paths do what is necessary to produce the trajectories and spins that they want. Ten or twelve dollar book.

If the ball doesn't do what they want it to, they can then figure out by the trajectory and spin what parameters might require changing. Might be fun, too. :)

Couldn't be any worse than the golf class I took in college. The total of what he taught was to "hit em and go get em". :-)
 
WildVolley said:
Tennis Mastery by Dave Smith who sometimes posts here is definitely worth checking into.

I have his Coaching Mastery book and it was helpful to me when I was coaching high school tennis. I suspect his other book is also quite good.
Click to expand...

Co-sign on Dave's books. Both are excellent additions to anyone's tennis library. For doubles players, there is nothing better than the late Kathy Krajco's "The Operations Doubles Strategy Guide". Very tough to find even used these days (not sure if it is still archived online) but well worth the effort for advanced/serious doubles players.
 
Chotobaka said:
Co-sign on Dave's books. Both are excellent additions to anyone's tennis library. For doubles players, there is nothing better than the late Kathy Krajco's "The Operations Doubles Strategy Guide". Very tough to find even used these days (not sure if it is still archived online) but well worth the effort for advanced/serious doubles players.
Click to expand...


I second the Operation Doubles book, there's a lot of good material in there.

some of what's in the book:
http://www.**********.com/lesson-lounge/operation-doubles/archive.htm
 
For doubles, The Art of Doubles, 2007(get the later edition as there are important changes over the 1990's edition), Pat Blaskower. Always gets excellent comments.

It tells what strokes to use in situations, but does not teach stroke technique. It has great positioning advice. Also, simple advice on shots to use and those not to use in given situations. I see points lost all the time now because players don't apply these very simple do's and don'ts.
 
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