What level can I achieve as an amateur player? (video included)

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nolimittennis

New User
Hello everyone!

Check out the highlights from my recent tennis league match! Can you please help identifying my tennis level ? What do you think is my NTRP rating?

I'm also interested in knowing your thoughts on how far an amateur player can go. If you know any players who have had remarkable success or participated in exciting tournaments, please share their stories.

Please take a moment to watch the video and share your thoughts in the comments below!

 
Assuming you are the guy in black I would say you are a 4.0 player with a 4.5 flat serve. Your serve is consistent for your windup, and your game includes high, long strokes that drive OP deep. If you work on your windup and get your stance for groundstrokes consistent you could be a 5.0 player. You seem to have the fundamentals down. Want me to break it down?
 
CAREDDINGTON said:
Assuming you are the guy in black I would say you are a 4.0 player with a 4.5 flat serve. Your serve is consistent for your windup, and your game includes high, long strokes that drive OP deep. If you work on your windup and get your stance for groundstrokes consistent you could be a 5.0 player. You seem to have the fundamentals down. Want me to break it down?
Click to expand...
Hello, Certainly! Yes, I am the player in black. I would greatly appreciate a detailed analysis of my strokes to help me improve my game and technique. Please feel free to share your insights and recommendations.
 
You look to be in very good physical shape which counts for a lot in upside potential.

You have errors in technique and tactics but these can all be fixed.
 
Serve:
At 2:15 you had a very nice serve. However, the first thing I notice is the non-dominant foot positioning in proximity to your dominant foot. It appears that on your transfer from a neutral-closed stance(stance where you are bouncing the balls, lining your feet up, and preparing for the toss) to a pinpoint stance you are sliding your dominant foot(right) to far, resulting in a more parallel alignment of your feet. What happens when your feet are too parallel on windup, contact, and follow through is your hips will prematurely rotate, causing your shoulder to rotate early, moving your contact point higher and closer to you. By staggering your feet before contact it allows you to fully make use of your size(potential energy) by rotating your hips when you drive your legs up, which will also cause internal shoulder rotation, generating more sustainable(efficient) power. Staggering your feet also allows you to hit the ball farther out front since you can effectively drive out, not up, because your hips have not rotated yet. When you prematurely rotate your hips you lose the ability to drive out because you no longer have the leverage to load your legs. The second thing I notice is your timing rhythm. You throw the ball very high which causes a lag in your racket swing. You lose RHS(racket head speed) when you lag your racket above your head. Work on either throwing the ball lower and executing a more effective leg drive, or offset your toss arm with your swing arm. Do both and you will have a very nice weapon of a serve. Another small thing I notice is a slight waiters tray(when your racket head is opening up to the sky. This causes you to pronate your wrist and work backwards to generate the same amount of power) when you are lagging for your toss to lower in height. The last couple things are your arm tuck on contact and your non-dominant(left) foot landing. Work on your arm tuck on leg drive for contact. An easy way to do this is to keep your tossing arm extended towards the sky on weight transfer(sliding your foot). I also noticed you landed on your left foot, that looks extrmely tedious and off-balance. You need to work on landing on your right foot, or a flat stance on both feet.
Hold on for groundstroke analysis.
 
I think the general consensus on this forum and from my own experience, if you start as an adult getting to 4.0 is a good accomplishment and getting to 4.5 is very difficult. To be at that 4.5 level and above, generally you need to start as a kid, get good coaching and the repetition over time is key. Its hard to duplicate that as an adult.

I am a strong 4.0, sometimes I play 4.5 players successfully, but most of the time they have the overall game and more importantly have the strokes to generate winners when they need them the most, I started in my 50's and don't have that ability to generate winners from the baseline like the opponents who started playing when they were younger.
 
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Very Strong 3.5 with a few months practice could definitely take a game or 2 off Nadal, but not quite a set you need to reach 4.5. Vamos.
 
Groundstrokes:
There are multiple occasions where I notice you push the ball. I do not know if it is out of habit or because of duress, however, that is the first issue. You have such a large backswing that by the time you make contact you are hitting the ball in a very flat position. More or less 'scooping' the ball. This is why your balls have a high, deep arc. You also need to work on keeping a closed stance. Your massive backswing makes you have the tendency to prematurely open your stance up, losing spin and control. Your strategy looks very good for a 4.0-4.5 player but you need to work on some fh groundstroke 'tuning'. As for bh, I do not hit a OHBH(very often) so you would need someone like @travlerajm or @tendency to tune to it, however, I do know that you are waiting too long on the bh side just like you do on the fh side. I also believe your contact point is too low for OHBH.
 
nolimittennis said:
Hello everyone!

Check out the highlights from my recent tennis league match! Can you please help identifying my tennis level ? What do you think is my NTRP rating?

I'm also interested in knowing your thoughts on how far an amateur player can go. If you know any players who have had remarkable success or participated in exciting tournaments, please share their stories.

Please take a moment to watch the video and share your thoughts in the comments below!

Click to expand...
Change your BH grip to an extreme eastern, your hand must be grabbing the racket from behind, not over the grip. You said something like having a Nadal style on your BH, but you are not generating much spin at all, that grip will help you to release your stroke to create a lot of power and spin to get you to the next level.

Advance your topspin technique from just brushing up to going through the ball. You need to be able to relax your full stroke motion and still keep the ball at least 3 feet inside the court, and what makes that possible is nothing more nothing less than topspin.

Your whole body still looks insecure and stiff inside the court, your timing is dubious, your movement is awkward, you look afraid of putting power in your shots, but nothing that some more hundreds of hours hitting balls won't solve. With more hours of experience the body usually figures out most of it.
 
I would say 3.5 currently, but not 4.0.

You have to realize that most people, usually unknowingly, overstate their NTRP by 0.5 or more. That bias affects their opinions on other people’s levels. Rather than asking people, you will get a more objective sense by actually reviewing what the NTRP criteria are for the various levels. The video examples on the USTA website are not bad (although I think their 4.0 example is not really 4.0, or at best a weaker 4.0. Keep in mind that a real 4.5 player plays SERIOUS ball…they are not just clever and hitting a lot of slice forehands (you don’t do this, but others do). Their serves hit the back fence on one bounce (unless short angle wide), and they crush short balls for winners or an easy put away volley. They can go DTL from the backhand consistently on a slightly below average ball. I know a bunch of 4.0 players who would absolutely crush you. But you are young-ish and fit so with a few years of hard training you MAY be able to get to 4.5. Higher than that like 5.0 is very very unlikely simply because it is very unlikely for almost anyone who didn’t play competitive tennis in their pre-adult years.
 
You might serve faster if you don’t jump like that. The jump is both too upright and non synchronised with the throw ie contact happens while you’re on the way down.
 
coolvinny said:
I would say 3.5 currently, but not 4.0.

You have to realize that most people, usually unknowingly, overstate their NTRP by 0.5 or more. That bias affects their opinions on other people’s levels. Rather than asking people, you will get a more objective sense by actually reviewing what the NTRP criteria are for the various levels. The video examples on the USTA website are not bad (although I think their 4.0 example is not really 4.0, or at best a weaker 4.0. Keep in mind that a real 4.5 player plays SERIOUS ball…they are not just clever and hitting a lot of slice forehands (you don’t do this, but others do). Their serves hit the back fence on one bounce (unless short angle wide), and they crush short balls for winners or an easy put away volley. They can go DTL from the backhand consistently on a slightly below average ball. I know a bunch of 4.0 players who would absolutely crush you. But you are young-ish and fit so with a few years of hard training you MAY be able to get to 4.5. Higher than that like 5.0 is very very unlikely simply because it is very unlikely for almost anyone who didn’t play competitive tennis in their pre-adult years.
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Who are you talking to is my question?
 
My first thought was it was 4.0, but your opponent had really no weapons at all and you could have spammed balls to his backhand and won, but you seemed to go away from that.

So who knows, probably UTR 4. something? It's a grey area. Regardless, it doesn't matter, I think there is always the potential with hard consistent work and proper fitness and coaching to get to 4.5 if you really want to. I would not worry about your level of play though and just focus on how to close out a guy with a weak serve. My tip would be to attack his serve and put him on his heels and then when on serve, attack his backhand and follow it into net when he is caught lunging. Just doing those 2 things will put a ton of pressure on him to hit bigger serves and passing shots, which he did not seem comfortable doing.

It also looked like at 5-2 your racquet head speed went down a lot on the serve, which is never a good sign if you want to play aggressive.
 
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CAREDDINGTON said:
Groundstrokes:
There are multiple occasions where I notice you push the ball. I do not know if it is out of habit or because of duress, however, that is the first issue. You have such a large backswing that by the time you make contact you are hitting the ball in a very flat position. More or less 'scooping' the ball. This is why your balls have a high, deep arc. You also need to work on keeping a closed stance. Your massive backswing makes you have the tendency to prematurely open your stance up, losing spin and control. Your strategy looks very good for a 4.0-4.5 player but you need to work on some fh groundstroke 'tuning'. As for bh, I do not hit a OHBH(very often) so you would need someone like @travlerajm or @tendency to tune to it, however, I do know that you are waiting too long on the bh side just like you do on the fh side. I also believe your contact point is too low for OHBH.
Click to expand...
Hello,

Thank you for your advices, basically you are right, I will try my best to adjust my game and get better, maybe we can check it again after couple of months

Have a nice day
 
Power Player said:
My first thought was it was 4.0, but your opponent had really no weapons at all and you could have spammed balls to his backhand and won, but you seemed to go away from that.

So who knows, probably UTR 4. something? It's a grey area. Regardless, it doesn't matter, I think there is always the potential with hard consistent work and proper fitness and coaching to get to 4.5 if you really want to. I would not worry about your level of play though and just focus on how to close out a guy with a weak serve. My tip would be to attack his serve and put him on his heels and then when on serve, attack his backhand and follow it into net when he is caught lunging. Just doing those 2 things will put a ton of pressure on him to hit bigger serves and passing shots, which he did not seem comfortable doing.

It also looked like at 5-2 your racquet head speed went down a lot on the serve, which is never a good sign if you want to play aggressive.
Click to expand...
Hello,


Yes, you are absolutely right. When the score reached 5-2, I noticed a significant drop in my racquet head speed. I believe it's more of a mental issue that I need to work on. With more experience and practice, I am confident that I can overcome this challenge and improve my performance in such critical moments.

Thank you for pointing that out and for your support!
 
nolimittennis said:
Hello everyone!

Check out the highlights from my recent tennis league match! Can you please help identifying my tennis level ? What do you think is my NTRP rating?

I'm also interested in knowing your thoughts on how far an amateur player can go. If you know any players who have had remarkable success or participated in exciting tournaments, please share their stories.

Please take a moment to watch the video and share your thoughts in the comments below!

Click to expand...

IMO, at least around where I play, that's 3.5 level tennis. Most players starting as young-ish adults - like yourself - with decent athletic ability can reach the 5.0 level. That will take 6-8 years of year round play and likely coaching at some point.
 
tendency said:
IMO, at least around where I play, that's 3.5 level tennis. Most players starting as young-ish adults - like yourself - with decent athletic ability can reach the 5.0 level. That will take 6-8 years of year round play and likely coaching at some point.
Click to expand...
Maybe in your area based on USTA league rankings, but I don’t think legit 5.0 is realistic. Almost nobody who didn’t play competitive junior tennis with coaching in their teens would get to a legit 5.0 and most still top out at 4.5. Many tournaments here only go to 4.5 and then have an Open category above that which will have low level pros, coaches (actually some coaches also play 4.5 here), current college players, top juniors, etc. It basically looks like pro tennis but a bit slower.
 
tendency said:
Most players starting as young-ish adults - like yourself - with decent athletic ability can reach the 5.0 level.
Click to expand...
Where I live in California, seeing an adult who progressed from being an adult beginner to being a 5.0 is like seeing a unicorn as they are mythical creatures of imagination. All 5.0 adults are usually ex-college players who were even better when they were younger than they are now as adults - so, they are falling 5.5s in many cases.
 
socallefty said:
Where I live in California, seeing an adult who progressed from being an adult beginner to being a 5.0 is like seeing a unicorn as they are mythical creatures of imagination. All 5.0 adults are usually ex-college players who were even better when they were younger than they are now as adults - so, they are falling 5.5s in many cases.
Click to expand...

Yes because the vast majority of adults that take up tennis are very poor athletes, of course they'll never be 5.0 players. A good athlete that works hard year round can achieve the 5.0 level (starting in their 20s). Most adults have neither the time nor inclination to work hard enough to reach their full potential.
 
tendency said:
Yes because the vast majority of adults that take up tennis are very poor athletes, of course they'll never be 5.0 players. A good athlete that works hard year round can achieve the 5.0 level (starting in their 20s). Most adults have neither the time nor inclination to work hard enough to reach their full potential.
Click to expand...
Disagree. The ones starting as poor athletes won’t get to legit 4.5.
 
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