Improve Your Tennis: in One-Fifth of a Second
How would you like to start playing vastly better
tennis ... today
There's a particular “magic” moment in tennis—one that lasts
a mere fifth of a second. If you have (or can develop) the
discipline to fully exploit that moment, you may astonish
yourself and your opponents with your new-found scoring
ability.
The moment I'm talking about is the last 1/5th of a second
before your racquet strikes the ball. The discipline I'm
referring to is that of keeping your eye entirely on the ball
for that super-critical moment.
We've all been told many times that we should keep our eye
on the ball in tennis. But how many of us really know what that
means? How many of us really practice it?
Keeping your eye on the ball doesn't mean watching it until
it is a split second from hitting your racket, and then
glancing away to look at your opponent. It means watching it
until it has hit your strings and begun its rebound.
This is not a new secret. Bill Tilden, perhaps the greatest
player who ever lived, wrote about it more than 80 years ago
and tried to drive its importance into the heads of his
readers. Early on in his classic book, "The Art of Lawn
Tennis," he cited statistics “to show you how vital it is that
the eye must be kept on the ball UNTIL THE MOMENT OF STRIKING
IT” (his emphasis).
“About 85 per cent of points in tennis are errors, and the
remainder earned points. As the standard of play rises the
percentage of errors drops until, in the average high-class
tournament match, 60 per cent are errors and 40 per cent aces.
... Fully 80 percent of all errors are caused by taking the eye
from the ball in the last one-fifth of a second of its
flight.”
Wow. Sobering statistics, to be sure. But exciting ones,
too, because what Tilden is telling us is that it's within our
power, right now, to eliminate the majority of our errors! And
reducing the errors we make is the surest way to starve our
opponent of points and extend his opportunity to give up points
to us.
Tilden was a great tennis observer as well as a player. He
studied and wrote about all of the top players of his day, and
observed and advised many a tennis beginner. We can trust him
when he says that the greatest fault commited by novices (and
by many more experienced players) is trying to watch too much
besides the ball.
Tilden compared the human eye to a camera, noting that
neither is capable of clearly focusing on a moving object and
its background at the same time. “Now the tennis ball is your
moving object while the court, gallery, net, and your opponent
constitute your background.” Therefore, ignore the background
and rather “concentrate solely on focusing the eye firmly on
the ball, and watching it until the moment of impact with your
racquet face.”
Shouldn't you at least take a peek at your opponent, maybe
out of the corner of your eye? No: “You are not trying to hit
him. You strive to miss him. Therefore, since you must watch
what you strive to hit and not follow what you only wish to
miss, keep your eye on the ball, and let your opponent take
care of himself.”
Tilden provided a chart in "The Art of Lawn Tennis," a very
simple one, but one that I hope you will commit to memory. It
looked something like this:
A—1—2—3—4—B
Imagine a ball passing from point A to point B, with you as
the receiving player at B. According to Tilden, it can be taken
as a scientific fact that if you keep your eye on the ball
throughout its flight, your chance of making a good return is
five times as great as it would be if you took your eye off the
ball at point 4 (4/5ths of a second of its flight).
Furthermore, your chance is ten times as great as it would be
if your removed your eye from the ball at point 3 (3/5ths of a
second of its flight).
Tilden wrote: “The average player follows the ball to 4, and
then he takes a last look at his opponent to see where he is,
and by so doing increases his chance of error five times. ...
Remembering the 85 percent errors in tennis, I again ask you if
it is worth while to take the risk?”
Keeping your eye on the ball is a good practice not just
because you make fewer errors, but also because it strengthens
the other parts of your game through developing the habit of
concentration. As Tilden humorously explained, “It tends to
hold [your] attention so outside occurrences will not distract.
Movements in the gallery are not seen, and stray dogs, that
seem to particularly enjoy sleeping in the middle of a tennis
court during a hard match, are not seen on their way to their
sleeping quarters.”
So there you have it – one-fifth of a second that can make
all the difference in your tennis game. It can truly be the
magic moment for you, IF you cultivate the discipline to keep
your eye on the ball not just occasionally or even most of the
time, but during every single shot.
P.S: Bill Tilden's "The Art of Lawn Tennis" is in the public
domain, which means you can find it and read it online for
free. I highly recommend that you do so. Although his
references to events and personalities are of course dated, his
playing advice is timeless.
About The Author: © 2004 by Steve Smith. Steve Smith
is a writer who lives near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His Web
site, Tops 4 Tennis, includes the complete text
of "The Art of Lawn Tennis" by Bill Tilden, plus other articles
and links for tennis players and fans. freedom1@mindspring.com
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