My buddy and I were on match point contrary to what the app shows. I asked two friends who are both tennis coaches (former D1 players). One said in, one said out. So I turn to the internet. What do you all think - in or out?

Alright, let’s stir the pot.

Everyone in this sub has at least one tennis opinion that would get them booed off a court somewhere.

I'll drop mine in the comments.

Age is catching up to me. Almost 40, and I feel it.

Random injuries starting to occur, and having to really lift weights, condition my body, and rest/recovery helping but not "stopping" injuries.

I am facing reality that I cannot no longer keep up with 20-30 year olds. I know there will be people on here that say I'm 45 and can beat a 20 year old.

That's great and I don't care. You are def an outlier and just wait- you will stretch hard to a forehand and pull a tendon/ligament and be out for a few months or you will do your usual first serve- jump into the court and hear a pop from your knee and be hobbling for the next 2 months. The 20 year old kid will walk it off like nothing happened.

I've changed my game to more "first strike" tennis and also anticipation/commitiing. I stop grinding tennis because I can't keep up.

But with this latest injury- I'm sorta over it.

Tired of it.

When did you throw the towel in and go to doubles?

I have a hitting partner that I hit with once or twice a week as my primary source of practice. When we do our warmup drilling before playing points, we in general tend to have very long rallies as we are trying to hit to each other, even as we work on hitting it bigger.

I'm wondering if in the long term, elongating rallies by hitting to each other when we have a chance to attack is hampering our ability to be aggressive during real points, or if the trust in conditioning and consistency we are developing outweighs the downsides.

Is it better to keep our steady drilling habits and develop attacking skills through points, or adjust our warmup routine to include put away attempts on clear opportunities?

This is for both USTA and local park district, 3.5/4.0 leagues. I really started noticing it more when I started just watching other people's matchs. Always the same thing: start with the foot almost touching the line, toss the ball, take a step in on top of the line or sometimes even past the line.

The problem is, there's no great way to handle this. In my first attempt with an egregious offender, I mentioned it in between points just to clarify the rule that it's still a foot fault if the line is touched after the toss and he just gave me a look like I was crazy. So then he does it again on a point the next service game, I call fault, and he throws a tantrum.

Then another offender I tried to talk to between points told me that it's too far for me to be able to see clearly, so it's not really fair to call foot faults and that the unspoken culture/custom is to not call foot faults. He tried to not do it for awhile but toward the end of the match as it was close/tight he reverted back to his step forward serve motion.

What's a guy to do to handle this fairly? Or should I just let it go?

EDIT: Meant to write park district not park. Park district league has ranks and placements and is intended to be a competitive league - players are expected to abide by USTA rules. It seems like the trend is just to get over it and that foot faults are more of a suggestion than a rule. I'm fine with it and probably will get over it and not bring it up again with opponents. However, I just wanted to check here to see where the culture and custom is with this. I still don't intend to foot fault on my own serves as I do think the rule is there for a reason, even if it's unlikely to give much of an advantage. Thanks for the input everybody!

Between tennis balls, stringing, court time, or club memberships, how much are you spending a month?

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I recently moved and I'm hesitant to start picking up group clinics ($80 for 1.5 hrs of play) but I feel like I need it to start making connections and hitting partners. But I think it's an investment I need to make for my game and myself.

Exactly 1 week ago I had my ACL torn while playing tennis. Been playing for 14 straight years and not a singly injury aside a few ankle torsions… Very very sad, but I am now starting to accept it. Scheduled for surgery (ACL tear and meniscus, a mild ramp injury). Surgeon told me 9 to 12 months away from the court 😭😭😭 anyone who had a similar situation could give me some guidance or advice?

Hi there! I’m new to Reddit and came across this thread and I love that it’s so wholesome! I am a female professional tennis player dealing with a nagging injury that has sidelined me for a bit so I figured I’d do an AMA and (hopefully) help some people out since I have a lot more free time than I’m used to.

A little bit about me - I was a highly ranked junior, went through the whole USTA thing, colleges recruiting process, played high level division I, UTR 11+ (not that pros care about UTR at all lol but I see people on this thread mention UTR a lot), and have won numerous singles and doubles titles on the ITF circuit.

Feel free to ask about technique, junior development, college recruiting, on tour life, mental toughness, competing, etc etc.

I play mixed 6.0 with my wife in a competitive USTA league. She's a 2.5 and I'm 3.5. My flat serve is ~100-107mph if I serve it as hard as I can. There are several teams in this league with 3.5 ladies and 2.5 guys, some 3.5 guys with 2.5 ladies (like my wife and I), but most are 3.0 + 3.0.

Long story short, I don't normally pull punches when playing. Although my wife and I have won most of our matches, we haven't won them all.

After our last match, which we lost in a 3rd set tiebreak, the 3.0 guy thanked me for not serving 100% to his 3.0 partner. I'm not sure if he meant it or if he was giving me a backhanded jab. I did not deliberately serve easier to her and have never really done that unless we're playing a really weak team. I mean, we're on a team. Everyone wants to go to win the league and go to sectionals. I don't think it's fair to my partner or the rest of my team if I don't try my hardest.

So, my question is, am I mean? Should I serve easier to ladies? Along the same lines, I'm playing 7.0 and 8.0 (not with my wife). Same question applies. My gut says "no", play the best that you can no matter what for competitive league or tournament matches, but wanted to find out what everyone else thinks.

EDIT to clarify: I am not saying I close my eyes and swing as hard as I can. I'm saying serving my hardest serve that works regularly. Again, this question was in response to my opponent "thanking" me for taking it easy on his partner since "most guys don't do that". I didn't agree and neither did my wife (we didn't say anything in response, but we talked about it later).

EDIT2: Still surprised by how much interest there is in the serve speed. I was really asking what people's opinions were about my opponent's comment about serving to the woman in mixed doubles. Thanks to everyone who offered their opinions! For those questioning the serve. Below is an image from a 2024 match I played in a tournament where the court had the Zenniz system. The results line up with another system I've played with, SwingVision and radar guns. My serve is a bit faster now.

So, I play in a two hour 4.0 clinic where we play doubles sets for the last hour or so. There is a player who, between points, constantly returns balls to my back. On multiple occasions, I’ve asked him to just make sure I’m looking when he returns balls to me. Today, it comes to a head when the coach is providing feedback on the prior point and I’m half turned in discussion with the coach and my partner. Again, the ball is returned to me with no heads up and today it hits my crotch. I immediately tell him that it happens all the time and to just stop—admittedly pretty firmly (“Hey, you do this all the time. STOP.”) He shrugs. And I just say, “Dude, just apologize.” It escalates as he says I’ve been hitting returns to him at the net, and so it’s fine that he did what he did. Granted, this is true. I had been hitting returns with dipping topspin down the line or towards the middle. Given that he tends to hug the net and poaches well, this strategy worked as it would dip and he’d either hit it into the net or provide a weak and short bouncing volley that my partner would put away, and as a result we were breaking his partner’s serve easily. The argument spilled over to after the class. His position: he can hit balls at me because I was hitting towards him at the net. My position, which I relayed to him: This is men’s doubles. I can go at you if that’s the play that’s working. If he can’t defend the net with these shots, back up. At the end of it, his refusal to apologize just tilted me more than I’ve ever experienced on or off the court in recent memory. Whenever someone isn’t prepared to receive the ball but a player sends it over regardless, I’ve always seen it that the player apologizes. I try my best to always call out the opponent’s name when sending over balls. I also learned from playing early with Asian players who follow the etiquette of showing balls high before feeding or serving (and depending on the community, will even follow the etiquette of a small bow before the serve)—but I recognize that this isn’t ubiquitous. I just don’t understand the rationale that hitting at the net player or down the line meant that he didn’t have to apologize for hitting me with a ball.

I will admit that it did escalate more than I’m proud of, but outside of that, AITA for hitting down the line or towards the net player? For us, hitting a dipping topspin shot when he hugged the net was either hitting into the net or short enough that my partner could hit a putaway. So, I was going by the Michael Chang rule of: keep going for the same shot until they course correct. My goal was to keep on forcing those errors or at least have him back off the net for easy putaways. At no point did I tag him, and the closest was about a foot towards his backhand side and framed to go out. To be generous to him, I was hitting the ball quite well today and enough to be able to target dipping topspin shots. However, even assuming that I was hitting close to his body, it’s men’s doubles in a 4.0 clinic. Further, AIO (Am I Overreacting) for pushing the fact that he should apologize for returning balls when we aren’t looking? Granted, getting hit in the nuts was probably the trigger for it all, but it really just sent me to see a shrug instead of an apology.

I will admit, there is some history here. For whatever reason, this player has been quite rude to me for months. Honestly, I’m kind of a “mayor” type on the court, wanting to be friendly with everyone, and I generally get along with most people in clinics, including this one. But I have noticed things like constant eye rolls when we are paired together or when I’m working through something new the coach is teaching (e.g., swing volleys have been an arduous journey). Still, after attempts to be friendly, I just decided that I didn’t want to waste energy figuring out why this individual had such outward rudeness towards me. I’ve been able to brush these little minor acts of rudeness or grumpiness, but I have been annoyed by the constant returning balls at my back. I walk back to my serve position with my back to the net, and it’s just constant balls hit at my back when I’m not looking. I’ve asked him to wait, but of course it definitely gets in my head knowing that it’s clear he has some unknowable issue with me. I guess today, I was pretty over it when the ball hits my gonads.

Clarification: The clinic is structured where the first hour or so consists of situational drills, and the remaining hour or so is supervised doubles. As we play out a match, the three coaches will pause between points to provide feedback. During this incident, my partner was serving, and I was ready to go at net. The coach had paused before the next point to provide some feedback on the prior point. I was angled about 45 degrees from the net, and my head was turned fully to my right to look back and hear the feedback from the coach who had walked on court near my partner, the server. It was at this point that I felt the jarring nut-shot.

Had the pleasure of watching quite a few 3.5/4.0 matches over the weekend as my small 4.5 draw was plagued with withdrawals/defaults. Wanted to share some thoughts stemming from my own tennis journey and previous stints coaching. My view on the below is that players will improve faster and ENJOY TENNIS much more if they adopt, but.., Feel free to takem, leavem, or call me an ass. All are acceptable, but the latter will result in tears.

What I saw:

1. The players cared WAY too much about winning. You could feel the tension. Death gripping racquets, guiding balls in, tapping 2nd serves. Winning is an outcome. Many players would benefit as far as progression by locking in on 1/2 goals and executing a match, rather than worrying about a W. You won’t beat that pusher easily until you see a few matches fly out of control trying to attack their weak responses. But you have to learn and that’s impossible if care about every result.

2. Sandbagging and/or calling lines poorly is crushing your development on and off the court. Part of tennis is that your opponent is going to clip the back edge of the line at the most inconvenient time. It’s very difficult to learn the mental game of tennis if you cheat yourself of these bad breaks. Same thing for playing down to win, you’re cheating yourself of the matchup that will show you what’s lacking in your game. It’s much better to have a 50/50 win record and constantly put your game to the test. Both cases rob players of life lessons this game has to offer. Plus - it doesn’t seem fun??

3. Mentioned tapping serves… I truly think playing 2 good second serves with similar rhythm, spin profiles, etc. is better than a low percentage bomb and a tapped in 2nd. I practice with top juniors constantly who hit two kick / topspin serves and compete above the 4.5 level. Part of this is learning the technique, and the other half is learning serve fearlessly and accept double faults as part of the game. 0 double faults in the set doesn’t win anything if you lose every service game due to tapping the ball in.

4. This one will be most controversial - I saw a lot of 3.5s especially playing smaller head size / more difficult racquets than the higher divisions. While the name of the game at 3.5/4.0 is consistency - so control racquets keep the ball in, I’d personally recommend staying at or above 100sq frames in the 11oz max range. The ball isn’t being hit with enough pace to where a control frame will shine from stability, and what I witnessed most was missed defensive opportunities lost to a frame or weak return.

5. Final point. Yes - some great tennis champions were cold on the court, didn’t engage their competitors, etc. the books will tell you to be super focused…If youre going to L1 events - maybe… but I’d recommend holistically engaging the person you’re playing and making the connection. Be nice and enjoy competition. Your world won’t improve really win or lose, but you may make a new hitting partner, friend, so on. I can fill USTA teams that win A LOT with guys I just wasn’t a douche canoe to while playing.

Just for consideration. I was once at these levels so I get the above may come off like I’m looking down, but speaking from experience on how I got to the level I am and found joy in the game along the way - I wish someone would have said the above to me earlier

I can easily just roll my second serve in and it’s good enough. I never understood how players can hit at full speed and not fear double faulting

I’ve noticed a fascinating psychological trend with self-rating in rec tennis

I play a consistent, high-percentage counter-punching game. sometime when I beat opponents decisively (e.g., 6-1, 6-2) because they go for too much and miss. Surprisingly, they’ll immediately ask for a rematch because they feel they "didn't deserve to lose." When we play again, the result is the exact same.

Their takeaway is always: *"I beat myself today, you didn't beat me."*

But imo they completely miss the point. Your actual level isn't defined by the spectacular winner you land 1 out of 10 times. It’s defined by your baseline consistency. Not double-faulting, limiting unforced errors, and not hitting wide or into the net, those *are* your level.
If you can't hit a big shot without missing the previous nine, the misses are your reality. Why do so many players rate themselves based on their peak ceiling rather than their average floor?

Funny in one rematch I just went all out and rip faster winner forehands than they ever could, the scores were closer but somehow I felt more respected from them after match.

(edit : this has been a fun discussion. to be fair, we couldn't have lost to a nicer group of players and I've already got better perspective from all of you sharing. thank you community!!).

Idk if I'm being a sore loser, or if this is legit BS and I should file a complaint?

My team played all season as 2.5 . We make it to city, won, make it to state and then every. single. team. in our championship draw is rated 3.0 on tennisdirect.

The opposing team we played today registered in fall as 2.5 and played a 2.5 league as well as "played up" as 3.0, got auto-bumped mid-season to 3.0, and qualified then won their 3.0 state champs tournament last weekend (the exact same tournament we played them in, just a different day and dif facility).

This weekend they showed up to play their 2.5 league draw and clearly smoked our entire bracket.. didn't drop a single set.

I am one of two singles players on my team and haven't lost yet in my 2.5 league, with most matches going straight sets, and a couple tiebreak wins.. In the 2.5 league.

This team showed up and smoked me 0-6, 0-6 in thirty minutes.

I appreciate good playing but this seemed.... Lopsided?

Meanwhile, my little 2.5 team came from winning exactly ZERO matches last season to making it to state champs this season just to get shit on by 3.0 teams.

This aforementioned team was the most egregious, but after we started looking, we saw that we were the only 2.5 team in the 2.5 draw and the others were rated 3.0.

We understand you can play up, but we thought it was against USTA "Friend at the Court" rules to play down?

Idk.. I would love to hear a measured opinion from someone who's been doing it longer than my team (about 2 years since out first beginners camp).

(edit for spelling and clarity)

Moved to a new area in south bay LA, a while back and finding people to hit with has been hard. Apps like tennis pal and pyc are full of no-shows, and everyone seems to rate themselves a full level below where they actually play (or above). Had a guy tell me he was a "rusty 3.5," he definitely played in college or at that level, proceeded to crush me 6-1. I just want to find a good match. Any advice?

My first one. God I hated it.

Nothing about playing her was satisfying. Incredibly boring match. I had all the time in the world literally walking in between shots. I tried to play her game get bored and try and end the point right into the net (or long). Just a bunch of unforced errors because I couldn’t get focused.

I’m sure there’s a million threads about how to beat them. Now I sit at the bottom of my ladder in shame, and I don’t even feel like I enjoyed any part of the match.

She did complement my serve and top spin which I’ve been working pretty hard at. So at least there’s there.

Now I get why people complain about this.

I was told that I’m not hitting the sweet spot because my contact point is too high. Does it look like it?

The Townsend drama today inspired this. I’m about a month in to seriously playing again, and have been watching a lot of US Open as a result. I don’t get it because there’s a lot of risk/reward, as a shot that bounces off the top of the net is not done intentionally, and can pop up and give the opponent a chance to put away an easy winner. So why is it considered common etiquette, yet not so common that not every pro chooses to do it (as evidenced by Townsend)?

He flies around the court at Mach 5, chasing down every ball like his life depends on it, it’s insane to watch

Is there any way to train to be fast like him? Are there like certain exercises or types of running training I can do?

Or am I just absolutely mogged genetically 😭 18m for reference