What NOT to do: Volleys

Teenagers sometimes work better with negatives. Instead of telling you, then, how you should play tennis, let’s get to the basics of what you don’t want to do when you play tennis. These are basics that you want to avoid with volleys. Cue the tiny violin music.

The volley:

• ·      Ah, the beautiful butt-out volley. What not to do number one. As many players tend to be terrified of getting hit by the ball, their instinct is to pull every inch of their body as far away from the ball as possible, as if the ball was carrying a disease of some sort.
• ·      What not to do number two: the ballerina shot. The ugly cousin of the butt out volley, the ballerina shot includes the gracious movement of one’s outside leg moving backwards instead of forwards.
• ·      What not to do number three: forget that you are, indeed, about a foot away from the net, so a forehand or backhand is probably not necessary. Hence, you should not make like a lumberjack and swing your racquet (or hatchet, I suppose).
• ·      What not to do number four: break your wrist. You should not, I would imagine, want to inflict bodily harm upon yourself. For those of you reading into this literally, I do not mean to actually break your wrist; breaking your wrist on the volley involves not holding the racquet head upright on the volley using your teenie weenie forearm muscles. The forearm muscles control your wrist movements, and thus your wrist breaks, or moves down. Add that with a hard shot, and you’ve got a recipe for actually breaking your wrist.
• ·      What not to do number five: stand straight up. I laugh, as I remember my exasperated parents trying to teach me to bend my legs at the net, and finally come to a conclusion that I may, in fact, listen if the opposite was said. Not only do you look mighty un-athletic standing straight up, but it also, like, helps you balance and stuff. That’s a good thing.
• Stay tuned for more what not to do!!