I first took a tennis course when I was 12, or grade 7. My dad gave me an opportunity to know this sport from early on. And due to this chance, I was knowing the sport. But it wasn’t until December of last year, that I was looking for a sport that is fun and gave me a lot of cardio exercise, I started to know of Tennis. At first, I hesitated to rejoin the tennis game because I knew it was very difficult and required thousands of hours of training. But then I realized that it’s not impossible to join the game. There are 3 major challenges when I start taking Tennis training courses from the beginning.
- It’s technically difficult: Tennis has different techniques to hit the ball with your hands, the two-hand backhand the forehand, the slice, the smash, the volley, and the serving just to name a few major popular techniques. Mastering the backhand and forehand and the serving alone is already challenging enough, as well as very good footwork in order for you to move to the correct spot to return the ball properly with the correct hand technique. It takes me 6 months to really know how to hit the forehand properly in order for the ball to consistently to the other side and keep the ball within the court (it requires some footwork too)
- All about short sprinting and footwork: the tennis game is mostly about footwork, if you are able to move to the correct spot it’s much easier to use the right technique of your hand to return the ball. The fit body allows better moving, and the taller you are the easier for you to hit the perfect ball. If I am 173 cm in height it’s not nearly enough for me to make a perfect right-hand and serving shot of all time. My tennis ball usually goes high and curving with little ground stroke. I cannot make a powerful shot because if I do it usually goes outside or to the net. Therefore good cardiovascular, a good body with lower weight, and being taller in height are really important to be good at this game. Sorry to say that this tennis sport is not for everyone, especially for the ones who are obese and short or have heart issues.
- It’s about reflex: if you have good eyes and good reflexes (of your good brain), then you are likely to play well with this game. It’s easy to miss the ball if you cannot guess where the ball will come, most people will miss the ball. If you wear glasses it’s even worse. You cannot see many tennis players who wear glasses for that reason. They must not have any short-eye sight problems in order to peak at the sport.
Besides these major problems, it’s also about how expensive it is to play and how difficult to find the right player level to play with you. It’s expensive because it requires a lot of training, for me it costs 500,000 VND or around 25 CAD per hour to pay for an hour train, and of course, you will need 30-60 hours of training depending on how smart you are. To rent the court for an hour, it will cost 200-230,000 VND or 22 CAD. For a proper tennis racquet, it will cost around 4-5 million VND or 260-300 CAD. For a proper tennis shoe, it will cost around 2-3 million VND or 160-200 CAD. Overall, your initial investment to become a beginner tennis player will cost you around 50 million VND or 2700 CAD, that is my expense so you can take from me for reference only, ok? After that, it’s about your luck to find a training partner, or a tennis club that matches your level of playing. No senior players will match with you because it would be a waste of time for them, you will bore the shit out of them. So good luck to you in developing your skills after the 50 million VND investment.
For me, regardless of how long I can play, whenever I have a chance to see the green ball and hit the ball with my racquet, I will just take it. As long as I can play often for at least 4-6 hours a week I can definitely feel my improvement. Recently my feet were injured and until now I cannot just run freely yet, so I probably have to postpone my tennis training for an additional two or more weeks in order to recover completely. Nevertheless, I will not give up on this lovely game, I already fell in love with it. I do not think I will retire from this game anytime soon.