Girls Varsity tennis team help! I am sooo scared!?

Every tennis player in the world is struggling for his or her position every time a match comes along. You are also. All you can do is try your hardest and behave in a sportsmanlike manner.

If you behave badly on the court, that will surely be worse than losing a dang tennis match :-) Integrity is everything. Ignore people who claim that winning is all that matters.

Don't dwell on winning or losing while you are on the court. That will only hurt you. You don't actually have direct control over the outcome of a match; that is largely up to God, or whoever you feel is in charge of tennis matches.

There are, however, things that you *should* be thinking about, things that YOU have control over. Here are a few of them:

Watching the ball, particularly after it bounces. Think about the ball's flight after the bounce: how high will it go, when will it start to come down, and so forth.

Knowing what the score is: Call it out before every point when you're serving. If you're receiving, say "Score, please?" if your opponent forgets to call it out.

Working on your serve every day. Many girls don't. If you want to know why Venus & Serena were so successful, one of the first things to look at is their fabulous serving capability.

Getting your first serve in is a big, big key to winning tennis matches. You'll notice that 1st serve percentage is one of the statistics that always gets quoted when they talk about professional matches after they're done for the day.

*Finish your swing* on your FH's an BH's and on returns of serve, too.

Most volleys and half-volleys are a very different kind of animal from ground strokes and serve returns. Get your punch-volleys and block volleys thoroughly learned *before* you spend a lot of time with swing volleys.

Spend time on your overheads and lobs every day. All the best players can play defense as well as offense.

Work hard in practice, both with the team *and* on your own. The kids who work the hardest are the ones who will improve the most. If you've prepared as thoroughly as you possibly can and still lose, then the other girl must be a better player; there's nothing you can do about that.

If you can play or practice on the weekends, that would be good. Taking one day off a week from tennis is OK. Taking three or more days off in a week will usually cost you a bit of sharpness at the very least. The only exception would be if you're over-tennised and need a couple weeks or more away from it.

An underhand or sidearm serve is 1000 times better than a double-fault.

Keep the ball in play; sometimes that is the best you can achieve with a given ball.

If you get a sitter, watch it carefully, and swing fully, but not so much that you lose control. If you lose the point, at least you made an effort to attack the ball correctly. If you get an easy short ball and just poke it over, that's no good.

Most balls are *not* ones that should be attacked. Normally, you have to duke it out a little bit before you get a ball you can "pull the trigger" on. This may occasionally take 10 or 20 hits :-)

Moving right along ......

It think joining USTA is a good idea. It's only $19 for a whole year, less if you join for 3 years or 5 years. You'll get a magazine in the mail or by email, plus a number of other little "perks."

https://membership.usta.com/

Get your own copy of Rules of Tennis, or the more extensive and complete "Friend at Court." The 2010 version of Friend at Court is on sale right now for only $3.95, plus shipping!

http://www.ustashop.com/ <-- click on "Books" in the left-hand side

Pay close attention to "The Code." It talks about how to carry yourself in a match where there are no officials of any kind. Both of these books above have "The Code."

If you aren't working with a teaching pro or coach on a regular basis, that would be good. Your question appears to come from the U.S., so here are a couple of tennis-teaching organizations:

http://www.uspta.org/

http://www.ptrtennis.org/

http://www.mtmca.com/

Each of the three web sites above has a function where you plug in your city and state, or zip code, so that you can see if there are teaching professionals who are credentialed and teach at facility near you. Being certified or not certified does not guarantee that the coach will work out for you, but it takes a certain amount of study & work to become a certified teaching pro.

Here are some good sources of information. Some things are free, others are not:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/

http://www.tenniswarrior.com/

http://www.oscarwegner.com/

http://fuzzyyellowballs.com/

http://www.moderntennis.com/

Sportsmanship might not be #1, but it's way ahead of whatever is in 2nd place :-)

Best of luck; hope you have some fun with it :-)

I played number 2 singles as a freshman and number 1 singles as a sophomore and hopefully i will take the state title this year. but what i do is I play 4 hours a day in the off season at a club but if you dont play at a club call up some of the varsity girl players to hit with you. also get a usta membership and play tournaments. but most of all just play smart on the court if you dont have the best strokes find your opponents weakness and attack it and even though this year might not be the best your junior year will be better

WOOOOOO congrats on making the team. Yea, i like singles too, way better than doubles, but if shes not good enough to play it, she has to live with it. And no, you dont have much of a chance to convince her to play doubles with you. Singles is just way more fun. So you'll have to live with playing with another person (probably). But thats ok, very few people have the luxury to play doubles on a team with their sister or brother. Just be glad you made varsity and enjoy the tennis season!

I was in the same position last year. Just play your hardest and if you're worried, ask the coaches what you can do to improve. Just relax though.