Can You Learn to Play Tennis Backwards?
Interesting question asked by this article and more substantially by this player and her coaches:. Can you learn tennis by bum-rushing the net THEN build a ground game?
" Can a tennis star learn to play the sport backwards { starting at the net} ? A rising U.S. teenager may have the answer"
Gift link to article at The Athletic here.
Lede: "Jermaine Jenkins, a former hitting partner for Venus Williams who has been a national development coach at the U.S. Tennis Association since 2019, has seen a lot of young, promising talent the past seven years. ... {then he saw this 15 year old} She had one of the stranger approaches to modern tennis that Jenkins had seen in a long, long time.
“I just remember watching her from a distance and being like: ‘Damn, she’s coming in on everything,’” Jenkins recalled during a recent interview.
“Like … You’re not even trying to build a point! Just a little patience, you know? But, she was having legit chances at making volleys as she’s coming in. I was like: ‘Man, that’s going to be tough to play on clay, coming in on everything.’”
Turns out her father was a huge fan of Pete Sampras and got her started in his mold.
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"Has it ever. Urhobo finished last year as the world No. 432. She has climbed nearly 250 spots since then. For five weeks between the end of March and the start of May, she won more rankings points on clay than any other U.S. player outside the top 100. That made her the winner of the organization’s “wild card challenge” for the French Open, and she will play her first Grand Slam main-draw match against Katie Boulter of Great Britain."
" Can a tennis star learn to play the sport backwards { starting at the net} ? A rising U.S. teenager may have the answer"
Gift link to article at The Athletic here.
Lede: "Jermaine Jenkins, a former hitting partner for Venus Williams who has been a national development coach at the U.S. Tennis Association since 2019, has seen a lot of young, promising talent the past seven years. ... {then he saw this 15 year old} She had one of the stranger approaches to modern tennis that Jenkins had seen in a long, long time.
“I just remember watching her from a distance and being like: ‘Damn, she’s coming in on everything,’” Jenkins recalled during a recent interview.
“Like … You’re not even trying to build a point! Just a little patience, you know? But, she was having legit chances at making volleys as she’s coming in. I was like: ‘Man, that’s going to be tough to play on clay, coming in on everything.’”
Turns out her father was a huge fan of Pete Sampras and got her started in his mold.
~~~~~~~
"Has it ever. Urhobo finished last year as the world No. 432. She has climbed nearly 250 spots since then. For five weeks between the end of March and the start of May, she won more rankings points on clay than any other U.S. player outside the top 100. That made her the winner of the organization’s “wild card challenge” for the French Open, and she will play her first Grand Slam main-draw match against Katie Boulter of Great Britain."