What are the top 3 frustrations you have in playing the game of tennis?

Kevin: What are the top 3 frustrations you have in playing the game of tennis?
I’m doing some research and wanted to know 3 things that really frustrate tennis players. It could be any part of tennis from the mental game, lessons, strategy or some else that I didn’t think of that you deal with as a tennis player. It can also be a adult tennis problem or a junior tennis problem.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Jacob M
My shot selection
When I can’t serve
And my mental game is poor.

Answer by Maria Sharapova
WHEN IT’S NOT “MY DAY”
When it’s not my day I just can’t play at my best…I don’t have a strategy,I make a lot of unforced errors and tones of double faults.I don’t move very well…I just don’t want to play that day…That really bothers me,but it doesn’t happen often.

WHEN SOMEONE IS MOVING ME A LOT
I’m a good runner,but I can’t return everything.When I have to run around I can’t develop a good strategy and I can’t attack.And also I hate drop shots!

INJURIES
No description needed.

RAIN DELAYS
Urgh!I hate rain delays…Recently tornado season started in the US.We don’t have them in New York,but the strong air currents are producing massive winds and bringing rain clouds….
Anyway…I hate when I’m winning and the match gets suspended due to rain…That doesn’t happen often but it does happen sometimes…

STRONG WIND
I live in New York,US so I don’t play a lot of clay tournaments,but I play them about 2 months….I hate when the wind is strong and the clay is going around everywhere and blowing in my face like it’s a freaking sand storm!!!!!!

Answer by [email protected]
When I am not mentally focused enough, I tend to shank a lot. I got some serious late acceleration on my forehand and if I am not centred on hitting it, I can miss it badly; very badly. It doesn’t happen often, but mental awareness is required and it can be frustrating.

All my frustrations are related to this mental lost of focus for a short period of time. It becomes a problem of ball judgement in relation to my position. It’s the root of the problem — when there is one. However, when my mind is at it, I play very well and I am no longer as aggressive with myself so it takes much before I loose it all.

People will list many things, but that peculiar thing is at the root of all sudden level drop; as soon as players do strike the ball properly, it’s not a matter of doing something awkward, but a matter of being aware or not of this awkwardness.

A clear example is the pusher; why would it be hard to tee-off on dead balls such as theirs? It’s a peculiar type of challenge, but it remains a playable shot and do allows offensive. Pushers are making many tactical and executional mistakes just by the fact of handing back the ball — it’s not a suitable way to play tennis and you should be able to take advantage of it. But, if you take it easy and wait for the ball, do not try to be aggressive, leave many chances to come to the net behind… you’ll end-up being unbalanced and not ready to hit even those easy balls.

That’s where frustration starts.

Answer by Taharat07
Here’s my top 3 :
1. When my first serve deserts me..
2. Some idiot talking loudly on phone, just when I’m bouncing the ball and about to serve !!
3. When I smash an easy forehand, straight into the net !

Answer by mrt3o3
3. When I play better post match or practicing than in an actual match. My forehands tend to be much stronger – maybe because i can be more careless practicing
2. when i practice something a lot and see no improvement
1. my serve

Answer by Sam
1. When every single time I get an easy ball, i hit it into the net or out! it kills me inside! lol
2. When my opponent has no idea how to play tennis and somehow manages to just mindlessly swing as hard as she can at the ball and it lands in every time. The reason this is soo annoying is that I know this girl is never going to go anywhere in tennis because she has no real talent, like her form is the most horrific thing ever existing, and somehow I lose to her.
3. Lastly, I despise it when people move sooo slowly between points! It is beyond annoying! They lose the point and then like four hours later, the next point finally begins and then they bounce the ball 90 times, drop it, and then have to go pick it up, and then bounce it another 90 times. It’s almost like torture! I played a girl like that last week! I wanted to commit suicide. Thankfully, I double bageled her, so I got over it, but still, it’s annoying!

There are a lot of things that make me angry, but these are my top three. They are in no specific order. Hope this helps! 🙂 Oh, just so you know, this is from a junior point of view, not adult. I’m a senior on my high school team.

Answer by Emily G
When I cant serve
When I hit a good hit but i accidentally hit it too hard
Wind

Answer by Mike Smith
When I can’t serve.
When my friends tell me my shots aren’t good.
When my coach tells me I can’t do something.

Answer by KBlade93
1. Poor Timing. This is pretty vague, but I did that on purpose. I’ve read several things that annoy other players and I read stuff such as “when I can’t get my first serve in” or “when I keep netting my forehand”. Well I do all of those things when I am having a bad day, but they’re all the result of bad timing in one way or another. I am annoyed by all of them equally, because they all result in my loss of a point. I think Poor Timing is a good way to sum up all tennis players’ frusterations regarding unforced errors.

2. Playing people with poor technique. This frusterates me on two levels. The first is very “in the moment” and it is that all their crappy shots are always different and always unusual. It is difficult to get into a rhythm and this often results in unforced errors. It is a different sort of feel than when someone is junkballing you, the shots are even less predictable and it is impossible to get them to play differently mid-match. The other level is that I work very hard to make my technique as perfect as possible. This includes hours of lessons and even more hours working hard on the practice court. I know that most of my success is because of my hard work. However, it is frusterating when I am being challenged by someone with bad technique because I know that it is unlikely that they worked as hard as I have, and yet they are somehow able to play on my level. This can get slightly demoralizing.

3. Coaches who don’t communicate well. Communication is vital to teaching anything, and yet one of the coaches where I train has little communication skills. I have to give him some credit, because he is not a native english speaker, but he still seems to be entirely wrong in the type of messages he tries to convey. For instance, if I were hitting and I accidentally hit one into the net, he would say “Why you wanna do that?” It is embarassing because he asks it in a way the suggests he is under the impression that you tried to net the ball, when that is obviously not the case. He then proceeds to spend 5 minutes telling me that I will never win a tennis match if I hit into the net, but never actually tries to change anything in my swing to prevent net balls. It is as if he expects me to never net a ball again just because he told me not to. All coaches need to realize that the results of a swing will not change unless the swing itself is changed. He can’t expect me to never net the ball again if he doesn’t even touch my technique.

4. Practicing with people who can’t focus well. I know that you can only play as well as you practice. If you laze around the court when you practice, then you’re going to laze around the court on match day, too. For this reason, I practice as intensely as I can as often as I can. A hige part of this intensity is focus, but if my hitting partner isn’t focused, then it becomes extremely hard to keep focused myself. It comes out in the form of unforced errors or sub-par effort, and it can become extremely annoying, especialy when I am trying to establish a rhythm or work on a specific aspect of my game. It gets even worse when the lack of focus creeps onto my side of the court, too. It is frusterating because I know that if I cannot focus in practice, I wont focus in a match.

Okay that was 4…. I cheated (which is also maddening on a tennis court). I guess if I had to choose one of those that annoys me the least, it would be playing against people with poor technique because this issue is the easiest to overcome (with laser-like focus and excellent footwork). The other, however, are simply brutal.

Answer by Punk12300
1. Playing people who push
2. Bad timing and too many unforced errors
3. Bad Mental Game