Keep your eye on the ball

We are now ready to take up the specific fundamentals of the game, and the first definite one in tennis is the foundation of all games played with a moving object:

I am certain that in every hour I work with a beginner in the game, I repeat this instruction at least thirty times in some form. When I say, “Keep your eye on the ball,” I mean watch that ball from the time you first start to toss it to serve until the end of the point, and never look at anything else.

Naturally, the pupil decides this is exaggeration, that I am overdoing it. Let me assure you I am not. The pupil always wants to know how he can tell where to hit a ball if he doesn’t look over to see. He doesn’t need to watch the court. He took a look at it when he went out on it. It is stationary. It isn’t going to move off or change its dimensions. The lines are permanent. He knows that the net is in the middle and stands three feet high in the centre and three feet, six inches, at the posts, and will not change height during play. The lines, backstops, and sidestops are also fixed in position. They, too, will remain there.

Usually you can convince the pupil he need not watch the court or net quite easily, but his next hurdle is far more dillicult. · “How about that guy I am playing?” he blurts out.

“How can I tell where he is if I don’t watch him?” A reasonable query, certainly, but the answers to it are easy and should satisfy anyone.

First of all you must remember that you are not trying to hit your opponent but to miss him. You are attempting to put the ball where he isn’t-not where he is.

“Ah, but I have to see him to know where he is!” cries the pupil. Not at all. If he is a good tennis player, you know where he is without having to see him, because a good tennis player will be in correct position. Correct position for a back-court player is about on the backline of the court and near the middle of it. If you are facing a net player, his correct position would be about eight feet back on his side of the net, and at a point that would be about two feet toward the centre of the court from a straight line drawn parallel to the sidelines from where you hit the ball down through his court.

So, if he is a good tennis player you know where he is without having to see him, and if he isn’t a good tennis player it doesn’t make much difference. where he is! After all, the thing you are attempting to hit is a moving ball, which requires the eye to change focus as that ball moves. Obviously, if the eye once Ioses sight of the ball, it is almost impossible to sight it again clearly in time to hit it cleanly.

The eye functions very much like a camera. Any of us who have ever attempted to take action pictures with a small box camera know of the peculiar results we have produced. One of two things occurs. Usually we get a clear-cut, beautiful picture of the background, with a blurred streak where the moving object-train, ear, ball, or what have you-has passed unfocused by the camera eye.

Occasionally, we get the reverse, a blurred, muddled background with an apparently stationary, clear object stopped in motion. The eye works the same way when you watch a moving ball coming toward you. You can either see a clear background with a blurred uncertain ball, or a blurred background with a clear ball. In the first instance, your eye has not been kept on the ball during its entire flight, with the result that by the time the ball reaches you, your focus is lost and you will probably mis-hit it. In the latter, the eye is really on the ball and the chances are you will hit it cleanly.

When I say, “Keep your eye on the ball,” I mean actually to include, “Watch it hit the strings of your racquet.” Most players watch a ball until it bounces, and then look away as they start to swing, with the mistaken idea that by looking at their opponent’s court they will be better able to direct their stroke. Time and again if you watch, you will see a player’s head come up to look across the net as he starts to swing, and the resulting shot is mis-hit and usually an error. The average player thinks he can judge the bounce of a ball when it comes off the ground, but he forgets how many things can affect the bounce, any one of which will throw his calculations out of line and make him miss:

1. The ball may have been hit harder or slower than he judged, with the result that it will reach him too soon or too late.

2. It may have been hit with more spin or more subtle twist than he judged, so that the bound goes off line a little mare than he expected.

3. The wind may blow the ball off line.

4. The court surface may be rough and the ball may take a bad bound, with the result that once mare his guess is bad.

But, if he still has his eye on the ball, he can-perhaps with difficulty, but he still can-get the gut in his racquet head against the ball, and gut, not wood, will return the most shots.

In these days of the modern, net-rushing, power game, the importance of keeping the eye on the ball is growing even greater. One major advantage the net player has against the baseline player is the psychological pressure he puts on the baseliner to look up and see where the net player is. Actually, this is absolutely fatal and results in nothing but a deluge of errors on missed passing shots.

When a player sets out to play a passing shot against a net player, he should never see the net player at all. He should make up his mind on which side he will attempt the passing shot, and play it with his eye never leaving the ball. If the net player outguesses him and is in front of it, that is too bad, but at least it puts the burden of making the volley on him, rather than making him the gift of an error from the passing shot. There are certain definite times at which most players are likely to be led into looking away from the ball. The most common occasions involving this error are:

1. Service. Few players actually see their racquet hit their service.

2. Attempting a passing shot. They look up to see the opening.

3. Volleying. They again look up just before they hit the ball, to see in which direction their opponent is moving.

4. Smashing. They look down just before they hit the ball, to see their opponent’s court.

Any of these is apt to be at the critical moment of a point. Every player should be most careful to keep his eye on the ball as the climax of each point is reached. When one stops to realize that in first-class tournament tennis about 70 per cent of all points end in error, and that of all errors committed at least 65 to 70 per cent are due to the player’s not keeping his eye on the ball, you can readily see why coaches stress to all players, from beginners to champions:

“KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL!”