Court Side Stories

In the 1970's tennis was a huge recreational activity. This is when the tennis boom hit. The tennis boom is when a mass of the population started to play tennis, resorts, hotels, city parks, apartment complexes, and individual homes were building tennis courts at a rapid rate. Much the way pickle ball is rising in popularity. Everyone wanted to play. There were reasons for this, but that story for another time.

Since so many people started to play, you saw a rise in the amount of teachers as well. The problem was people did not really know that much about the game and so they were teaching based on their interpretation of the pros styles or how they played the game. Classic lines that we always used to hear were, "Bend your knees. Watch the ball. Hit through the ball. Racket back. Bounce. Step. Hit."  Nothing really concrete. As a matter of fact many people earned a nice living by doing that and there was an old joke that tennis professionals used to use to describe this way of teaching,"Watch the ball, bend your knees, that will be $20 please."  We have come along way since those days.