How to Anticipate a Tennis Serve in the Best way Possible?

In tennis, anticipation is the key to success, and training your eyes is the first step in boosting your anticipation strength. The ability to change your focus from what you just did—strike the ball—to observing your opponent’s body and racquet position is crucial. We frequently lose ground and are defeated because we are unable to foresee what will happen next. Instead of concentrating on what their stroke is doing to their opponent, players frequently become fascinated by the type of shot they struck and where it will fall. Anticipating a tennis serve in the right manner is extremely crucial as it decides the future of the rally which is why a lot of emphasis is given on this in tennis classes Dubai.

If a tennis player is able to anticipate the serves in tennis correctly, he will be able to win that particular rally most of the time because when you anticipate correctly, you return correctly and that builds the rally in your favour. Below are some of the factors that influence the ability to anticipate serves

Awareness

Tennis players are aware of a variety of contextual and kinematic information sources that could have a certain outcome and assist them predict specific serves. This deliberate information collecting would continue throughout the match and would be continuously updated based on fresh information and information sources from their opponent. When returning a serve, having good tactical awareness is being aware of all the contextual and kinematic aspects that could help one anticipate a high percentage situation. As a result, players with a greater knowledge of tactics are more likely to predict the nature and trajectory of serves.

Mental level and confidence

Tennis players must be confident that the information they are sensing is sufficiently trustworthy for them to take action before ball flight information is accessible in order to anticipate a serve and utilise the anticipatory knowledge. To put it another way, it’s critical for players to have faith in their predictive judgement.

Dominating the server

It is claimed that it is crucial for the returner to have compact swings on both their forehand and backhand sides since they have a limited amount of time to return the serve. Another suggestion is to aim for a sizable target area on the opposing side of the court while returning serves.

Characteristics of returns

Since there are basically three sorts of returners in tennis—aggressive, counterpuncher, and neutral—it is claimed that adaptability is a vital quality of players who excel at receiving serves. There is general agreement among all participants that adaptation and consistency are crucial qualities that all successful returners must possess.

Practice

Participants are generally in agreement that returns are not practised sufficiently. Therefore, spending more time rehearsing the return will probably result in improved results. Although it is practised comparatively less than the serve and is frequently included in point or match practice play during training sessions, the return of serve is growing in importance.

Different Information sources

The type and direction of serves are predicted using a variety of contextual information sources, or cues. These include player handedness, weather, court surface, and serve preference based on score (such as breakpoints). According to players, learning the server’s preferences only takes two or three service games from an opponent. Also five kinematic signals namely Ball toss (most common), Grip on the racket, Server’s position on the baseline, Torso rotation during the serve and type of service action of the server are shown to be crucial for predicting serve direction and serve type.