Theory of watching the tennis ball

It is pretty simple, you can not hit something that you can not see. If you were in a totally dark room, even with your eyes open, the chance of you hitting an object that is stationery is pretty much slim to none.

The most important object in a tennis match is the ball!

I often watch the professional players play a match and am reminded that the best players in the world focus and do the basics better than everyone else, with the most basic part of tennis being to hit the ball in the middle of the racquet head.

It took me almost 25 years of playing tennis to shout “Eureka”! I still recall the time and practice session that I was having so vividly. I said to myself, “Wow, I can see the ball”, but it also got me thinking. In all the years of tennis and tennis lessons and coaches that I worked with, why did none of them ever teach me how to watch the ball. I was doing what I think most players do, I was tracking the ball with my eyes and head. Just before contact I would quickly move my eys to the contact point of the stroke. The problem is that in those milliseconds of time, I would lose the ball and not be able to refocus fast enough on the ball to see it just before contact.

I think that this principle is applicable to all sports where the player is hitting a moving ball similar to baseball, cricket or lacrosse.