I am going to commence my explanation by talking to the players
whose games are not yet formed. At least once every season I go
back to first principles to pull myself out of some rut into
which carelessness dropped me.
From a long and, many times, sad experience over a period of some
ten years of tournament tennis, I believe the following order of
development produces the quickest and most lasting results:
1. Concentration on the game.
2. Keep the eye on the ball.
3. Foot-work and weight-control.
4. Strokes.
5. Court position.
6. Court generalship or match play.
7. Tennis psychology.
Tennis is a game of intimate personal relation. You constantly
find yourself meeting some definite idea of your opponent. The
personal equation is the basis of tennis success. A great player
not only knows himself, in both strength and weakness, but he
must study is opponent at all times. In order to be able to do
this a player must not be hampered by a glaring weakness in the
fundamentals of his own game, or he will be so occupied trying to
hide it that he will have no time to worry his opponent. The
fundamental weakness of Gerald Patterson's backhand stroke is so
apparent that any player within his class dwarfs Patterson's
style by continually pounding at it. The Patterson overhead and
service are first class, yet both are rendered impotent, once a
man has solved the method of returning low to the backhand, for
Patterson seldom succeeds in taking the offensive again in that
point.
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