Tennis is not the easiest kind of sport for beginners to learn, but if you start playing right, you are more likely to become a lifelong player. It is important to develop basic skills properly in order to achieve good results in tennis and also to avoid serious problems including injuries and disorders. Basic skills in tennis include ready position, serve and volley grip, serving and serve return, hitting the ball forehand and backhand, moving around the court, etc. So let¡¦s get started with developing basic skills for enjoyable tennis.

Ready position is essential to tennis. It makes your body prepared to return serve, make volleys and play groundstrokes. It also allows you to hit the tennis ball with maximum speeding up in as short time span as possible. Proper ready position technically starts off the shot. If ready position is incorrect then your chances to make a good shot are extremely low.

Proper serve and volley grip is also very important thing to learn as it may affect how fast and precise your serves and volleys will be. This grip is also used to hold the racket for smash and sliced backhand. Serve and volley grip is also known as the chopper grip since it resembles the way you would hold an axe.

This grip gives you the opportunity to swing the racket head faster during the serve, generating more power and spin. To find this grip, hold the racket as if you were holding the edge of the frame of an axe. The V of your forefinger and thumb has to be a bit to the left of the grip top. This way it should be the right serve and volley grip.
A service (or, more informally, a serve) in tennis is a shot that starts a point. The player on serve may use different types of service: a top-spin, a flat, an American twist (or kick), a slice serves, or a reverse spin.

For those who just started with tennis and who just long to develop basic skills, these quick service tips may be of a great use. However, these are not a quick fix solution and you¡¦ll have to work hard on the court mastering and improving your service.

Fundamental service tips:
{ If you are a left-handed player, stand with your left foot parallel to baseline, about a shoulder width at the back your right foot. Your right foot ought to be a few inches after the baseline, pointing toward the left net post.
{ A Continental grip fits best for most new players. Novices may find it not as convenient as the Eastern grip, but they generally adjust quickly.
{ A lot of players hit all services with a Continental grip. Some though switch to Eastern backhand grip for more intensive spin on topspin and twist serves.
{ Don¡¦t jump trying to hit the ball. As your service develops, you will use an appropriate knee bend and drive up with your legs. That will lift you off the ground when you go up after the ball.
{ Don¡¦t try to snap your wrist on your serve. It won¡¦t deliberately help. Moreover, it may hurt both your arm and your serve.
And top things with basic skills some of the service return tips will be useful:
{ Make your concluding defensive/offensive decision after the opponent has made the serve.
{ Emphasize steadiness and depth on all service returns, particularly on defensive service ones.
{ As a common rule, use offensive returns against a service and volley player. Use defensive returns against a constant groundstroke.
{ Direct all defensive serve returns to one of the three target points of the backcourt.
{ Apply only 60% power when hitting your defensive returns.
{ Watch the ball on all the route to the strings.