Tennis Tip #11

Continuing on with the net shots… let’s go with the swinging volley. Sometimes you are about to hit an overhead, but it’s just too low for you to hit. What do you do? You do a swinging forehand, or backhand. This shot is mainly hit while approaching the net, and the ball is almost always above the net, so there isn’t much restriction in hitting the ball hard. Also , you need to hit forward, not up like groundstrokes. Lastly, just like overheads, it is extremely important to keep your body up. The moment you drop your shoulder, the ball will be in the net. Sometimes, when you’re about to hit the ball, you may see the ball is coming faster than anticipated. If that is the case, you should revert to hitting the volley. With all of the power coming from your opponent, you should have no problem hitting an offensive volley. As fun as this shot can be in a practice, or match, there is not a lot of room for error, so you must play smart.

Tennis Tip #10

Thanks to Miller. We saw the perfect form for the overhead. We discussed that you should have your feet pointed at the net, and your opposite hand held high. What we need to discuss is what will be done if the overhead is hit too far back. And where you should aim if you hit the overhead. Just like a serve, you can hit a flat, and slice overhead. When you hit the overhead far back, you will be in the air, and your weight will go backward. The best thing to do in this situation is to hit the ball straight, as opposed to down. Second, you will want to hit the ball deeper. The other shot is the slice overhead. It is used when you need to do more of a finesse shot. Often placement is key when you’re hitting these shots. Many times you want to hit the ball as hard as you can, but that will sometimes lead to mistakes. The overhead shot is often taken lightly, however, this is the shot that everyone messes up. So remember, never slowdown on the court, especially for the overhead!

Meet our player

Miller McLure, One of our young, up-and-coming tennis players found time to out of his busy tennis day to do a brief interview with us.
When did you start playing tennis?
I was 6 years old. I am 9 1/2 now and will be 10 in May.
What is your favorite shot?
My forehand is my favorite, but also my best.
What is your ranking?
I'm not sure. I play in the b12's. We just moved to Texas from Florida so I've only played one ranking tournament.
What is your best tennis memory?
Aside from playing Little Mo, it's when I hit an inside out forehand WINNER on a friend of mine from Arkansas. He's really good.
What do you hope for your tennis?
I'd like to play like Roger Federer at the US Open.
Why do you like Nu Formal Tennis?
Because it's attractive and a little funky, just like me.
Who inspired you in playing tennis?
My mom introduced me to tennis but I want to be a professional tennis player. It is a challenge.
What is the best thing about being sponsored?
Someone besides my family believes in me. It means a lot and is a big responsibility.
All of us at Nu Formal Tennis are super excited to have him on our team, and wish him the best with his tennis future.

Tennis Tip #9

One of our juniors decided to share with us some of his awesome strokes to help us with our tennis tips. Miller helped us show all of the good points in an overhead. This first of these tips will discuss the preparation for the overhead. When you are up at net, you can get passed by two different ways. One, is an angle. We will discuss this in another tip, but the other is the lob. Many tennis players handle this stroke with countless errors. They look unprofessional and confused. This is not what Nu Formal Tennis is about. We want to look stylish, and play composed. When you see that you have been hit a lob, you should prepare by shuffling backwards, no running is allowed! As you shuffle back, you will have your opposite hand up. If you can see Miller, his opposite hand is straight up. You point for two different reasons. First, you don't want to lose the ball in the sun, so pointing helps with this. The second reason is so you keep your body up. For my last point, when you back up, you will want to back up and get behind the ball, so as you hit the ball, it is in front of you. Hitting the ball behind you will cause for the ball to go long. Remember you cannot hit down. If you do this, you will always hit the ball in the net. Come by tomorrow and check out Miller's profile, one of our top junior players!

Tennis Tip #8

Our final post about the volley will be more for your safety. Nu Formal Tennis Attire is all about looking stylish and fresh, but bloody noses, is definitely not stylish or fresh. You can get this very common injury because of one reason, you dropped your racquet. The ready position in a volley is to have your racquet up with your grip being in the "shake hand" grip. This is because you have no idea if you are hitting a forehand, or backhand, so preparing in the middle is the best decision. You also prepare for this for all of your shots on the base line as well. So after you hit your volley, remember to bring your racquet to the ready position! Lastly, remember to get back to the middle, to be in the best position on the court. If you hit your shot and you are on top of the net, don't stand there, back up. You want to be like a soccer goalie. Try to think of that as you are up at net volleying! Our next couple of posts will be about hitting overheads. Stay classy, and wear something Nu

Tennis Tip #7

A lot of the past couple of posts have been about volleys including where to hit them how to prepare for them. But now, we are going to discuss how to hit the volley. First, you will need to make sure that you are using a continental grip. As many teaching pros will say, hold the racquet like shaking its hand, and slide your hand down. This is how you know that you are using a continental grip. Next, as I said in earlier posts, make sure you don't swing, it's a block! You want to keep this shot as simple as possible, the minute you try to complicate it, you will start missing the ball. As you get ready to make contact with the ball, you must make sure to step forward, and be controlled. As you move forward, your weight should transfer forward as well. Your forward motion, and racquet should move together. Now, in regards to racquet preparation, you want to have your racquet at a 30 degree angle, and the racquet should always face angled to the other side of the court. This is so that if you are ever late, or early getting to the ball, you will give yourself the best opportunity for hitting the ball in. As you hit the ball, you will use a chop motion, but try to continue on the 30- 45 degree angle. You must lead with the grip of the racquet, not the racquet. Lastly, you want to keep your elbow bent as you hit the volleys. This is because you don't want to allow any room for your arm to be pushed back. You need to always have forward motion on every part of your body for when you hit volleys. We hope this tip helped!

Tennis Tip #6

Sometimes you will not be able to take the ball in the air, whether you are on the way to the net, or at the net. The shot to use is the half volley. This shot is all about timing and focus, mostly because you are hitting the ball on the rise. Hitting the ball on the rise means you are hitting the ball as it is still coming up. The benefit of this is that you are giving your opponent less time to get back into position. When you hit this shot you are not delivering a little chop like the volleys (This will be discussed fully in the next post.) nor will you be hitting the ball like a ground stroke. You will be pushing the ball. You will be squeezing your grip, and trying to keep the ball as low as possible. Obviously you will want to take the ball in the air, but half volleys will suffice as well. To continue being on the offensive, try to keep your body weight moving forward. Making contact, you'll be providing momentum. Also, you have to remember that the shot will be very low as you hit the ball. You must be able to hit this ball in the court while bending! Bending is extremely important with this shot. If you don't bend, you cannot expect to hit and place the ball precisely in the court. I know we haven't gone into exactly how to hit the volley, just a few primary things for now, but I promise, if you check on us later, you will be able to hit volleys just like Federer! But, we can look more stylish than Federer. How? Check out some of our clothes that we are presenting right here.

Tennis Tip #5

Continuing with the volleys, we are now going to discuss where to exactly hit your volleys. The closer you are to the court baseline, you need to hit the ball deeper. You don't want to add any more time for your opponent to get to the ball. Many tennis players think it is all about hitting the ball as hard as you can, but the volley is different, you block, and need to place the ball correctly. On your first volley that you hit coming to the net, you will most likely be hitting the ball a couple of feet behind the service line. The best place to put the ball now is deep and low. This deprives your opponent a chance to attack you. It's a given when you began taking lessons, a coach would say to you, "if you hit it high, you die", so make sure you keep your stroke low! The idea here is to still press your opponent, but also to force the receiver to hit a shot that you will put away. After making your first volley, move closer to the net. The closer you are to the net, the more angles you can hit when volleying. This doesn't mean the closer you are to the net, the more reason to hit an angle. The other deciding factor is the height of the ball. If the ball is coming in low, it is much tougher to hit an angle. Remember, you don't want to be on top of the net because it will be very easy for someone to then hit a lob over your head.

Can this be the next tennis champion?

One of our youngest fans of Nu Formal Tennis Attire.

Tennis tip #4

After discussing split steps, what is better than going into volleys. The volleys are quite possibly the most simple shot in tennis, but it is also the most problematic shot. There are a couple things to consider. First, you have to remember to squeeze your grip. This is the only shot where you would have to squeeze your grip. The other thing that you cannot do, is swing! When you volley, you block, not swing. So this is the basic of the volley. The first stop in this group of tennis tips in regards to the volley will be the serve and volley. This is very old school tennis, but it is extremely useful nowadays. The piece that makes it so great is the fact that you can cover around 75% of the court when you come to the net. This puts a lot of pressure on your opponent to hit a nice return on your serve. After you hit the serve, you want to come into the net. Depending on your opponent’s return will determine how fast you run in to make the volley. Sometimes you will see that it is easier to hit a half volley (will be discussed in the next post) which is okay, but you just don’t want to have to hit the ball behind you. As you come in, you will make a split step right when your opponent hits your serve, then you will run to where the ball was hit. We hope that you try this tip in your games, and would love to hear how our tips have helped! Want to see some cool clothes, check them out here.

Tennis Tip #3

Split stepping, what is the point? Here is another fun tennis tip for today from Nu Formal Tennis. The idea of split stepping is to get your body moving, but in the right direction. For example, if you are running to the net, how do you prepare to move right or left? Do you guess? Obviously you cannot guess… Can you slow down? Well, if you do that, you will be too slow to the ball. You must split step! It will cause your body to only have forward motion. After you split step, you can move either left or right without a problem. A question some of you may be thinking is, when should I split step? Well it's all about timing. You want to split step right when your opponent makes contact with the ball. When this happens you would do a small hop. You should do this no matter where you are on the court. It will help your reaction time, which will help you reach more balls. If you have any questions, or would like to have a tennis tip on something please let us know. If you want to look stylish, please go to our website

Nu Tennis Clothes

Nu tennis clothes! Hey everyone, we have just designed some awesome new designs, here are a couple! If you like what you see, go check out our website here

Tennis Tip #2

When you step on the court, what is the first thing you should do after you are done stretching and warming up? Should you jump to the baseline? NO WAY! Instead, you should warm up by playing mini tennis. But what is the benefit of warming up on the service line? There are a couple things. You can work on your feel, timing, and strokes. All of these are integral pieces to improve your game. When you hit the ball, you should always try to over exaggerate by bending your knees, working on your timing, and adding a lot of topspin. If you think you are hitting with a lot of spin, try to add more. You should also work on your slice shots as well. A good drill is to place a ball on you and your partner's service line, and try to hit the ball while warming up. Once you feel confident with your timing and how you should hit the ball, you should work on volleys. Remember, you should hit the volleys at the service line, because where do you think you actually hit your volleys in a match? A foot from the net? Lastly, remember that you are still warming up, so you should be focusing on getting into a rhythm, not hitting winners!!! Winners are for game time only!! We hope this Nu tip will help your game.

Tennis Tip #1

Here at Nu Formal Tennis we would like to help you become better tennis players.  This is the first tip of our hopefully very many. Our first tip will be discussing tennis strings and the new fad of polyester string.  So, about string, there is a large variety of them. All of the string can be broken down into three different types: synthetic gut, natural gut, and poly-gut (polyester).  They all have their pros and cons.  But let’s go into polyester, it’s a new type of string that a lot of advanced tennis players have been playing with.  It brings power and spin, but it also comes with a lot of stress on your body.  It is recommended to string the racquet a couple pounds lesser because the string is so stiff.  If you do not, you can be out weeks, or months from your favorite sport!  Me personally, I do a hybrid with a very soft synthetic gut string.  This helps my racquet last longer, and it puts a lot less stress on my arm.  Some of you may ask: what string should I play with?  And in reality, there is no right answer, many people like one more then another for many different reasons.  You just have to remember that you have to do what is best for you and your game!

Our First Blog

As we are currently expanding into the ecommerce world, we have decided to start a blog. We will include content from tennis tips, styles, and updates about our company. So who are we? We are a newly established tennis clothing company selling shirts, shorts, and many more! You can find some of our clothes on our website by clicking Tennis Store. Whether you are a just starting out, or an advanced player, you will find relevant information to help you become a better tennis player.