Base Line Tennis

It would be impossible to discuss tennis and the name Prince would not come up. Prince and Prince products have long dominated the market in terms of providing quality tennis apparels and equipments. Would you like to go back down the memory lane and see how the phenomenal success of this company came to be?

Prince began by being a manufacturer of machines for tennis balls. They soon ventured into racket manufacture and engineering (oversized, graphite, to name a few). They made some of these rackets world famous in such a short period of time that the name Prince became synonymous with tennis.

One of the continuing marketing strategies of the company is to sponsor top tennis performers such as: Maria Sharapova, Jennifer Capriati, Guillermo Coria, Martina Navartilova and Patrick Rafter. With championships bagged by these athletes, most consumers started to show interest in Prince products.

The company today remains a leader not only in manufacturing the latest innovation in tennis products but also in sponsoring tennis events. Take a look at tennis tournaments and you are set to see a logo of the company on the background!

It would be hard to believe now that Prince all started from a useful invention that was born in a small garage. From there, we see the achievements of the company:

1.Invention of the machine for tennis balls by Bob Mclure in 1970.
2.Oversized racket was introduced to the market in 1976.
3.In 1976, a racket made of graphite was born.
4.In 1978, a string which has multi-filaments was created.
5.Sports bags were first sold in the early 80′s.
6.In 1989, the grip on racket handles were improved.
7.Tunnels of wind on their rackets were engineered in the year 2005. It deviated from the conventional racket holes where the strings were tied.

And because of these ‘tunnels of wind’ another tennis legend has signed up to do endorsements for the company- James Blake.

The products that are currently being sold worldwide by the company are:

1.Shoes- which the company guarantees to not wear out within the year it was purchased. Repairs and replacement are choices that an unsatisfied customer can opt for.
2.Rackets
3.Tennis Balls
4.Strings
5.Sports bags
6.Grips
7.Items used on the court as well as machines!
8.Clothings; and
9.Accessories

It may come as a sad thing to some that Prince products are not sold directly to the consumers. There are dealers that are authorized to sell the products to the buyers. One could go online and find the nearest one to her home.

Currently, the partners of Prince are the following:

NBTA or the Nick Bolletierri Tennis Academy- no less than the likes of Andre Agassi, Anna Kournikova and Jim Courier were given instructions in this academy.
University of Miami Online High School
Cardio Tennis- fitness group focuses on professional workouts.
Saddlebrook Resort
Tennis Europe- a famous partner on accessories.
SAP Open
Family Circle Cup
US Sports Camps

To make make things more exciting, the company also has the famous Club Prince where one could become a member. The benefits of being a member of this prestigious club are updates on players’ tours, latest information on Prince products, contests and inside news. This is a fun way to get into the sports called tennis.

Prince tennis has really carved a name for itself in the tennis industry. There are several competitors but the company’s name remains a strong contender. One would be foolish to disagree.

If you are considering having a sport, choose tennis. There are many healthy benefits you can get from playing this sport.
You don’t only get physically fit, you mind gets well too.

Here is a list of physiological reasons why you will be excited to play tennis.

1. It burns your fat and boosts your energy levels by increasing your metabolism and tapping your energy stores.

2. It gives your cardiovascular system a good work thus improving your circulation which leads to having better blood supply to the body.

3. It enhances your oxygen muscle consumption whenever you engage in intense activities.

4. It increases your ability to accelerate through sprinting, lounging and jumping.

5. It trains you to have a quick reaction time and allows you to anticipate movements.

6. It develops your speed whenever you do your sprints and side steps to hit the ball.

7. It strengthens your legs through the number of jumps and lounges you do in the court while chasing the ball.

8. It generally develops your body coordination when you move from one position to the next or whenever you need to adjust your whole body to hit the ball.

9. It also develops your gross motor control especially when you need to use your large muscles like your legs and arms to strike a ball.

10. It also improves your fine motor control when you do drop shots, lobs and angled-volleys.

11. It enhances your agility whenever you need to change your direction for a number times in a few seconds whether during tennis match or training.

12. It gives you a dynamic balance beginning with the stance, serve and countless of different other movements when hitting and chasing the ball.

13. It gives you variety and a whole new way to improve physically when you are an athlete who excels in another sport.

14. It strengthens your bone and improves your bone density allowing you to have a healthy skeleton far from bones diseases like osteoporosis.

15. Because you are exercised by playing tennis, you develop an overall wellness including having a strong immune system that gives you optimum resistance to diseases.

16. It also fosters having good nutritional habits because you develop the discipline of eating properly before a game to have enough energy and after a competition to properly supplement the energy that you have lost.

17. It also develops good eye-hand coordination when judging when to hit the ball.

18. It helps you to be flexible because of the never-ending stretching, twisting and turning to strike the ball toward the other court.

Meanwhile, here is a list of psychological reasons to play tennis.

18. It develops your sense of work ethic because you need to foster dedication and the value of hard work to learn the lessons in tennis.

19. You also develop discipline because you need to practice a lot and to control your movements, your timing etc.

20. You learn to manage mistakes not just in tennis but also in other aspects of your life by realizing that you need to manage and minimize your mistakes in the game to be successful.

21. You learn to be competitive and adjust to the highs and lows of winning or losing.

22. You become more responsible as you accept the fact that it is your responsibility to practice your skills, check your equipment, and eat right when preparing for a match.

23. You manage to adapt to various situations by learning to adjust to things beyond your control like the weather.

24. You can adjust to stress easily and effectively because you have already dealt with a lot of stress affecting various dimensions of your self.

25. You learn to be strategic as you plan your attack and anticipate the moves of your opponent.

26. You develop you skill in problem solving since tennis is a sport that uses geometry and physics.

27. You learn to be a sport as it teaches you to be courteous and fair with your opponents.

28. You learn how to be humble when you win and dignified when you lose.

29. You learn teamwork and camaraderie as you play in doubles.

30. You develop your social skills by interacting and constantly communicating either with your teammate or other players.

31. The most important lesson of all is you learn to have fun and enjoy.

Famous Male Tennis Players

Roger Federer. This 25 year old Swiss tennis professional currently ranks No. 1 in the world. He is a very promising talent and has proven many great achievements since he started playing tennis. In 2004, he won three Grand Slam singles tournaments. By 2006, he has already won at least ten singles championships for three consecutive years. He has won three Tennis Masters Cup, 12 ATP Masters Series, nine Grand Slam singles titles, and won for three consecutive years the Wimbledon and U.S. Open singles titles.

Andy Roddick. He is an American tennis player born on August 30, 1982 in Omaha, Nebraska whose full name is Andrew Stephen Roddick. In 2005, he was ranked as the best male US tennis player. He began playing tennis professionally when he was 18 and has achieved great success since then. In 2003, he ranked as the No. 1 American to finish a year. In 2004, he was recorded to have the world’s fastest serve. He established his own foundation and became the model of Lacoste.

Rafael Nadal. Born June 3, 1986, this famous male Spanish player entered the world of professional tennis when he was just a teenager. He is also known as the King of Clay. He is the second youngest player to be included in the top 100 players of the world. He considers Roger Federer and Andy Roddick to be his greatest opponents.

Pete Sampras. Although he has been retired since 2003, this American tennis player still remains very popular. He was the youngest male player to have won the US Open singles by beating Andre Agassi. He has gained 11 Masters series titles and about 64 other titles. He is the only player to finish No. 1 for six consecutive years from 1993-1998.

Famous Female Tennis Players

Anna Kournikova. She was born in Moscow, Russia on June 7, 1981. She started playing tennis at a young age and was enrolled at Nick Bolletierri’s tennis academy by her parents. At the age of 14, she was the youngest to have won the Fed Cup match. Although she ranked the top 20 players in the world in the singles division, she was more recognized in her doubles ranking. This Russian girl has captivated many fans and photographers with her good looks making her the most photograph tennis star and a bankable endorser.

Lindsay Davenport. Born on June 8, 1976 in Palos Verdes, California, USA, she started playing tennis at the age of 5. She won three Grand Slam tournaments at the end of the 90′s She left the world of tennis to recuperate from a back injury. She came back in 2005 with a bang as she was ranked No. 1.

Maria Sharapova. She was on April 19, 1987 in Russia. She began playing tennis when she was only 4 years old. At 6, her talent in tennis was discovered and moved to the US to hone her skills under professional coaching. When she started playing professionally in 2002, she only ranked at 186th. But on the following year, her ranking greatly improved being at 32nd. In 2004, she became the second youngest to win the Grand Slam Wimbledon Championship.

Serena Williams. She is an American born on September 26, 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan, USA. She won her first ever tournament when she was four years old. She became a professional tennis player in 1995 at the age 14. At the end of the 90′s, her career took off when she consistently ranked in the top 20 players in the world beating many star players like Lindsay Davenport and her sister Venus Williams.

If you are a beginner, an important tennis lesson that you should learn is how to serve. Developing this skill and learning the different ways to hit the ball will give you a competitive advantage over other players.

There is a series of motions involved in making a serve but the main objective is to hit the ball in a well-timed manner to be effective. The stroke of the serve includes how to properly hold the racket, how to throw the ball, how to position the body before the racquet hits the ball.

The flat serve, topspin , and the slice are the three basic serves that you need to know and practice so that you can use them in an appropriate time when you play the game. The flat serve or basic serve is when you hit the ball on a flat
trajectory making moderate spin. Next, the topspin is done by doing high arcing trajectory and with high strong bounce. The last one is the slice. This type of serve is made by doing a combination of a sidespin and a bit of topspin to make the ball swerve in the air following the bounce.

Here are the elements of the serve before the racquet hits the ball:

Service Stance Adjust your stance according to the appropriate service youll make. Remember to have your feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, your front foot not stepping on the baseline and it should be two feet away from the center mark.

Continental grip This is the ideal grip which allows you to have maximum wrist action for a powerful stroke.

Ball Handling You should hold the ball between your thumb and all four fingers.

Feet Position – Align your feet with your toes pointing toward the target area.

The Ball Toss Toss the ball in front, slightly to the right, and a little higher than your racquet could reach so it is just in time as it reaches the ball.

Now that you know the basic elements of a serve, you can now follow these steps to develop a good basic serve.

1. Begin with the service stance and hold the racquet using the continental grip.

2. Push your weight on the ground while keeping your front knee as you part your racquet arm and your tossing arm. Twist the serving shoulder a little so the racquet arm and tossing arms align.

3. Do the ball toss by releasing the ball slightly in front of the shoulder while the racquet is facing downwards and is terminally retracted. Bend your racquet arm elbow to elevate the racquet while the left arm remains pointing at the ball.

4. While the ball is at its highest point, prepare for a throwing position by dropping your racquet and keeping your elbow high. As the ball falls from its peak, gradually drop your left arm away from the side.

5. Then, straighten your legs by pushing your weight upwards and forwards behind the racquet arm. When the ball has fallen 4 to 6 inches, hurl your racquet up to hit the ball

6. While your racquet arm is fully stretched and your weight is channeled on your front foot, hit the ball.

7. As you create a forward momentum, continue swinging the racquet in the direction of your chosen target.

8. Do a follow through by swinging down your racquet at the left side of your body while your foot slowly comes down to a finish.

Tennis elbow is a very painful condition where the outer or lateral part of the elbow becomes painful and tender.

This is normally as a consequence of overuse or a specific strain, such as over extending the elbow, or put another way, straightening the arm too quickly or with too much force.

As much as anything it is caused by a one handed backhand with poor technique, or the snap caused by coming late to a forehand shot, or a fast service where wrist pronation increases the wrist snap.

Just about everyone calls it tennis elbow, but it is not only tennis players who suffer from it.

In fact anyone who lifts a lot in their job, or uses their wrist in repeated movements are susceptible to tennis elbow. In this way it is almost a repetitive strain injury.

Tennis elbow has been a recognised medical condition since 1883 and is known medically as Lateral Epicondylitis.

The symptoms of Tennis Elbow are quite simply pain on the outer part of the elbow, and gripping and movements of the wrist hurt, especially wrist extension and lifting movements. Put another way lifting a cup of tea, or a glass of beer will hurt, and it will be impossible to throw a ball without elbow pain running down the forearm.

It is important to realise that over 50% of all tennis players will suffer from Tennis Elbow at some time. Having said that, the vast majority of all cases of tennis elbow dont involve tennis players at all.

A differential diagnosis of tennis elbow is important, for it is easily confused with Golfers Elbow, and Bursitis.

The pain with Golfers elbow is on the inside and not the outside of the elbow. The pain with Bursitis is at the back of the elbow, and is often caused by a direct blow or a fall onto the tip of the elbow.

If you dont get it treated then tennis elbow can become chronic, and very difficult then to ever get rid of it.