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.

I am trying to make clear the importance of such first principles
as I will now explain.