Make more returns, beat a better player: The right resolutions really can help your tennis game

January 1, 2024, marks the 10th anniversary of the day I swore I would never miss another high forehand volley.

You know the one: The ball floats toward you and hangs in the air a few feet above your head, looking ready and willing to be pummeled for an easy winner. As you raise your racquet, you may see your doubles opponents start to flinch and try to protect themselves from the missile you’re about to fire their way. You bring your arm up, you feel like you’re going to make clean contact, and then ... the ball clanks off the top of the frame, falls straight down like a rotten apple, and lands six inches in front of you for a humiliating error. You may conclude the whole disastrous affair by dropping your racquet to the ground so you can hold your head in your hands.

The high forehand volley may be the most awkward easy shot in the game—at least it is for me. The ball comes too fast to smash, but too slow to simply block, and you can’t use a shoulder turn to generate pace the way you can on your backhand side.

I knew, back on New Year’s Day in 2014, when I made my resolution never to botch another one, that I was being overly ambitious. And I have continued to dread, and miss, that shot ever since. But over the last 10 years, I haven’t missed it as much. I’ve learned to be more patient, not to swing too soon, and to angle the ball safely into the open court whenever possible. Promising myself not to miss forced me to go back to basics and find a solution to the problem. The fact that the high forehand volley happens more often in doubles was also a motivating factor. Missing it less was a way of not letting my partner down as much.

Since then, I’ve made sure to make a resolution or two about my tennis game as each new year begins. In other parts of my life, they typically don’t work. My annual efforts to drink less, get rich, be a nicer person, and do 50 (or five) push-ups a day usually fizzle out, or are conveniently forgotten, by mid-January. But when you walk on court, it’s relatively easy to remember your new pledges, and at least attempt to put them into effect. The key for me is not to clutter up my mind with too many goals at once.

The coming year promises to be one of the most preposterous 12-month periods in United States history. So maybe it will help our collective mental health if we focus a little more on our tennis games. With that in mind, I’m going to make these three resolutions for the year ahead.

Make every return

Taken literally, this is not remotely achievable; the return may be the most-easily-missed shot in tennis. But it’s the mindset that matters. In past years, when I’ve played in 4.0 and 4.5 rec leagues, simply getting as many returns as possible in play made a significant difference in my results. It’s not exciting, but at that level, not allowing your opponent to win cheap points on serve qualifies as a weapon.

Beat a better player

This resolution has also worked well for me in the past. You can take your time, figure out what works against your target opponents, and slowly improve your scores against them as the months go by. Doing that will force you to raise multiple areas of your game, including your mental toughness. Instead of worrying about losing, and feeling bad when you do, you can play the long game and chalk up each defeat as part of your process.

One summer a few years ago, I played, and lost to, a better opponent every weekend, until I finally edged him in three close sets in late August. I never told him about my goal, and I never beat him again. But it still feels good years later.

Use, don’t abuse, pickleball

Like it or not, it seems safe to say that pickleball is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. And like it or not, you’re probably going to be asked to play by someone you know. Better to join in than to come across as a racquet-sports snob, right?

And better to take whatever you can from pickleball and transfer it to the tennis court. For me, my social pickleball outings have become a way to (1) get used to charging from the baseline to the net, especially in doubles, and (2) work on taking pace off my volley and dropping it at my opponent’s feet.

If you can’t make a sport go away, you might as well learn from it, right?

I won’t make it a specific resolution, but this year I’ll try as always to appreciate the simple act of being healthy enough to play a sport as multi-faceted and demanding as tennis. As I wrote above, 2024 promises to be a chaotic year in the States and around the world. I’m going to try to savor every chance I have to block it out by chasing a little yellow ball up and back, and side to side.