A new public tennis court has been built between the magnetic sand beach and the central park in Kobuleti. To celebrate its first birthday in 2025, a tournament will be held at the end of the summer if sufficient interest among the court users motivates and supports an organizer to work on it. In order to help getting prepared for this singles event, some basic tennis instruction will be provided from July in English preferably, or in Russian if needed, and hopefully enough Georgian will stick to the organizer by the next time it's time for a tournament here in order to be able to give instruction in the local language. You are welcome to join us!
Detailed one-to-one instruction is available from 7-11am, and general instruction in group sessions can be scheduled from 8-10pm every day in the high season July-August for the quickest to sign up and willing to participate to celebrate this excellent opportunity to play tennis in Kobuleti. Ask Andres e.g. in the Telegram group Big Tennis Kobuleti or on court at the scheduled times (see the link below after it becomes available) to sign up for a test set so you end up in the round-robin group that best matches your current level of play. Or sign up for a tennis lesson to get prepared for the tournament. You'll see our instruction, practice and match schedule online on our TODO: Request-for-Play Tetris website after it becomes available.
In general, let's try to avoid the heat of the day in July and August as far as instruction is concerned. On partly rainy days with UV index below 8 we can make exceptions to this rule and play at midday, the instruction prices are the following per participant, and on Saturdays we can play in Batumi, too:
| Early hours | Late hours | Price |
|---|---|---|
| in Kobuleti Sun-Fri 7-11am |
25 ₾/h | |
| 8-10pm | 30 ₾/h | |
| 11am-noon | 4-8pm | 40 ₾/h |
| noon-4pm, in Batumi Sat 10.30am-7pm |
50 ₾/h | |
The lowest price zone practices in the mornings are reserved for one-to-one play; the rest of the practices can be group practices, too. Please submit your requests for instruction by noon of the day before practice in Kobuleti, and a noon earlier for a practice in Batumi. Whenever there are no requests for play in Batumi on Saturdays, we can play in Kobuleti on Saturdays, too.
The tournament is planned to be held in September mostly. Let's see in October whether there will be more tennis lessons or not before next summer. We can perhaps find someone to give tennis instruction if needed anyway. You can also find most of the topics covered in our high season tennis lessons in the program below.
In tennis – like in many other sports – power starts from the ground up. For tennis footwork instruction, please see the corresponding instruction program already designed for the Batumi Boulevard tennis courts community.
On the Tennis Contacts website for the Kobuleti Promenade court community let's focus on the groundstrokes and other basics instruction for recreational tennis players missing from the BB footwork instruction program that was first and foremost designed for young potential professionals in the current situation on the Batumi tennis courts but suitable for everybody else too, in addition to the topics already covered there.
The volley. Instead of making the typical mistake of, say, bad professional tennis instruction and allocate too much focus to hitting the groundies on the baseline too early, it would be wise to elaborate our footwork discussed on our Tennis Contacts website for the Batumi Boulevard tennis-loving community and develop some touch of the ball on top of it with the help of volleying at the net. Here is how:
The forehand. Introduction to the modern groundstrokes technique is a good starting point on the baseline, and here is yet another sound piece of instruction by Rick Macci available online at the moment, on the forehand side to start with:
The backhand. Despite everything, in many aspects you can think of the modern two-handed backhand as a lefty forehand with added power if used properly, in addition to the differences between the two. Here you can learn about some key details about the latter mostly:
The one-handed backhand is different from the above two in that the bigger muscles run the show. Here are the details:
You might want to see responses #3 and #4 in the Response to Feedback section to learn more about the groundstrokes.
The slice. Something else you are going to need on the baseline is the slice. Interestingly, the forehand and backhand slices are most probably going to feel more different to you from each other than the volleys or the groundies off the opposite wings:
The toss. There is surely one more thing that can't be left out of the list of the bare essentials. First of all, a great serve starts with a great toss, and so does every point in tennis. Technically speaking, again, the guy to listen to has found a great role model among the pros for us, in this case on the WTA tour. Here he shares some nice historic background for and important helper insight into this part of the serve stroke:
Here is another good one in slow motion:
Regarding the trophy position, the shoulder turn, the push-up, and the final stage of creating a, say, bow out of your hitting arm, here you can see a few more excellent role models to help you with assembling a sound serve stroke optimal for your purposes:
Additional base theory reading and video watching for homework might be added here as our lessons advance. A few aspects of the serve, the smash and the volley strokes have been covered on the footwork instruction website already.
There have been many excellent questions from participants at the lessons we've had so far. Some of them are going to be discussed below in more detail as homework for everyone interested.
1. How much should actually the shoulders be turned when hitting a forehand? Let's start with an extreme example and in general not necessarily good advice here – the unique forehand of a very rare type of player with an extremely flexible body who points his hand towards his opponent on forehand shoulder turn and is seemingly still capable of playing ridiculously well against Rafa on clay, for example:
Turns out that insufficiently deep shoulder turn on the forehand side is the most common source of errors among the recreational tennis players, so the obvious advice here is to turn your shoulders more like a typical pro. Just in case, take a look at the outstanding forehands of a couple more of them below:
In a nutshell, if you don't have the talent and flexibility of Gulbis to bagel Rafa on clay in the opening set or similar then a complete shoulder turn combined with focus on persistence is even more likely to pay off than what we saw happen in their match highlights presented above. You might also benefit from listening to the highlights of the post-match interviews with both opponents.
2. How much should actually the shoulders be turned when serving? In addition to the couple serves presented in slow motion on the BB footwork instruction website already and the five ones above, let's add a couple more video clips for helping do your own research, starting from the other extreme of the spectrum this time:
And let's end our tips for finding your optimal shoulder turn for the serve with examining the serving technique of the current world record holder of serve speed:
In summary, if turning your shoulders more results in a considerable extra kick to your serve then you should use it.
3. Why should the strings face the ground when hitting groundstrokes? Let's take a look at yet another Macci backhand lesson:
No backhand – no money. And as for the recreational tennis players, it usually pays off to learn from the pros.
4. How to generate power off the ground when hitting groundstrokes? Let's take a look at yet another Macci forehand lesson:
In summary, power starts from the ground up in tennis, so you want to really keep your knees flexed as the very basics of your groundstroke technique.
5. How to find the ball, why keep your racket loose, and more excellent tips on how to improve your game... Let's take a look at some of the most valuable advice about tennis basics for beginners that other tennis instructors have come up with over time:
You might want to google Rick Macci's, Oscar Wegner's and other insightful tennis instructors' lessons for other brilliant tips on tennis stroke techniques, general hitting guidance, and more.