Starting Tennis as an Adult: What your First 90 days should look like

By: JoeMichael Olfindo, Tennis Director and Partner

I teach adults for a living, and the single most common thing I hear in a first lesson is some version of an apology. Sorry, I’m terrible. Sorry, I haven’t played since high school. Sorry, I’m probably too old for this.

You’re not. But I understand where it comes from, because most adults’ only experience of learning tennis was being handed a racquet at a group clinic, fed twenty balls, and left to figure it out. That doesn’t work, and then people conclude they’re bad at tennis when what actually happened is nobody gave them a plan.

So here’s the plan. Ninety days, three phases.

Days 1–30: One thing only — contact

Forget your grip debates. Forget footwork patterns. Forget what your friend told you about topspin.

For the first month, the only skill that matters is making clean contact with a moving ball, consistently, in front of your body. That’s it. Everything in tennis is built on it, and almost every problem I fix in intermediate players traces back to it never being learned properly.

What this looks like in practice: a lot of repetition at a pace slow enough that you can succeed. Not “easy” — achievable. There’s a difference, and it’s the difference between building a stroke and reinforcing a flinch.

This is where simulators earn their keep for beginners more than for anyone else. On a simulator you get several hundred balls in 25 minutes at a controlled speed, and nobody is watching. Compare that to a beginner group class where you might hit sixty balls in an hour and spend the other fifty minutes in line, self-conscious. The volume difference is not small — it’s roughly five to one.

Your month one: two sessions a week on a simulator or with a coach, plus one Beginners class for the social piece. Do not play a match. You will learn nothing from it yet.

Days 31–60: Play points, badly, on purpose

Now you play drop hit points. And you will lose, and it will be ugly, and that is exactly the point.

Match play teaches things no drill can: how to choose a target under mild pressure, how to recover between points, how to hit a second serve when the first one missed. Those are separate skills from stroke production, and they only exist under live conditions.

Our Point Play sessions are for 3.0 and up, so, by day 30, most players aren’t there yet. Start with Rally 1 or grab a semi-private with someone at your level. What matters is that the ball is coming from a human who is also trying to win.

Your month two: one hitting session, one class, one set of live points a week.

Days 61–90: Add the serve, and only the serve

Most adults try to learn forehand, backhand, volley, serve, and overhead simultaneously. Then they’re mediocre at five things instead of solid at two.

Month two, you add serve. Here’s why it goes second and not fifth: the serve is the only shot in tennis nobody can rush you on, and it’s the shot that decides whether you can play a real game. Two people who can serve can play tennis. Two people who can’t, can’t.

Serve is also the most coachable shot there is, because it’s a closed skill — same ball, same toss, same spot, every time. Adults improve fast on serves. It’s the most satisfying month.

Your month three: two hitting sessions, replace one with serve-focused work, and add one 30-minute private lesson. Thirty minutes of one-on-one on a serve is worth more than three group hours.

Three things I’d tell you to skip

Don’t buy a racquet in week one. You don’t know what you like yet, and the specs that matter — weight, balance, head size — depend on a swing you haven’t built. Demo instead. Our shop carries Wilson, Babolat, Yonex, HEAD and more, and any decent shop will let you try before you commit.

Don’t watch pro tennis for technique. Alcaraz’s forehand is not a model for a 45-year-old’s first year. Watch good 4.0 doubles instead. Much more transferable.

Don’t measure progress in wins. Measure it in rally length. Three balls in a row, then five, then ten. That number climbing is what improvement actually feels like, and it climbs long before the wins show up.

What 90 days really gets you

You will be able to rally. You will be able to serve well enough to start a point. You will be able to walk onto a court with people who play and not feel like a liability.

You will not be good. Good takes years, and honestly that’s the best part — this is a game you get to keep getting better at until you’re 95.

If you want to start, come do a 30-minute discovery lesson. Bring nothing. We’ll tell you honestly where you are and what your first month should look like.