Getting a Bang out of Tennis
Play the strings and make beautiful music!
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Fundamentals for Quality Play
Experiments on tennis are carried out to answer questions about the related skills. They are meant to help you:
- Understand and be able to
read the shapes of the airborne trajectories of the ball and the way they "fit" into the court geometry. You learn which targets can be reached with which kinds of shots from where, how the ball bounces, where it can best be intercepted, and what angles can be used to return it. It has to do with knowing about air resistance and spin.
- Track and intercept the ball within tight time limitations. Here you would get clues from your opponent's movements and the shape and speed of the trajectory of the ball. The clues let you anticipate where the ball is headed and where it can be intercepted and attacked successfully.
- Make correct contact with the ball, applying knowledge of the way the racket should hit the ball for serves and return shots to reach specified targets. For returns, you would consider the point of origin of the oncoming shot, the speed and direction of motion of the ball, and its spin
- Grip the racket properly, using your knowledge of the strengths, weaknesses, flexibility, and construction of the bones and joints of the hand, as well as the shot you wish to hit.
- Stroke the ball effectively, knowing where you intend to hit the ball, and knowing the structure of your body, the construction and flexibility of its joints, and the effect of your racket grip and contact with the ball.
- Develop good tactics, either for singles or doubles, knowing your opponent's strengths and weaknesses, and their court position.
- Understand the physical characteristics of the court and how your movements and the motion of the ball are affected by different types of surface and their condition.
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Organizing the Functions
The normal tennis problem is to make the right contact with the ball. You need to set racket conditions that result in the best serve or the best return against a shot hit by the opponent -- i.e., to make the ball go where you intend.
The purpose of my personalized tennis experiments is to help you discover what's best for you personally. The experiments let you select theoretical values for control variables. You specify conditions for the racket, the ball, the court, and other environmental properties. The experiments:
- Allow for different court conditions.
- Provide a library of tennis by the opponent.
- Let you intercept the oncoming ball.
- Compute the trajectory of the oncoming ball and show the ball in perspective.
- Summarize the property values of the oncoming shot at the intercept point.
- Have input devices to specify values for the racket variables at the moment of impact with the ball for either the serve or ground stroke.
- Compute the racket/ball interaction dynamics and trajectory and show the ball in motion.
- Provide visual feedbac in various forms
- Present numerical summaries.
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