Is It Good to Play Tennis Every Day? [Response & Tips]

Tennis is a sport for a lifetime. We love to watch it on TV and we love to play it. For professionals, it is necessary to train every day for hours in order to keep fit and mentally sharp and compete in the long and exhausting ATP tour for male players and WTA tour for female players. However, it is a good thing to practice every day for amateurs or leisure players, who play for fun?

Playing tennis every day is good for healthy people especially those under 30. In fact, it is a great exercise to maintain flexibility, endurance, muscle tone, and cardiovascular health.

Most doctors and health experts encourage people to hit the tennis court as much as they physically can. As for players with health conditions or older individuals, they can still play three times a week to keep strong, active, and happy.

7 Great Benefits of Tennis

forehand shot — *Jim De Ramos / Unsplash*

Practicing tennis is beneficial for the body and the mind. Accomplishing daily tennis exercises will help progress even further and enhance your physical and mental abilities. We have listed all the benefits of the beautiful sport of tennis below.

Improves coordination

The body is activated once you play tennis. In fact, the muscular and skeletal systems work producing lots of energy that is different from any other sport. The entire core mechanic including muscles and articulations move in anaerobic mode, which is making effort without consuming oxygen in the process.

Tennis is an explosion of exertion that enhances your speed, your fitness, and your dexterity. This allows you to focus better on moving objects and use your energy reasonably.

Good for the heart

If you practice tennis more than 3 hours per week, you reduce by 50% the risk of having cardiovascular diseases. In fact, the blood pressure inside lowers with often play and there is no lipid depot in the blood vessels.

In addition, tennis helps improve the oxygen level in the body by 30% compared with the normal oxygen level of a sedentary person.

Enhances focus and intelligence

While sports, in general, boost your physical abilities, tennis is one sport that enhances your intelligence and concentration as well.

Tennis is about seeing correctly the ball thrown by the opponent. This alone is a great exercise for your mind. In fact, to focus on a point for a long time considering that this point is moving makes you sharp and clever.

Moreover, the ball has a different trajectory, velocity, and spin each time, which makes you analyze every time the shot and then plan your next move. In addition, you need to set up the plan to win and adapt it according to the match.

All these situations and constantly seeking solutions strengthen the neural connections in your brain and make you more sharp and intelligent.

Keeps you fit and lowers fat

Like other sports, tennis helps you lose weight by burning between 400 and 600 calories per hour. This is equivalent to one hour of swimming, running or cycling.

Tennis is considered one of the most intense activities for the body and helps you shed unwanted weight fast and effectively.

Improves mental strength

If you watch professional matches on TV, you will see that many players win games just by having superior mental strength and bigger confidence in their abilities. If you compete to win, many games will be balanced and the outcome undecided by technical or physical abilities. It all comes down to your mental strength, which is the skill to manage your emotions, to have deep confidence in yourself, and to strongly believe that you will definitely close the game in your favor.

A perfect example of mental strength in tennis is Novak Djokovic. Personally, I think he has the best mind and bottle of the sport. He can recover from difficult situations, save match points and win very close and crucial games.

Increases patience

This is often under looked but tennis is a great activity to work on your patience. Tennis matches can be exhausting with long exchanges or tough conditions. This is where you learn that patience helps you wait for the best opportunity to hit a winner, to go for a volley, or to shoot a passing.

Furthermore, patience allows you to have better timing when striking the ball. In fact, most beginners lack the composure and go to hit the ball in a not-good position. With further training, a beginner can improve his timing and learn when exactly to shoot and how to do it smoothly and consistently.

Better and healthy social life

By hitting the club every day, you will meet new people and interact with them. This will help you boost your social skills and communicate effectively.

You will also learn to communicate better with teammates or opponents when you are playing and this is important to compete fairly and win.

How Often to Play Tennis If Not Daily

tennis players shaking hands — *cottonbro / Unsplash*

Not all tennis lovers have the ability to play every day. People have different schedules, ages, health conditions, and other factors that make it hard to stick to daily practice. So, how much to play let’s say in a week?

We have made in place defining factors that determine how much you should play in a week.

Age

Age is a factor that influences how often you should play tennis. You can play tennis as often as you would like, but keep in mind that after 40 years it becomes difficult. To put you in the picture, after the thirties, tennis is harder on the muscles and joints. It can cause injuries because the tendons are looser and the knees, elbows, ankles, and shoulders are more fragile.

We recommend for people older than the age of 40, to play a maximum of 3 times a week.

Health Condition

No matter the age, your health condition determines if you can play tennis and how often you should play. If you have suffered from an injury recently, you need rest. Please follow your doctor’s prescription.

Playing tennis while having a medical condition or a vulnerability can be dangerous for your health.

A good indicator is a pain while playing tennis. In this case, you have to stop immediately and consult a doctor.

Responsibilities

If you have busy days with long work hours, family responsibilities, and other occupations, it can be tough to play every day.

A good solution is to train 4 or 3 times a week with 1 or 2 hours of practice. It will put you in a position better than most people around you. In fact, 60% of US adults are sedentary and don’t engage in any workout activity. By playing tennis regularly you will be in the top 10% of active people. You are really amazing!

Goal

To play daily or not really depends on your goal. If you are a young teenager who aims for a professional career, you must exercise daily to stay competitive. But if you are an amateur or a recreational player, 3 times a week is good.

Motivation

It is hard to stay motivated for a long time. In fact, it is normal to start losing your motivation after weeks. Some people struggle to maintain their momentum and find themselves losing the will to drive to the club and play after a smashing start.

Hence, it all depends on your motivation level and your consistency. Being well organized and planning your daily tasks ahead maintains your discipline and focus.

Below you will find our quick tips on how to keep your daily tennis motivation:

Set a realistic goal for each day: For example, if you know it is going to be difficult to play, set a 15 or 30min practice to accomplish the exercise.
Set long-term goals: Either you are training to compete at a high level or just enjoying your time, it is primordial to set midterm and long-term objectives, such as having a faster serve or a better topspin forehand. These improvement milestones will motivate you to hit the court more often.
Write it down on paper: It may sound stupid but this is actually a good reminder. On a notepad or an app, set tennis as a mandatory task.

Reward yourself: Set a reward but only after your daily tennis session. Or, do something that makes you happy and excited like watching a movie or playing a video game.

Budget

Budget is an important factor to consider. Playing daily is not only time-consuming and exhausting but also budget draining. Tennis can take a toll on your playing gear.

Racquets have to be strung once in 2 or 4 matches

Shoes can take serious damage after a few weeks or months.
You pay a coach more if you play more hours
Some clubs have restrictions on how much to play

However, not everyone has the financial resources. Therefore, it depends on how much you can pay to finance your training.

Not finding a partner

This is another reason to skip a tennis session. If you know that your coach or your friend is unavailable in a day, the idea of not showing up will dominate your thought. This will lead at the end to losing consistency.

Still, if you want to stick to daily tennis practice, we have a helpful complete guide on how to play tennis if you are alone.

To wrap it up

If you can have the dedication, the time, and the budget, and your body is physically capable of everyday activity, then playing tennis daily is good and beneficial for your body, your mind, and your social life.