You spend hours perfecting your forehand. You drill your serve until it feels automatic. You work on your footwork patterns until they become second nature. But there is one fundamental skill that even elite coaches say is the single biggest cause of errors in tennis, and most players never train it.
Balance.
As Nick Saviano writes in his book Maximum Tennis, "One of the single biggest causes of errors in tennis is poor balance." Yet body balance seldom gets the attention or credit it deserves among recreational players. This is a mistake that costs you power, accuracy, consistency, and even your long-term health.
The Expert Verdict: Balance Is Everything
The tennis greats understood this long before modern sports science confirmed it. Bill Tilden, in his 1924 classic Match Play and the Spin of the Ball, wrote: "Footwork is the means to perfect weight control and balance."
Marty Smith, a two-time NCAA Southern Conference champion and Director of Tennis at the New York Athletic Club, has devoted his career to teaching this principle. A protégé of legendary coach Welby Van Horn—who famously taught only footwork and balance in many students' first lessons—Smith explains why balance must come before everything else:
"It sets a foundation from which a swing can be powerful, consistent and done with less effort. It also plays a crucial role in agility and movement."
Smith made balance the first chapter of his book Absolute Tennis because, in his words, "Without understanding how the body moves, students cannot maximise their potential on their strokes."
Two-time US Open champion Tracy Austin agrees. She has worked with thousands of recreational players and identifies balance as one of the two essential building blocks of a solid tennis game:
"Without good balance and an effective unit turn, the foundation of a shot is compromised right from the start."
She points to Novak Djokovic as the gold standard: "It's as if he has a phone book on his head. Even when Djokovic is stretched, he maintains exquisite balance."
Why Balance Is Your Brain's Safety Switch
Here is something most players do not realize. Your brain will not let you sprint or swing at full power if it does not trust your balance system, no matter how hard you try to push through it.
Richard Brice, who has assessed hundreds of senior tennis players, found that nearly every one of them has a balance problem—and most have no idea it is the reason their serve lost power, their nerves spike at critical moments, and their knees ache.
The explanation is straightforward. Poor balance inevitably diminishes your stroke's power, accuracy, and consistency. Tennis is a game where the ability to change direction quickly has a big influence on success, and braking fast and then accelerating powerfully is entirely dependent on balancing the body.
When you are off-balance, you arrive too close or too far from the ball and are forced to employ last-second manipulations of the forearm and wrist. Those improvisational techniques might help you compensate, but they are hardly effective or reliable.
The Test That Reveals Everything
How do you know if your balance is where it needs to be? There is a simple test that health professionals and coaches use to assess functional fitness. It is called the Sitting-Rising Test, and it might tell you more about your body than any treadmill test ever could.
Exercise Physiologist Pete McCall, CSCS, author of Smarter Workouts, explains:
"The sitting-rising test evaluates so much of what makes us physically healthy: muscle strength, mobility, proprioception, balance, and coordination."
Here is how it works. Sit down on the floor cross-legged, then stand back up without using your hands, knees, or forearms for support. The fewer supports you need, the better your overall movement quality. A perfect score is 10 out of 10.
Research published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology found that adults with higher Sitting-Rising Test scores had a significantly lower risk of premature death over the following years compared with those who required multiple supports. The test reflects a combination of muscle strength, balance, flexibility, and coordination—all of which are important for healthy aging and maintaining independence.
Even the strongest athletes can struggle with this task unless they perform dedicated mobility and balance work.
The Core Connection
Balance does not start in your feet. It starts in your core.
Research has shown that specific core stability training plays a significant role in improving balance and postural stability in tennis players, especially in terms of preventing the risk of injury. When your core is stable, your body can transfer power efficiently from the ground through your legs, hips, torso, and into the racquet.
Smith emphasizes this through the concept of the "kinetic chain"—the idea that power in tennis flows through a sequence of linked movements. If any link in that chain is unstable, power leaks out and your shots suffer.
The good news is that balance is a skill you can improve. Tracy Austin recommends practicing against a backboard because "it challenges you to work rigorously on your footwork" and forces you to maintain proper positioning. Marty Smith advises that juniors should cross-train and play various sports as young kids first to learn balance and movement before spending hours hitting balls on the practice court later as teenagers.
The Bottom Line
Great balance is the reason why world-class players can repeatedly hit ball after ball so efficiently and make it look easy. It is what allows Roger Federer's unrivalled body stability to produce beautifully timed, powerful, and precise shots that appear effortless.
But balance is not just about playing better tennis. It is about staying healthy, avoiding injury, and maintaining independence as you age. The Sitting-Rising Test offers a simple way to assess where you stand—literally.
Try this today: Sit down on the floor, then stand back up without using your hands if it is safe to do so. If you need support, do not worry. Treat it as a simple benchmark. Then start working on your balance through core exercises, single-leg drills, and simply practicing the movement.
As one coach put it: "Relaxation is the key to championship performance. Relaxation is the key element to being balanced. Balance is critical for excellent tennis play at every level."
Your forehand can wait. Your serve can wait. But your balance? That is the foundation everything else is built on.