Every Tennis Drill In New York Sucks

The strangest thing about hitting at Yorkville is the location. The courts are inside of a residential high rise on York Avenue between 89th and 90th. The doorman told me what floor and I expected that when the elevator doors opened there would be high ceilings or something to distinguish the floor as a tennis facility, but it looked like every other floor. I felt like I was in the wrong place and I was trying to imagine how a court could fit into a one bedroom. The address of the courts is an apartment number and its door looks exactly like its neighbors'. It would have to be a magic portal like when Willy Wonka opens the normal door to the candy paradise where Augustus Gloop dies. The door didn't open to a different world but to a small proshop with apartment dimensions, which led to two tennis courts that you entered through a revolving door. The ceilings over the courts are high and vaulted, but the space feels constrained. The out of bounds court is very small. If someone lobs you at net and you sprint back toward the baseline, you have very little space to stop yourself before running into the wall. 

I took several drill and play sessions at Yorkville. The drill was at 9 PM and it attracted a homogenous group. I didn’t ask what words this crew lived by, but if I had I’m almost certain it would have been “work hard play hard.” Everyone was in their 20s-30s and looked like they worked in finance/consulting/tech. I was the only woman. A lot of Chubbies length shorts. New looking tennis shoes. Recently released racquet models. Overzealous overheads. The pro was young and decent. He didn’t offer a ton of instruction but I don’t think this group was clamoring for his input. I say the following non-judgmentally: their form was abysmal. That being said, their shots had a ton of pace and spin. These were athletic, coordinated guys who probably played lacrosse in prep school/college and derided the boys who played tennis. They over-muscled everything and thwacks of ball on far curtain were non-stop. It felt like therapy—anger management in the form of pummeling forehands. If I were desperate, I would go back to the 9 PM drill at Yorkville before any of the others but it would have to be dire straits. 

My advice would be to find a hitting partner and skip the drills. 

[Photo via Yorkville Tennis]