PEL1341: Tennis I (Beginning Tennis)

Course Description

PEL1341 is beginning tennis, taught as a physical education activity course. The Statewide Course Numbering System titles it Tennis I and defines it as "a study of performance and application in basic and advanced skills, rules, and etiquette. Physiological and social values accruing from this carry-over activity. 20 or more contact hours." There is no statewide prerequisite.

⚠ That contact-hour figure is unusual and useful. Most statewide course definitions say nothing about hours; this one states a minimum directly. It also explains the credit spread below — a course with a 20-hour floor and no ceiling can reasonably be offered at one credit or two.

⚠ Note the phrase "carry-over activity". It is doing real work in that definition. A carry-over sport is one a person can play for life — unlike, say, American football — and the physical education tradition distinguishes these deliberately. Tennis is among the best examples: it can be played into old age, it is social, and the skills acquired in a beginners' course remain usable for decades. That is the stated justification for the course existing, and it is a reasonable one.

Six Florida public institutions carry it, and ⚠ at two different credit values:

Institution	Its title	Credits
Florida A&M University	Beginning Tennis	2
Florida State University	Tennis	1
Hillsborough Community College	Beginning Tennis	2
Miami Dade College	Beginning Tennis	1
Pasco-Hernando State College	Beginning Tennis	1
University of South Florida	Tennis I	2

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Demonstrate the eastern, continental and western grips, and select the appropriate grip for a given stroke.
• Execute a forehand groundstroke with correct footwork, body rotation, contact point and follow-through.
• Execute a backhand groundstroke, one- or two-handed.
• Execute a serve with a consistent toss, and understand the difference between a first and second serve.
• Execute the volley and the overhead smash.
• Apply the ready position, split step and recovery footwork that make the strokes reachable.
• Apply scoring correctly: points, games, sets, deuce and advantage, tiebreak, and calling the score aloud as the server.
• Apply the rules of singles and doubles play, including service order, sides and let calls.
• Apply court etiquette: calling your own lines honestly, retrieving balls, waiting for a point to finish before crossing, and the conventions of playing without an umpire.
• Demonstrate basic singles and doubles positioning and strategy.
• Warm up and cool down appropriately, and describe the physiological benefits of sustained activity.
• Play a full match, keeping score and applying the rules unassisted.

Optional Outcomes

• Execute topspin and slice variations, the lob and the drop shot.
• Apply doubles formations and communication conventions.
• Participate in a class tournament or ladder.
• Assess and select equipment: racquet weight, grip size, string tension.
• Describe injury prevention for the shoulder, elbow and knee.
• Apply the fitness components specific to tennis — agility, anaerobic capacity, rotational strength.
• Describe the history of the game and its major competitions.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Equipment and court — racquet, balls, court dimensions and the names of its areas and lines.
• Grips — eastern, continental, western, and their consequences for each stroke.
• Groundstrokes — forehand and backhand: preparation, footwork, contact, follow-through.
• The serve — stance, toss, trophy position, contact, and the first/second serve decision.
• Net play — volley technique, the overhead, approach and positioning.
• Movement — ready position, split step, lateral movement, recovery.
• Scoring and rules — the full scoring system, singles and doubles rules, tiebreak procedure.
• Etiquette and self-officiating — the honour system, line calls, and conduct.
• Strategy — consistency before power; percentage play; singles and doubles positioning.
• Fitness and safety — warm-up, hydration, injury prevention, and ⚠ heat management, which in Florida is not optional.
• Match play — supervised games applying the above.

Optional Topics

• Spin: topspin and slice.
• Specialty shots: lob, drop shot, half volley.
• Doubles systems and communication.
• Tournament and ladder play.
• Equipment selection and stringing.
• Tennis-specific conditioning.
• History of the game and its governing bodies.

Resources & Tools

• ⚠ Students normally supply a racquet. Many programmes keep loaners, but not all and not always enough — ask before the first session. A serviceable beginner's racquet costs relatively little; grip size matters more than price for a beginner and is worth getting right.
• Balls are usually supplied. Appropriate court shoes are expected — ⚠ running shoes are a genuine injury risk on a tennis court, because they are built for forward motion and this game is lateral.
• USTA (United States Tennis Association) publishes the rules, the code of conduct for unofficiated matches, and rating guidance; all free.
• The ITF Rules of Tennis is the governing document and is short enough to read in full.
• ⚠ Florida-specific and worth knowing: the USTA National Campus at Lake Nona in Orlando is the sport's national headquarters and runs public programming — an unusual resource to have in the state.
• Video of one's own strokes, taken on a phone, is the most effective learning aid available in this course and costs nothing.

Career Pathways

• ⚠ This is an activity course, and honesty requires saying that most students take it for the activity rather than for a career. That is a legitimate reason and the course is designed for it.
• Where it does connect to work: Coaches and Scouts (SOC 27-2022); Recreation Workers (SOC 39-9032); Fitness Trainers and Instructors (SOC 39-9031); and teaching-professional certification through the USPTA or PTR, both of which are based on playing competence plus a teaching credential.
• ⚠ Florida has an unusually large tennis employment market for reasons of climate and tourism: year-round outdoor play, a dense network of resort, club and municipal programmes, and the USTA's national campus in Orlando. Teaching professionals, court supervisors and camp staff are hired continuously, and it is realistic part-time work for a student who plays well.
• For students in physical education teaching, exercise science or sport management, activity courses like this one are frequently required — you are expected to be able to teach the activities you will supervise.

Special Information

Offering Notes — offerings and hours, school by school

Institution	Its title	Credits	Contact hours
Florida A&M University	Beginning Tennis	2	≥ 20 (statewide minimum)
Florida State University	Tennis	1	≥ 20 (statewide minimum)
Hillsborough Community College	Beginning Tennis	2	≥ 20 (statewide minimum)
Miami Dade College	Beginning Tennis	1	≥ 20 (statewide minimum)
Pasco-Hernando State College	Beginning Tennis	1	≥ 20 (statewide minimum)
University of South Florida	Tennis I	2	≥ 20 (statewide minimum)

All six are public institutions — three in the State University System and three in the Florida College System — so statewide numbering guarantees transfer between them.

⚠⚠ Three institutions carry it at one credit and three at two. The statewide definition sets a floor of 20 contact hours and no ceiling, which is very likely the reason: a one-credit section meeting the minimum and a two-credit section meeting roughly twice as often both satisfy the same definition. The transfer guarantee moves the credit you earned and does not convert one into two — so a student moving between them may be a credit short or long against an activity requirement. Activity requirements are usually small and flexible, which makes this the mildest credit divergence in this catalog, but it is worth a question to an advisor rather than an assumption.

⚠ The 30 contact hours given at the top of this guide are an estimate, not a published figure — the statewide minimum is 20, and a two-credit section will exceed it substantially. This is one of the few courses in this catalog where the state supplies any hour figure at all. Check your own section's meeting pattern.

What an activity course actually asks of you

⚠ Assessment is on participation, improvement and demonstrated skill, not on natural ability. A student who arrives having never held a racquet and works consistently normally does better than a strong player who skips sessions — attendance carries unusual weight here because the learning happens on court and cannot be made up by reading.

⚠⚠ Heat is a real consideration in Florida. Outdoor tennis in August afternoons is genuinely strenuous, and heat illness is the actual risk in this course rather than injury. Hydrate before rather than during, wear light clothing, use sunscreen, and tell the instructor about any condition or medication affecting heat tolerance. Many programmes schedule morning sections for this reason — take one if you have the choice.

Transfer and general education

Statewide numbering guarantees transfer between institutions offering the number. Two practical notes:

• ⚠ Institutions cap how many activity credits count toward a degree, commonly at two to four. Credits beyond the cap are real work that does not advance graduation. Know your cap before enrolling in several.
• Where a programme requires activity courses — physical education teaching, exercise science, some sport management degrees — this normally satisfies one. Where it does not, it is elective credit.

Workload

Two to four hours a week of scheduled court time depending on the credit value, plus any required practice. ⚠ There is essentially no homework in the usual sense, and the honest advice is that the students who improve are the ones who hit outside class — twenty contact hours is not many, and skill is built by repetition.

AI Integration

It would be easy to write nothing here, and that would be a small dishonesty: video analysis has genuinely changed how physical skills are taught, and a student should know what is available.

Genuinely useful: filming your own strokes and watching them back is the single most effective self-coaching tool in this sport, and a phone is sufficient. Slow-motion playback shows a late preparation or a dropping contact point that a player cannot feel. Applications that overlay a stroke against a model, and the automatic swing analysis now built into several coaching apps, do this reasonably well for the gross mechanics. Beyond that: explaining a rule or a scoring situation, generating practice drills, and looking up an unfamiliar term.

Where it fails: automated stroke analysis is confident about things it cannot see — grip pressure, balance, timing under pressure, where the player is looking. ⚠ It also tends to prescribe a single "correct" technique, when professional tennis contains a wide range of successful and very different forehands. A beginner told to match a model may be pushed away from a stroke that suits their body.

What no tool can do here is the thing the course consists of: hitting several thousand balls. Skill acquisition is physical repetition with feedback, and the feedback that matters most comes from an instructor watching you in person and from the ball's behaviour when you hit it. ⚠ This is one of the few courses in this catalog where the central activity is entirely untouched by these tools — worth noticing, and arguably worth valuing.

Academic integrity: where the course includes a written rules examination or a skills journal, your institution's policy applies as it would anywhere. Read the syllabus.