‘Time for a new pair,’ she said, pointing to the slight wearing on the outer edges of the shoes.

I was shocked/pissed. Except for a minor funky smell they appeared brand new. ‘I just bought those things not more than a month ago. They cost me a 100 bucks!’ I protested.

She shrugged unswayed. ‘You know, you don’t look like you pronate nearly as much without shoes. Too bad you can’t play barefoot.’

When it comes to me and sports I am a born fool so I started plotting how I could play a few games on clay barefoot without being banned permanently from that tennis center. But as foolish as I may be I ain’t all the way crazy so I’ll still ante up another c-note for those ‘high performance’ tennis shoes just in case I get caught before I get my feet dirty. I’ll also give Vibrams a try. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.

I suspect there might be a trade off with faster speed/ reaction time to get there in the first place.

You are absolutely correct in your analysis. Barefoot = faster sprinting + longer to slow down

I found that when you are taken out for a wide ball you are in a very good position to hit an outright winner anyway. Even in normal tennis shoes there are times when you are so far out of position that you have to go for broke, but when barefoot it happens all the time.

I would say that barefoot tennis takes much more getting used than barefoot running. In order to cushion impact on a tennis court the ankles, knees, and hips have to be used in a way that completely different. The initial perseption by most is that barefeet handicap a tennis player. But with training, the oposite is true as it much easier to avoid injuries related to jarring that are very common. Instead of holding back, you are able to move at much greater speeds. If you couple that with good stroke making, when your oponent pulls you out of court, you get a lot of oportunities to hit clean winners.