It's one thing finding beginner tennis lessons online and another thing whether you actually found a good way to learn how to play tennis.

But suppose you found a good online tennis lesson; how does it compare to a real on court tennis instruction session?

Here are the pros of online tennis lessons for beginners:

1. They are more systematic. What often happens on court is that a tennis beginner starts making minor mistakes and this causes the coach to deviate from the original plan and perhaps miss some of the fundamental skills in the first few tennis lessons.

An online tennis lesson is already prepared, either written as an article or taped as a series of video clips and you can be sure that it will guide you in a very effective way through your first lesson.

2. You control what you want to learn. In case you already know some of the strokes, you can quickly scan the online lesson and choose what you need to learn.

When you are on court, the coach controls the flow of the lesson and you may find it difficult to tell the coach what to you. You are a tennis beginner after all.

3. They are much cheaper or even free. A typical tennis lesson with a professional coach costs between $40 and $50 and you need at least 10 to start playing some real tennis.

A full collection of online tennis lessons can cost you less than $50 and for that you get the information for all the strokes and footwork patterns. Now you only have to actually do it on the court.

And the cons of online tennis lessons for beginners?

1. No feedback from the coach. This means that if a tennis beginner misunderstands the instruction in the online tennis lesson, a coach cannot correct them.

So you might end up learning a slightly incorrect stroke from the beginning without even noticing that.

2. You miss on the fun and the social part of tennis. When you have a real tennis lesson with a coach, you can play many fun games and activities which will help you improve faster.

You also get to know a new person and gain a new friend. If you are learning tennis from behind a computer, it can be very lonely.

3. You cannot accelerate your learning. If an experienced tennis coach guides you through your first on-court lesson, he will be able to judge whether you are learning fast or slow.

A coach can then adapt the learning process to accelerate your learning in various stages of your beginner experiences.

If you are learning tennis online, you are not able to judge whether you could learn something faster or in a different way which may be more suitable for you.

In summary, learning tennis from online tennis lessons can be much cheaper and a very practical way to jump start your tennis journey.

But sooner or later you will probably have to find a pro to take you to the next level.