Coaching Tips and Practises
10 practises for parents to get their child a head start on the tennis court. These will help develop concentration, coordination, movement and balance.
1. Ready position. Stand with feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, (like a ready position or goalkeeping position). Drop the ball with one hand and catch with two hands at waist height. If you say bounce when the ball bounces and catch when you catch it helps your concentration. Children are great at copying so make sure you don’t start with bad habits!
2. Underarm – Overarm. Get your child to copy the throw you choose so they focus on watching your arm movements. This could be aimed at different targets for example into a bucket for underarm (close by), or overarm (further away) knocking down water bottles. Encourage a moment to take a deep breath and focus, before throwing to help with a better aim. (This represents the serve).
3. Throw & Catch. Stand 2 approx. metres apart and throw with one hand, underarm and catch with two hands. Ideally with one bounce, but it doesn’t really matter to start with, as long as they can hold onto the ball to throw it back. (This represents a rally). For very young children you could sit on the floor with your legs open and roll the ball between you.
4. Move, Catch & Throw. As players develop their skills, put out markers a couple of metres apart for you and your child to try to roll the ball past each other. You can either stop it with your feet and kick it back, or you can both try throwing it past each other and have to catch it after one bounce before it goes past into the goal. This develops a sense of time and space as well as coordination. Encourage an underarm throw, then getting back into a ready position quickly.
5. Both hands to catch and throw. Try gently throwing the ball up with one hand to about head height and catching with the other and back again. If this is too difficult, throw with the NON dominant hand and catch with both hands, then pass back to the throwing hand. Using both hands is helpful for serving.
6. Balance on one leg. Try balancing on one leg for 5 seconds, then change legs. No wobbles! Turn this into a hop on one leg for 5 hops then change legs for 5 hops. This helps to build leg strength.
7. Side stepping. Fix a central point and facing each other 1 metre apart side step 3 steps one direction and recover 3 steps back. Take it in turns who chooses the direction of movement and try to stay facing each other.
8. Reaction test. Have 2 objects of different colours 3 metres apart, stand face to face in the centre between the objects and someone calls the colour and you have to touch the colour first and recover to the centre.
9. Racket skills. Balance a ball on the strings, can you roll the ball around the edge of the frame without it falling off and then reverse the direction? Always have the strongest hand at the bottom of the handle, using two hands is fine.
10. Racket catch. Use the racket like a hand to catch the ball on the strings after one bounce. Then throw the ball back from the racket strings. Use the other hand to help if necessary fine.
A good example of how to serve
1. Service stance; balanced for a body weight transference.
2. Coordinated arm movements to place ball and racket ready to hit.
3. Acceleration from the legs and arms to transfer the power up through the point of contact.
4.Recover quickly with balance for the returning ball.
Hitting wall practise tips
The hitting wall makes a great practise partner, providing you know how to use it. If you find it difficult to hit slowly try to relax, your grip and feel the ball on the strings rather than thump it! Here are a few tips for every level of player and age group to make the most of the wall.
1. The benefit of the wall is repetition. Don’t try to smash the wall down with thunderous shots, a medium speed would be better otherwise you will beat yourself by having less time, therefore struggling to get the second shot under control.
2. Using a softer compression ball to help slow the rebound and shortening the length of your swings whilst focusing on maintaining a contact in front of the body. Adults use a softer normal ball, juniors under 9 should use a green or orange ball.
3. Don’t stand too far back. I would advise standing level with the entrance to the hitting wall area for optimum use.
4. If you are a parent starting out with young ones, throwing and catching games are just as good as hitting against the wall as it develops concentration, ball perception and timing skills without having the trouble of walking a long way to collect the balls! This can be done together, alternating hitting or throwing against the wall and a great way to teach tennis scoring.
Exercises for groundstrokes
Improve your accuracy and consistency by aiming for the same circle a number of times
in a row. This can help your concentration, improve your rhythm and timing and contact point. This can be done in a side-on stance, otherwise known as a “Closed Stance”. E.g. Can you hit the same circle 4 times in a row (15-0, 30-0, 40-0, game etc.) with a:- Forehand? Backhand? Volley?
These can be repeated to improve your footwork by aiming straight towards the centre circle and alternating forehand and backhand shots. This is a good exercise for avoiding balls coming too close to the body. Turn your hips quickly as well as the shoulders and remember to change grips!
Open stance forehands and backhands can be practised by aiming for the circles left and right diagonally opposite the centre circle. Be aware the ball will return off the wall at an angle away from you so there will be a lot more movement involved!
E.g. As a right hander. (reverse for left handers)
Can you hit one forehand to the circle left of centre and then one backhand across to the circle right of centre?