The 3 things you can do on a tennis court

There are 3 things you can do on a tennis court as an elite player in a training session, these are:

Ball feeding
Drilling
Competing

I have written about what an elite player’s training week should look like in a previous post The training week should include a mix of both squad training, small group sessions , match-play and private lessons. This is because the actual on court training week needs to cover technical development, tactical development and mental and physical development and to do that, all 3 things will be required.

Ball feeding

Ball feeding is an important part of a player’s development regardless of the level of the player, and ball feeding is done by coaches from the age of 5, right up to World No.1 professional players. (Serena Williams regularly does sessions with her coach feeding her balls as do many other top 100 players)

There has been a trend amongst coach education providers and courses (including Tennis Australia’s) to discourage ball feeding. This is simply wrong! A huge part of a player’s development, at all ages and standards, is done by repetitive and large volumes of ball feeding. In this closed environment, a player has the opportunity to really consciously think about what they are doing with their racquets and body technically. When I see Hot Shots sessions for young athletes delivered without any ball feeding I scratch my head and think “how are these young beginner athletes going to learn the correct technique and basic fundamentals if all they are doing is trying to rally from a young age”?

When athletes learn to play tennis, they need technical development, from the very start. This technical development will vary at different ages, but from first time kids pick up a tennis racquet they should be taught how the correct grips, how to swing the racquet (and how to stand and move on a tennis court. Those very first sessions should include learning to swing and hit the ball off a hand or racquet fed ball. They can then slowly progress to rallying and then to point play, but ball feeding will be an important part of their development for the rest of their tennis journey! I see so many coaches put the cart before the horse, trying to get kids to rally and compete without ANY technical direction or the ability to rally the ball in play. In a rush to get the athletes “competing” coaches can completely skip the technical fundamentals. Whilst athletes may be able to to “have a rally” a bit quicker than those who are actually getting taught the technical fundamentals, they will quickly get overtaken and will fall behind those with better technique who have been taught the correct technique by a coach who understands the long term importance of learning the correct grips, swings and footwork.

Coaches and coach education providers have forgotten that tennis is actually a very difficult technical sport and requires large volume and repetition to master. I have heard coaches and administrators say “in soccer and footy kids can just compete straight away and we need to compete with that”. Do we really? Kicking a soccer or footy ball on a massive pitch and running around chasing it is a LOT EASIER than being able to hit forehands, backhands and serves over a tennis net, keep the ball within a confined space, hit it away from your opponent, move, balance and time the ball!! Ask yourself, if your child went to gymnastics, dancing or swimming would the coaches:

Throw them in the pool and tell them to swim a lap or get them competing in the first few lessons without any technical instruction?
Attempt them to do difficult floor routines at gymnastics without teaching them the technique first?
Get them to compete in a dance troupe without at least 1 years worth of dancing training so they know the basics of dancing technique?

Doing these things in these sports would be dangerous and incompetent – but in tennis we teach our young coaches to “put away the basket and get the kids rallying straight away”. This is just nonsense that doesn’t work in the real world and doesn’t help kids “stay in the sport” for the long term. Like any parent, if I send my child to learn a new sport or activity, I expect them to be taught the correct fundamentals of technique and down the track I hope they can then perform or compete – not the other way around!!

Ball feeding is not just good for technical development, it can also be used for:

Targeting, working on specific shots (eg forehand line, moving back to deep ball, up to short ball etc)
Working on specific ball speeds (coach can feed slice, topspin, fast or slow, deep or short)
Movement – short sets focused on speed development and agility
Endurance – longer sets with a focus on anaerobic development as well as speed and agility under fatigue

In Spanish tennis (arguably the most successful mens tennis nation the past 40 years) ball feeding is a massive part of their training and development of their elite players, from a very young age, and it should be a large part of Australia’s as well.

2 – Drilling

Tennis is a game of attack and defence at the highest level in my opinion, not consistency. However, consistency drilling is still a very important part of a junior players development.

Drilling is beneficial for:

Building consistency of your technique and shot
Developing accuracy, shape and depth on the ball
Improving endurance physically and mentally
Developing good footwork and preparation
Developing concentration
Working on any shot without the pressure of points
Ability to sustain all of the above for long periods
Developing great habits with all of the above.

Those players who can drill consistently well and who build great habits whilst they do this are far less likely to make basic unforced errors in critical times in a match and it is likely their overall unforced error rate will be lower. They are also likely to be fitter and are usually able to sustain a higher level for a longer period and this can really pay off when rallies and matches become long or conditions are uncomfortable.

This drilling is a critical part of any players development and should be done in most training sessions. How a player does this drilling is critical though to their development (it should be done with concentration, great footwork, a low unforced error rate and players should be working for a consistent deep ball).

Competing

This is what it’s all about! The goal of all the ball feeding, technical work and drilling is so these things can pay off when the athlete actually competes. All great players in tennis are great competitors – some compete well more consistently than others – but at some stage all of them have all competed really well. To get anywhere in tennis, but especially to the top 100 in pro tennis, you need to win a lot of matches and lot of those matches will be close. My research tells me to break through into that top 100, your win/loss record when a match becomes close (1 set 7/5 or 7/6 or a 3 set match) needs to be around the 75% mark or higher – and a lot of matches will be close matches!!. To get to this level, a player needs the 3 things that make up a great competitor being GUTS, COURAGE AND COMPOSURE. They will require all 3 things to consistently win these close matches and win ENOUGH matches in a 12 month period to gain enough ATP/WTA points to crack the top 100.

Therefore, competing regularly is a massive part of developing as a player. But competing itself is not enough, a player needs to have some “mental strategies” when competing and be able to “tolerate” the difficult thoughts and feelings that inevitably come into their heads when they play real competitive matches.

Competing regularly throughout the training week it is a chance for the player to:

Work on their mental strategies
Work on their tactical management and their game style
Put into action all the things they have been working on in drilling and ball feeding sessions including movement, endurance, concentration, tactics, technique and consistency
See what shots break down and need improving
Develop all the random shots that come up in point play that don’t arise as often in ball feeding and drilling (slices, short balls, end range defence, quick volleys etc etc)
Have fun! Most (but not all) kids much prefer to compete than to drill or be fed balls!
Interact in a competitive manner with their peers
COMPETING DOESN’T HAVE TO BE JUST REGULAR POINTS - IT CAN INVOLVE SO MANY DIFFERENT GAMES WITH DIFFERENT RESTRICTIONS AND SCORING FORMATS.

As you can see, all 3 things you can do on a tennis court play a critical role in an athletes development, which is why all 3 should be included in the training week. The % of each will depend on each athlete’s individual priorities at that particular stage of their development.

DOES YOUR CURRENT TRAINING ENVIRONMENT CONTAIN THESE 3 THINGS? CLICK TO DISCOVER WHAT MATKES UP A WORLD CLASS TENNIS TRAINING ENVIRONMENT

here.

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