‘Congratulations on putting together a really helpful drills DVD’
Garry Cahill, Tennis Ireland Technical Director and Fed Cup Captain
The players work in the service boxes with each other, or against the coach.
Every time the player receives the oncoming ball, instead of hitting it straight back, they control the ball on the racket face - let it bounce - and then play it back over the net.
The players have to control the ball accurately and move their feet quickly so that the contact point on the stroke that they play back to their opponent is 100% perfect.
Once the players have got the idea, progress to see if they can receive and control the ball on their forehand side, then move their feet quickly and accurately enough to play the ball back on their backhand side - and vice versa.
This drill needs a coach or hitter to feed the ball to the player.
The player starts on the service line - slightly on their forehand side. The coach feeds from a volley position slightly cross-court of the player.
The coach feeds the ball wide to the player's forehand. The player returns the ball cross-court for the coach to volley back towards the centre of the court. The player has to recover from the first shot and then run around the central ball to hit it as an inside-out forehand. The player then recovers in time for the coach to feed another ball wide to the forehand.
It is important that the coach volleys the first ball back slowly, with some loop, so that the player has time to recover and move around the ball.
Repeat the exercise on the backhand diagonal, except the player will hit a cross-court backhand - recover - then move around the ball to hit an 'inside-in' forehand down the line.
These drills are taken from the DVD 'Core Drills for Tennis' which is currently being produced by ProTennisSolutions and available through our website shop.
Insights and opinions from coaches around the world
