7 Best Tennis Drills for the New Season

It’s that time again. From the indoor courts we now go outside. The summer season is probably the highlight of the year for every tennis player. Good weather, fresh air and exciting matches. Of course the training is not to be missed.

To get you off to a good start in the new season, we have put together the top 7 drills for you. They will help you to get fit for the summer. The only thing you need for this is a hitting partner. Let’s start right away.

This drill is perfect for warming up. In this case, your court consists exclusively of the service boxes. You both take one half of the court each and stand at the net. There, one of you will start to serve. The ball is placed on the edge of the net and rolled to the opponent’s side.

Then you play the point. You continue the game up to a certain number of points, for example 11.

The exercise can also be done with four players. Each player is then given his or her own service box and can either play the ball over the net or simply to the side of the opponent.

In this game constellation there is an additional rule that doesn’t allow to hit the ball from the top down. Otherwise unfair rallies would occur.

You do the second drill in the same area. Position yourself at the service line for this one. Now you volley the ball to your partner. You don’t compete in this drill, but try to keep the ball in the air as long as possible.

In general, the closer you are to the net, the easier the volleys will be. However, to get the most out of your training, you should practice the difficult game situations. For this reason we advise you to play the volleys from the service line and not to move forward. This is where the exercise has the greatest learning effect.

After the drills at the service line, we go over to the baseline. In this drill we will practice the groundstrokes, which are one of the basic components of the tennis game.

First you move to the forehand side and hit the balls exclusively cross court. Make sure that you take three or four steps towards the middle of the court after each stroke to simulate a realistic rally.

Do the same on the backhand side. You can do the exercise with the backhand as well as with the forehand inside out.

Compared to the cross court game this drill is much more demanding. More precisely, you only hit the ball in one of the doubles alleys. Basically, it doesn’t matter whether you choose the alley on the left or the right side. So take up a stand accordingly and hit the ball longline to each other.

In the rally, you count how many shots you placed in your partner’s alley. The first person to score 30 points wins the game. If the ball lands out of bounds, you can still continue the rally.

With the following exercise you will bring your endurance to a new level. In this case you can use both the forehand and the backhand, just like in the normal game. The structure of this drill consists of two parts.

First you try to keep the ball in play for 25 strokes. Then you turn from fellow players into opponents. According to this, the point is open after the 25th stroke and can be played as you like. After a few rallies, you will notice that the exercise is quite tiring. But it is also very effective.

If you want to train your footwork, this drill is optimal. Not only do you have to be fast, but you also have to anticipate your opponent’s shot. Basically, you play the respective point with a special rule.

To be more precise, you change from forehand to backhand and vice versa after each stroke. This means that you have to run around a lot of shots. This is where the tactical aspect comes in. It is best to hit the ball to your opponent in such a way that he or she has to get as far around the shot as possible.

After we have dealt intensively with the basic strokes, we come to the serve. In the exercise you will work on your precision. For this you will need a cone. If you don’t have one, you can also use a water bottle.

Depending on whether you want to practice the serve down the middle or out wide, you put the cone at the appropriate place in the service box. Then you serve until you hit the target. To be able to serve both at the same time, one serves from the left and the other from the right.

After 10 serves you always change sides.

With these 7 drills your training is broadly diversified. From endurance to technique to tactics, everything is included. You will master the start into the new season without any problems. Furthermore, the exercises offer you a high learning success in the long run.