Be sure you're rotating partners often so people aren't stuck against the same players getting outclassed.

We do lots of variations on "king of the hill" style games - one side is champions and the opponents rotate (either in pairs or individual). Feed the ball to challengers (or they serve) - if the champions get 3 points the opponents rotate, if the challengers get 3 then they take the champion spot.

One variation that people always seem to like is "winner winner chicken dinner" - you basically play to 2 or 3 points like usual but you have to hit a winner for it to count - so if you can get the racket on the ball your opponent won't get a point. Good way to have fun and practice more aggressive shots.

The best is with a machine for drills or someone better then you.

First thing is foot work.

Then reaction time like take back with foot work switching from forhand to backhand back to neutral. Split stepping every time before ball is struck. You don't need a ball for this just imagining.

When you get better go center, add side cross, center, deuce side cross, practicing take back and prep and split stepping. Everything is ground up. Strong legs and prep

Then positional awareness drills working. Live balls. Reset to a position neutral of machine or person, practicing cross court. Every time you hos cross court you move back to the position you should be in which is mirroring opponent. Repeat.

When your volley you hit forward not cross till your at the net. So a good drill is cross court, move in towards ball direction you hit, volley mid court or approach shot, move it volley angle. You can mix this up, but remember base line you mirror your opponents angle, closer you get you they should be in front of you (which isn't a mirror ) because...that's were the ball is, you want them to hit angles and you cover what's right in front of them.

Basic ones.

Base line shot, approach, volley Base line, approach over head.

If you are new and don't know technique then do the first one only and practice with someone feeding you the balls forhand, then back hand, lob, slice over and over along with exercise drills for foot work.

Mind your technique at all times and do basic stuff like cross court battles or only alley winners or serve and volley until x amount of points or play regular tennis but only on half of the court. Maybe try two ground strokes and then unleash a drop shot. If you’re a beginner you can really do anything with a specific highlight.

Ask the varsity coach

Oh rip

If you're a beginner the focus should simply be getting the ball over the net with margin into the service box and moving your feet.

First and foremost, get those feet moving.

Second, you want an extremely short takeback (extremely short!) but a full extension like what you'd use for a topspin forehand or backhand. Let the ball get close before you hit it. Accelerate smoothly through contact; don't jerk. The ball needs hardly any pace.

You want the ball to be fairly slow and at least a foot or two over the net (five feet over the net is on the verge of too high). Assuming you're hitting fast, get the ball to go deeper by hitting higher, and get it to go less deep by hitting less high.

Third, stand a foot or three behind the service line, instead of inside the service box.

Ideally you're split-stepping, moving to the ball, and hitting it with topspin so it has plenty of spin, not a ton of pace, and good height over the net. Then it lands in roughly the middle of the service box and takes a good bounce.

It will take practice.

Sometimes your warm-up partner will just give you a tough ball. Let it bounce twice, or volley it, or just boop it over and try to reset. Ditto for if you give them a tough ball.

If you've got a willing practice buddy, spending 30-60 minutes on short-court mini-tennis is great. See how many in a row you can land. Cut the court in half (you each get one service box) and see how many you can land. Or go diagonal and see how many you can land. Or try a "bow-tie" where if your partner hits a backhand, try to give them a forehand next (and vice-versa). To start "How many shots in a row can we make before one of us misses?" is a great exercise.

You'll want to do full-court tennis too, but mini-tennis is really, really good for building control and hand-awareness.

Agree with what others have said about hitting slow with spin and decent net clearance, and focusing on keeping your feet really active even though you don't have to move as far.

One drill you can do to work on the footwork and spacing to the ball in short court is to hit only forehands or only backhands. When doing forehands only, if the ball comes to your backhand side, move around it to hit a forehand instead. Then do backhands only, and run around every ball on the forehand side to hit a backhand instead. Recover back to the middle of the T between every shot. It will feel really awkward at first but will help your foot speed in the long run and help make good footwork/setup on tough shots automatic.

https://youtu.be/4YBqsABie6U?si=hBheVCi3UuwNjWs5

Feel tennis has been my go to for introducing others to tennis. Here is coach Tomas with some mini tennis pointers

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bii5hE-KD6U&t=105s&pp=ygUTbWluaSB0ZW5uaXMgd2FybSB1cA%3D%3D

> Could you please share some beginner tips with me?

Here is what has worked for me to slowly improve.

• Take weekly privates
• hit 2+ times per week with hitting partner. 60+ more minutes
  • Don't just hit, incorporate some drills, mini games, tie breaks
  • I found hitting partners through group clinics, ladder matches, USTA league.
• play at least one match per week.
• repeat and enjoy the grind

If something starts hurting and it's not muscle pain from just working out, take a break and let it heal. Far too many people ignore what their body is telling them and end up getting something that takes longer to heal like tennis elbow

Simplify everything.

Tennis is about repetition, literally.

Simplify the following:

Before stepping into the court: Wardrobe, Footwear, Hydration, Gear, Nutrition, Sleep and Recovery

Inside the court: Footwork, Breathing, Technique, Toss of serve

Much like all endeavors of worth, there's a lot of impact what you do outside of it, that impacts what you do inside of it.

Same is true for tennis. Especially for tennis where as you've seen above, has a lot of things involved.

That's fine though, because if it works out for you, tennis is A LIFELONG SPORT. Your investment will pay off, health benefits at the very least. It's a community sport as well, which allows you to meet old and new players. Great way to stay humble, centered, and grateful in life.

I've seen players up to their 80s who still play. Gentle on the knees, minimal injuries, great cardio vascular effects, of course with proper technique and consistency.

Sports teaches us that no wonder how bad it was yesterday, you keep showing up and you keep playing.

Cheers and enjoy. 🎾

You should find a friend who also share the same passion. It's cheaper and you improve faster. Ask your coach if there's anyone he's teaching that you can connect with.

A lot of repetitions. Practice technique without the ball and with your instructor feeding from the basket.

If you can keep ball in play while someone is hitting it back, no matter how slow, you are making huge progress.

Be patient. Tennis is a very difficult sport, especially to start. Nowadays when I watch beginners I wonder how I ever had the patience to learn the basics. I'm extremely glad I did. Good luck on your journey with this great sport. 👍

Work on cardio, lookup footwork drills, do some strength training.

Glad to hear you and your kids are getting out there. Here’s a few drills/games I use with my kids:

We practice for 1.5 hours (2-3 times per week). We usually start with a warm up (a few laps around the court, footwork drill and simple exercises (burpees, push ups, sit up)). We then play mini tennis (one kid serves underhand to the other and ball must go in the service box (we play parallel service boxes and then play diagonal). We then work on ground strokes (I have about 150 balls in a hopper and I drop them at the baseline for them to hit). We’ll do a round of forehand and then backhand. Then I’ll hit them baseline ground stroke from the other side of the court. I’ll bring them to the net and then work on volleys and overhead smashes. Then they will serve a bunch of balls and then we finish off with playing a set. Lots of resources I’ve found online to help make practice time fun for kids.

Depends on how coordinated your daughters are I suppose and if they like to cooperate or compete with each other or both. Counting # of balls rallied together good for cooperation, and trying to beat their team high score. Can include self-juggling if they are very beginner so they have control of the ball before trying to hit it over the net. Can even include some particular juggle conditions if they've mastered the basic juggle (eg. one juggle must be hit on the edge of the racquet, or both sides of the racquet, or behind the back ...)

There are many options for using targets, single or multiple, from a single tennis ball to building a 4-ball pyramid, coins/money, ball cans. Focusing on hitting the target anyway possible, or by focusing on a particular stroke to hit the target/s for 5 to 10 minutes and then switching strokes.

The mini tennis game in the video shared by StrawHatRiot I learned waaay back (though the net hitting part wasn't included when I learned it, just a simple roll) and there are many ways to play it to make it more or less challenging, from using only half the court, or diagonal service boxes, to imposing the rule of only one type of stroke (ie. forehand/backhand and/or backspin/topspin). If there are four players on one court, can divide the court in half, and use a scoring condition so that when the goal is reached or time limit expires, the winner moves to the designated "high"/king's court.

Another mini tennis game can be seen here: ENTERTAINING Carlos Alcaraz vs Gael Monfils Ping Pong Tennis | Toronto 2023 (youtube.com) . Again, can use the entire court or half court or diagonal service boxes.

Here's another: 6 MUST-TRY Mini Tennis Drills | Tennis Warm Up Fun Games (youtube.com)

Ball catching with the racquet is another cool and practical skill: Roger Federer - Best Ball Catches (youtube.com) . Similar to tossing and catching an egg without it breaking, pass the ball back and forth to each other.

You should look into getting some beginner balls (look for red/orange dot) as they are softer and don’t bounce as high. It will allow you to help them rally back and forth to some extent. One of the biggest barriers to entry for beginner players is that normal balls bounce way too high and they don’t have the racket skills or footwork to hit it back.

For 13 and 15 year olds, maybe something like them two against you, but if one of them misses, they have to sit down crisscross apple sauce (formerly known as "Indian style") with the racket on the ground. If they catch the ball while sitting, they get to stand back up and rejoin the fight!

​

Or them both playing against you, but if someone misses they then have to put the racket on the fence then pass the racket between the two of them while trying to beat you in a point.

I think a good starting point is to play mini-games/drills that don't require a ton of technique refinement and can be enjoyable while getting everyone familiar with the equipment, footwork, the court etc.

Like for example what he calls in this video "rollie ball" and "bounce game".

Make it a little competition like king/queen of the court. That should be fun enough to get them excited to play tennis.

Start slow. The ball comes back faster than it does in a real game.

The wall hits back at a quicker rhythm than a practice partner. It's trickier than it looks at first glance.

When you're starting out it's usually better to use a low-rebound ball like an orange dot tennis ball or to stand back far enough from the wall that it bounces twice before you hit it. That gives you more time to not be so rushed by the rhythm of the rebound.

A lot of the coaching I received was very "old school" so it still seems to me like there's a lot to be gained from wall drills at every level of play, even if a lot of people stress live drills and ball machines above everything else. Yea, hitting agains the wall is not like rallying with a partner but anything that gets you out there a lot intuitively practicing the relationship between what the racket face does vs where the ball goes can help with your hand eye coordination long term.

When you're better at using the wall it's also nice to have a tennis practice option available to you where you can get a lot of reps in quickly and don't have to line up your schedules with anyone else. There are a lot of pros who talk about how important their time with the wall was to their development.

Anyway. Don't get too discouraged. Tennis is difficult to learn, that's what's frustrating about it and what's great about it when you make real progress.

Think about it, you’re getting a ball back the second it “crosses” the net. It’s gonna be an adjustment in terms of getting set correctly. It’s a matter of footwork, keep at it and you’ll improve, like anything

Let it bounce twice before trying to hit it. Focus on technique rather than hitting hard.

A wall is honestly pretty tough for a beginner, it might be better to get lessons to work on technique and footwork first

The wall is undefeated even against Federer

> I realize that’s an extremely loaded question

At your level, if you want to win a point, basically, you want to hit one more ball than them. I know this sounds like "no shit," but I mean it, it's simply about unforced errors. And this is not a bad thing. I'll explain more later...

> I have no idea when I should slice, go to the net, hit cross court, go down the line etc.

Can you slice the ball? If so, great. Whatever is more consistent, your slice or drive, hit that. But generally speaking, slicing is done by higher level players when they don't have as much time, when the ball is shorter and/lower, or they are stretched out. Variety is also a consideration.

So basically, depending on your level of directional control, hit cross court most of the time. So...

• Hit crosscourt most of the time. It's your safest shot.

• If the ball is shorter, like around service line, it's now safer to go up the line. Not saying safter than cross court, but in general, the shorter the ball, the easier to hit it up the line.

• If you are going to follow a short ball to the net, it's generally better to approach up the line and err to that side.

Back to the thing about not worrying too much about placement, just get balls back, this is NOT a bad thing. As you're doing this, as a thoughtful person, which you seem to be, you are STILL gathering information. You will see how certain balls affect him. It's still incredibly productive. Way more productive than deciding on some sort of aggressive, highly motivated shot pattern that you're doing to go for and even if you lose the match 0 and 0 and barely get balls in, you decide it's the right thing to do for a player who doesn't wanna "push" and actually wants to be 4.5 someday.

> Should I watch pro tennis or do you recommend YouTube channels that focus on strategy etc?

Really? No. Pro tennis is completely different. I honestly would not think about strategy so much right now, you probably have tons of basic technical stuff you need to work on. Tennis is a language, a physical one, and right now, you're still learning how to spell and read at a 1st grade level probably. So work on that. Strategy is like now you're writing short stories, and you are trying to infuse it with subtext and metaphors.

At the pro level, the most basic strategy is whoever controls the center of the court has the advantage. Basically whoever can stand in the center, and left of center (if you're a righty) and can pound more forehands, epsecially into the righty's backhand, has the statistical advantage. This is the most common dominant position in tennis. The forehand, even for people like Paire and Gasquet, is more dangerous, you can hit more spots, so the opponent forced to hit more backhands has to be aware of more of the court. And to break out of this, the guy in the weaker position, has to hit maybe the toughest groundies in pro tennis to break out of this trap, an extreme crosscourt backhand or down the line backhand.

But at your level don't need to think about this. I see strategy about "hitting it where they're not" and I highly advise not thinking about it that way at your level.

• DON'T FEEL THE NEED to keep progressing with every shot. By that I mean don't feel like you should be gaining an advantage, taking away ground, with every shot. Too many beginners do this, they jsut keep escalating with every shot, whether it's smaller and smaller targets, or more and more power. Don't do this. The pros don't even do this.

This is a weird question to me as I always like to win. Therefore the decisions I make on the tennis court correspond to my desire to win the point. So during a point I think to myself “what shot should I hit to win the point” and then I do it.

If I didn’t want to win then I probably would choose a different hobby.

As a very “starting from nothing” strategy, hit it to where they aren’t. Make them run back and forth. Think scooby doo trope where they run left and right across the screen.

Once you get that down, learn how to read momentum and patterns. So if they’re all the way on the left side of the court (from your perspective), they’re going to expect you to hit to the right and will start running in that direction. Hit to the left again. You’ll see this being referred to as hitting behind someone

Once you’ve done that, work in some soft shots that catch them off guard, especially if they are standing behind the baseline.

Another pretty viable strategy is to basically always hit to their backhand (which tends to be the weaker shot for most players) until they either miss or give you an easy put away shot

Basic strategy:

• hit cross court
• focus on their weaker side (typically their backhand)
• aim to hit the ball deep
• wait for them to hit a loose ball (eg a shorter bouncier ball) and then you can apply a bit of pressure with your following shot.

Consistency will win

Watching matches can give you ideas about what to do in different situations. Observing is a big part of learning

Coach says, coach knows:)

Oooh i am going to check out that mat for my son! Thanks!

This is a treasure trove of good stuff for practice! Thanks.

These are fantastic! Hope to try some of them out.

Exactly what I've been looking for. Thank you so much for the post!

Mark for future visit

This one is fantastic. https://youtu.be/OGEEN5HBiD0?list=PLsKHQaI6b6wymaBF5dzOO98z9WJEjk4xt