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Tennis: Same Stroke, Different Trajectory

I have used many of the tennis drills and as a result my two High...

Linsent, Tennis coach

DESCRIPTION

Coach feeds balls to the ad side.
Player alternates between hitting a high and low backhand over the net in the cross-court direction.

COACHING POINTS

In this drill player works on different heights while hitting a backhand in cross-court direction.
A low ball can be executed using a flat trajectory so adding power and moving the racket in a straight line.
On the other hand, aiming higher over the net requires adding more topspin to the ball so the player should focus on getting under the ball with their legs and racket and accelerate the racket from low to high to lift the ball high and make it drop before the baseline.
By being able to change between the cross-court shots, the player will have opportunity to deliver different balls and see how their opponent can adapt to the changing environment.
To effectively respond to low and high balls, the opponent will need different technical skills and this will likely lead to more unforced errors.

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OFTEN USED WITH...

Ready backhand:

The coach stands in front of the player and throws balls to the backhand side. The player executes backhands using only open stance.

Backhand Drills

Running Backhand and Rally:

Coach, 4 players, and a basket of balls.

Player 1 starts on the tramlines opposite the coach.

Coach feeds the ball across the court for player 1 to run on to and hit a deep running backhand to player 2.

A rally continues until a point is won.

Player 1 retreats to their starting position, player 2 joins the queue, and player 3 joins the drill.

Repeat the drill until all players have played player 1.

Rotate players and repeat the drill.

Rally Drills

Recovery Habits - Backhand:

This drill teaches how to achieve good positioning on the court. Coach tosses balls to the one side, and the player hits the ball and recovers to the proper spot. If the shot is cross court (yellow cone), player recovers to the closer (yellow) cone. If the shot is down the line to the red cone, player has to go to the further (red) cone.

Movement