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Tennis: Running Rival

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DESCRIPTION

Coach feeds balls in three different directions (forehand, centre, backhand).
Player moves to the balls and hits all of them into side zones.

COACHING POINTS

The player works on consistency and control of own shots.
Playing from different areas on the court requires constant adjustment and combination of proper positioning and right technical execution.
Coach should remind players that active footwork and topspin application are two factors that help to control the ball and achieve the desired results.
For more advanced baseline hitters, the coach can count how many balls in a row they are able to send into the zones and based on these numbers, the coach can either increase the difficulty of the balls fed or set the higher number of shots in a row to achieve.

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OFTEN USED WITH...

1 High 1 Low - Forehand:

In this exercise, the coach feeds all the balls to one side. The player's goal is to alternate shots with higher and lower trajectory over the net, firstly hitting a high shot, followed by a low shot, and this is repeated.

Forehand Drills

Killer Doesn't Always Mean Power:

Coach feeds short balls to one side. Player alternates between aggressive drive and drop shot.

Forehand Drills

Short Opportunity:

Coach feeds first ball deep to the forehand side.
Player hits deep forehand down the line.
Coach feeds second ball short to the backhand side.
Player quickly runs around and hits offensive forehand inside in.

Attacking

Cross court inside-out forehands:

The coach feeds the first ball in and then players have to keep the rally going, running around the ball to play a cross-court forehand into the coned area.

So player 1 hits the ball to player 1 on the other team who then returns to player 2 and so on.

Forehand Drills

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