Focussed on getting your players relaxed and ready to head into a competition. It’s important to keep the good habits players have developed and stick to the shots and plays they know well and are comfortable with. It’s not the time to work on technical aspects or tactical decisions within their games.
What's in the Session?
This session therefore puts an emphasis on a key part of competition, the serve and return and targeting the opponent’s backhand.
Packed with great live ball drills, we start with a strength and conditioning warm up to prepare the shoulders for the session ahead and reduce the risk of injury. Targeting your opponent’s weakness is a common strategy in match situations, we work on playing to the backhand side to force an error or misplaced shot to create winning opportunities.
A big focus of this session looks at serve and return. Most of the time, players have to respond to the opponent's return and create an advantage on the court or defend after a successfully placed response. It means that right before the tournament, players should practice the serve with the next shot to make sure that they are ready to quickly decide what to do after different types of return.
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Most club players practise the serve on its own and then have no idea what to do with the ball that comes back. Serve plus one is the pattern that turns a good serve into a won point.
Wimbledon has just crowned another champion, and if you watched closely you saw the same thing every year: the best returners quietly won the tournament. Here is how to coach a return that pressures the server rather than just surviving it.