Tennis drills at home for beginners
Staying fit and active has never been more important for your physical and mental health, and there are a number of ways you can perfect your game even when you can't get on court. We have developed some fun and dynamic activities to help you work on your skills on or off the court.
From volley practice to fancy footwork - here are six tennis drills for beginners that can be done at home.
1. The X Drill
The X Drill is a brilliant way to improve your speed and agility to help you move around the court. It will also help build your cardiovascular fitness, which means those long matches will be no problem for you at all.
- Start by marking out four cones in a square, with one cone in the centre.
- Start on the centre cone - this will be your recovery position.
- Move to each cone as quickly as possible, while returning to the centre cone each time you've finished your movement.
- If you have a friend with you, they could call out different coloured cones for you to run towards.
- To make it more challenging, you could try a shadow volley when moving towards the front two cones, or a groundstroke when you move to the back two cones - ensuring you return to the centre each time.
2. Double ball throw
This exercise focuses on your co-ordination and reaction speed which are key to improve your tennis skills. The exercise also works on your receiving skills as you will be reading the income ball.
You'll need a partner for this one, so grab a friend or family member to help you out.
- Stand facing your partner, roughly three metres apart.
- Using a larger ball, such as a football, start by throwing the ball to one another, mimicking the movement of a forehand and backhand stroke.
- Then, you'll want to grab a tennis ball - this time, the person with the football will continue turning while the other person throws the tennis ball with a bounce.
- You'll both have to try and catch the incoming ball at the same time - so make sure to focus on each throw!
- If you want to make it more challenging, try moving each other around to keep your partner on their toes.
3. Shuttles
Shuttles are always a great way to warm up the body and get those muscles going. They help incorporate basic movement patterms which will help improve your game when playing tennis.
They're pretty easy to follow - just make sure you set yourself a starting point and a line to move towards.
- Start with a light jog towards and back from the line
- Next, side-step to the line and back again, making sure you're keeping a wide base, gap between your feet and staying low.
- Then, skip forwards and backwards from the line with high knees - to create more airtime and power, use your arms as you raise each knee.
- For heel flicks, make sure your knees are pointing down to the ground to achieve a quad stretch.
- Finally, you'll want to try some walking lunges - for this, make sure your knees are at a 90 degree angle with each lunge, keep your back straight and rotate your arms over your front leg to warm up the top half of your body as well.
Repeate the above sequence several times until you feel warm.
4. Target Practice
Target practice is a great way to help develop your precision, consistency, and a focused mental game, all of which you can translate onto the practice or match court.
For this drill, can be done both by yourself, or with a friend.
- Stand two tennis rackets up two metres away from each other.
- Overarm throw a tennis ball towards your partner's racket and try to hit the racket.
- When you hit your partners racket, move back a few paces to increase the difficulty.
- To make it more competitive, you can even keep a running total of points along the way.
5. Volley Rally
Looking to improve your volleys at home? We've got just the drill for you.
For this drill, all you'll need is a tennis racket, tennis ball, a partner and something to hit over. This could be anything from a chair, bench or a gate.
- Have one person standing either side of the object you're going to volley over.
- To start off with, have your partner throw the ball over the object and use your racket to volley the ball back to them.
- From there, you can progress into a volley ralley and hit the ball back and forth to each other.
- The more confident you get in your volley skills, the more shots you can start incorporating into the rally.
6. Wall Ball
Practicing playing against a wall is an excellent way to replicate rally scenarios and will help you to generate more consistency off those groundstrokes in the long-term.
For this drill, you can rally by yourself or play with a partner.
- Start by marking out a net and targets on a wall by either using chalk or sticking up pieces of paper.
- Then you want to start your rally with the wall and see how many times you can hit the targets.
- You can challenge yourself by alternating shots from forehand, to bakchands and even your serve.
- If you want to work on your reaction time, stand closer to the wall and see how quickly you can return the ball.