The player stands behind the baseline, ready to receive the ball. The coach then throws the ball low on the player's backhand side. With bent knees the player has to hit a topspin backhand to the other side of the net.
In this drill, the player works on his/her low backhand stroke. The coach should pay attention to the player's footwork (low knees) and spin of the ball (heavy topspin). The coach should also explain to players that hitting around the baseline from the low point of contact is not the best situation to hit winners so they should focus on placement and trajectory over the net.
A tiebreak is a short sprint where every point is worth the same as a break of serve. The players who win them are rarely the ones who hit hardest. Here is how to coach the patterns, habits and scoreboard thinking that win the big points.
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.
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