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.
It is really important to control the height of the ball. Players have to be able to go lower over the net (when in offense) or higher over the net (when behind the baseline/defense).
Mix short and deep balls and tell players that they have to attack short balls (low over the net) and play neutrally when the ball is deep (high 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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