Tennis: Forehand mix opportunities

DESCRIPTION

3 zones are set on the court. The coach feeds balls to the player's forehand, who picks the zone and hits forehand. The player can go deep cross-court, short angle cross-court or drop shot down the line.

COACHING POINTS

Having many skills is an advantage that will make your chances bigger for winning on the court. Players who have limited skills can play well only if their one or two strengths are working on a particular day. If they don't the score is usually 1/6 2/6. That is why it is important to avoid this kind of situation and give your players more weapons to work with. If your players know that they can win points using different skills, they are more confident and they can play with less pressure.

In this drill, your player works on 3 different forehand strokes. Deep cross-court is a typical strategy to push the opponent behind the baseline or to force easy ball. That is a great tactic for less advanced players to avoid own mistakes and increase number of errors from opponent. Angle cross-court is an effective offensive weapon but it requires good technical skills. Players who are not able to play with a lot of topspin won't achieve success with this shot. Last option is drop shot down the line. This choice is useful to force opponent to move to the net and respond to really difficult ball. Players can use drop shot separately or in combination with previous shot (e.g deep cross-court + drop shot down the line). The coach should encourage their players to try different scenarios and explain why it is important to work on your strengths as well as on options that you are not confident with right now.