Tennis: First Steps With Forehand Return

Description

• Player keeps cone in both hands.
• Coach serves to deuce side. Player catches the ball into the cone after the first bounce.
• Player takes the ball out of the cone and throws back to coach using dominant hand.

Coaching points

• Using cone to catch the ball player is forced to watch the ball all the time and assess the distance to the ball and set proper position.
• These are exactly the same areas that player needs to develop to hit good forehand returns.
• Coach should pay attention to player's movement and ball perception and give simple instructions to help player achieve good level of success.
• If this exercise is too easy coach can increase difficulty of the serve or set up the target to throw into after the catch.

Drill tags: cone catch, first steps forehand return, coordination