The coach stands on the baseline in the deuce corner with racquet stretched to the right side. The player serves wide using slice serve. The goal is to hit the ball inside the service box and avoid the coach's racquet.
Most of the time placement of the serve is more important than power. Knowing how our ball can create advantage from the first shot is a big strength that players can use at any level. Being able to differ first and second serves keep our opponent's guessing so we can expect more mistakes and increased number of easy returns.
In this drill, the player works on service placement. Having feedback like coach's position and racquet is an easy tool that keeps players motivated and more focused on the target. Serving many balls in a row can be a boring actions so coaches have to make sure that players have visible goals to achieve. To make it competitive, the coach can give points for successful serves or play to a given number of good serves.
"It is not only useful for staff who are experienced but a valuable tool for those subject staff who have to take teams."
The variety of sessions across sports - sometimes we steal session ideas from one sport and use them with another.
As we enter the business end of the competition, we take a look at the remaining eight teams and the key talking points surrounding each side.