Drills for the four basic shots are included here, all referenced in the main text, written by the instructor:
Matsuzaki, Carol. Tennis Fundamentals. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2004. ISBN: 9780736051514.
Forehand Drills
Drop Hit Forehand
Standing on the service line, drop the ball in front of you, let it bounce, and hit a flat, slice, or topspin forehand. Try to get as many as possible in the opposite court.
Soft Toss Forehand
With a partner, stand at the service lines on opposite sides of the court, facing each other. One person tosses the ball to the hitter’s forehand side, while the other steps and hits that ball with a backhand.
Rally Forehand
With a partner, stand at the service lines on opposite sides of the court, facing each other. Start with a drop hit forehand, hitting it to the other person’s forehand, trying to continue the rally, always hitting crosscourt to the forehand.
Full Court Crosscourt Forehand
This is a more advanced version of the rally drill, where you try to get to 12 consecutive shots from the baselines.
Backhand Drills
Drop Hit Backhand
Standing alone on the service line, drop a ball in front of you, let it bounce, step and hit a backhand. Try to get as many as possible in the opposite court.
Soft Toss Backhand
With a partner, stand at the service lines on opposite sides of the court, facing each other. One person tosses the ball to the hitter’s backhand side, while the other steps and hits that ball with a backhand.
Rally Backhand
With a partner, stand at the service lines on opposite sides of the court, facing each other. Start with a drop hit backhand, hitting it to the other person’s backhand, trying to continue the rally, always hitting crosscourt to the backhand.
Crosscourt Backhand
This is a more advanced version of the rally drill, where you try to get to 12 consecutive shots from the baselines.
Figure Eights
With a partner, stand at the service lines on opposite sides of the court. Hitting only backhands, one player hits only down the line and the other hits only crosscourt. The resulting movement pattern should resemble a figure eight. When this gets easy, try it from the baseline.
Serve Drills
Toss Drill
Working alone, put the racket down in front of the baseline so the head points toward the net and the grip points toward the back fence. Toss the ball and let it land, trying to get the ball to land on the strings of the racket.
Trap the Ball
Working alone from the proper service stance, standing next to a wall or fence, toss the ball and try to reach up with your racket and gently trap the ball between the racket strings and the wall or fence.
Short Serves
Working alone, practice serving from the service line, concentrating on your technique instead of on power.
Target Serves
Set up targets in the opposing service box, out wide, in the center, and at the T. Try to hit each target five times.
Volley Drills
Play Catch
With a partner and without rackets, stand about 10 feet from the net on opposite sides of the court, facing each other. One player tosses the ball across the net to the other, and the other player catches it in proper volley stance, concentrating on footwork and hand position.
Volley in Front
Now try the Catch drill with a racket, volleying the tossed ball.
Volley-Volley
Stand with a partner at opposite service lines, and work on gently volleying the ball to each other as many times as possible. As you get better, move further back from the net.
Brutal Volley
Like the Volley-Volley drill, but more competitive, players try to win the point with every volley, using whatever technique necessary, and moving closer to the net with each shot.
Volley-Ground Strokes
Like the Volley-Volley drill, but with one player at the baseline and the other at the net, two players use groundstrokes and volleys, respectively, to hit the ball to each other.
Passing Shot Game
Like the Volley-Groundstrokes drill, but after three friendly strokes, either player should try to win the point, with passing shots or winning volleys.
