Fence Trap

After scouring over 400 posts on this blog I cannot for the life of me find one on trapping the ball against the back fence to improve service toss and point of contact. How can I have overlooked this? It's a tried-and-true technique for improving serve, no matter the age or ability of the player.

You will need a fence or wall 2-3 feet taller than your player. Stand sideways next to the fence/wall with your non-dominant foot touching the fence/wall and your tossing arm closest to fence/wall. Toss ball as if you were going to hit an overhand serve, so ball needs to be 2-3 feet higher than your head, or about as high as player can reach with racquet. Trap ball against fence with racquet.

Players will soon find this is easier to do with a good quality toss out in front of them (which hopefully they have perfected by doing the Tap N Toss activity). Tossing behind them pretty much makes this impossible.

Once player is comfortable with this, have them turn 180 degrees and face the net, or move to the actual baseline. Visualizing the fence trap activity (now imagining the fence at the baseline), have them try tossing and 'trapping' the ball. Since there is no fence/wall in their way now, they should have a pretty good quality point of contact at the baseline.

Notes: if you are using a fence, avoid the support poles. Very hard on the racquet.

Here's a video of one of my Red Ball students performing the activity:

Also here's a great article from about.com listing some other common-sense strategies for improving the serve.

Two and One

Another great drill from the folks at Tweener, this one taking it up a notch to combine consistency AND directional skills. Love it!

Coach feeds first ball to player cross court. Player must return two balls cross court, then one ball down the line. Coach then sends this DTL ball cross court, and player repeats sequence, now from other side of court.

Some options on adapting this drill for a group clinic of young beginners:

Place a colored spot or cone on each half of court on coach's side, say, red on deuce and green on ad. As they are hitting back to you, call out the color they are supposed to be targeting. Perhaps include side of court ( Red - Deuce! Green - Ad!) so they begin to understand where they are hitting to without the cone markers. Player stays in until they miss. Player hitting most balls in a row within a given time period, wins.

Relay style: Players hit one ball and move to end of line (hit-n-git!). Group is working together to see how many balls in a row they can hit to the correct spot.

Progression: Start this activity hitting from service line, then move back to baseline as students master it.

One Minute Challenge

Thanks to the folks at the new tennis app, Tweener, for this simple yet effective consistency drill idea. I tried to embed the actual video but no worky, so try clicking on that link instead.

Players have one minute to hit 40 balls in play. In the video, the player is rallying with the coach. Player gets one point for every ball hit in. The catch is: they can only use one ball. So hitting consistently is key to keeping a rally going and eliminating wasted time chasing down the ball.

For young players you want to avoid anyone standing around waiting in line, even though it is only for one minute. If you have multiple courts available, great - have them pair up and play this challenge in singles half (longways) or full court. If you don't have multiple courts available, consider shortening the time period to 30 seconds, again to avoid lines and waiting. For young beginners I would also eliminate the 40 number and perhaps reduce it or just have the challenge be for who can get the most balls hit in play in the set time period.