Speed Racer

A blast from the past. Did any of you watch
the original, or was it before your time?

Speed Racer is a good format for large groups of just about any level. Ideally you will have enough courts for all players to be playing at once. If not, have some players lined up ready to go in.

Divide players into two fairly evenly matched teams. Send players out to play singles against each other. If you have too many players for the number of courts, some can be waiting to go in at the next round. Whenever a court finishes their game, they call out 'Done' or 'Stop' or whatever you have agreed upon beforehand. All players must stop. Whoever is ahead, whether game is complete or not, wins a point for their team. If they are tied, one additional point is played to determine the winner.

If you have enough courts for all players to be on court at the same time, try an Uptown, Downtown rotation. If you have players waiting, feed them into the lower court and everyone else moves up a court, then back into line after they finish play at the highest court.

Team with the most points at the end of this activity wins.

Variation: easily played as doubles if you are short on courts.

Adapted from When Can I Play Again, www.evolve9.com

Tag Team Tiebreak

You will need 4 players per court for Tag Team Tiebreak. Pair them up into teams of two (players 1 and 2 vs. players 3 and 4).

Player 1 plays Player 3 for two points, with each player serving one point each. Then Player 2 faces Player 4 for two points. Play continues until a 7 point tiebreaker is completed. A second tiebreaker is then played, with the players alternating their opponents. For example, Player 1 now faces Player 4 and Player 2 faces Player 3. Players switch ends after every 4 points so that each serves from alternate end every time it is their turn.

If the teams split breakers, players spin racquets to see which pairings will be played for the final tiebreaker. Suggestion: have Player 1 and Player 3 spin racquets. If they match (both 'up' or both 'down'), they will face each other in the final breaker. If they do not match, Player 1 will face Player 4 in the final breaker.

Adapted from When Can I Play Again, www.evolve9.com

Super Team Tennis

Here's a fun activity for groups. It combines match play with an element of surprise. I found it in an evolve9 activity booklet. You will need two cones and some clothes pins.

Divide players into two teams. Place cones on either side of net post off court. Have each team line up behind one of the cones. Players take turns playing singles against each other in order as they are lined up. Whoever wins the point places a clothes pin under their team's cone and goes to the end of their team's line. Whichever team has the most pins at the end of the event is the winner.

Continuing Ed

Coach Stan and me at last year's
PTR Symposium in Orlando

It's official - I'm all signed up and ready to attend the PTR 10 and Under Tennis Conference in Hilton Head next month. I'm excited, and here's why:

• Hilton Head! Plus, it's an easy drive across state for me.
• Unlike the bigger international PTR symposium coming in May (also in HHI), this one focuses on 10 and Under. Some of my students are older than 10, but most are not.
• The presentations are scheduled linearly rather than concurrently, so I don't have to choose which to attend and risk missing out on something awesome. 
• Guaranteed tons of new quality material for this blog!
• Opportunity to meet in person some of the great folks I correspond with online throughout the rest of the year. 

Will you be there? If so, let me know. I would love to meet you in person!

Consistency is Key

In the process of integrating the recent 3 ball consistency drills into my lessons, I came up with a couple of variations to scale it down for my younger and less skilled players. You see, I was having some difficulty with them being able to rally at all . . . sometimes that happens! So instead of having them rally with 3 balls among themselves, I switched it up a little. I asked them to hit 3 balls in a row into the playable court, with me feeding the three balls. They were able to have better success with this model, so I am using it as a stepping stone to the 3 Ball drill. I turned it into a competition by rewarding them with one point every time they were able to hit three balls in a row into play. One class did this as individuals, another did it as teams. We started out at the service line. Round 2 was done with them hitting from the baseline to add a level of difficulty. You can probably see how it can be easily adjusted for backhands, serves, volleys, and so forth. My clinic used forehands.

I had two different scoring schemes.

• One was to see who had the most points by the time the hopper was empty. I had them place a ball along the edge of the court for every point won. 
• Another was to see which team got to 7 points first, since we had those flippable scorekeepers on court and they LOVE using the flippable scorekeepers.

My students love using these!

For my Red Ball class, I scaled it back to a 2 ball requirement at first. Then I added a ball as they got warmed up. In other words, no point unless you can hit 3 in a row; then 4 in a row, etc.

BTW we also had a brief grammar lesson on the various definitions of 'consistency' and which one was relevant to our tennis lesson. I never cease to be amazed at the intellect of my students!

DIY Warm-Up

My junior tennis lessons run anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. I focus on skill development and match play. I don't have a lot of extra time for warm-up or fitness activities. After spending the last year cranking out hundreds of lesson plans, I had a light bulb moment. I remembered my son's club soccer team had a warm-up routine they did at every practice. The coach had developed a simple but effective routine that got everyone warmed up, and, even better, required no adult supervision - the team could run through the routine on their own. So I did the same thing for my Orange Ball and up classes. Happy to say it is working great. One of my proudest moments was coming to the court behind the kids and watching them line up on the baseline and start their warm-up without me saying a word (sniff, sniff, shedding a tear). Seriously, this way they can warm themselves up when playing for fun or prior to match play when I am not around.

Here's what I included in my 8 point warm-up. Yours doesn't have to be 8 points. It doesn't have to included these specific exercises. The point is to have something that works well for your students and your lesson time.

1 Medium jog
2 High Knees
3 Butt Kicks
4 Shuffle Step (facing sideways)
5 Facing net, Shuffle Step from hash mark to outer sideline; shuffle back to hash mark; sprint to net
6 With both feet, hop back and forth over baseline for a few hops; then sprint to net
7 Big Skip - lower body skips; upper body twists
8 Hip Circles - similar to High Knees, but when the knee is lifted, make a big circle to the outside to loosen the hip joint. I do it on a 3 count so that the circling hip alternates right/left. It goes like this: Step, Step, Circle, Step Step Circle, etc. Some of my students have trouble getting this one.

Two others I like to substitute are deep lunge steps and carioca/grapevine steps.

After 8 rotations my students are usually pretty winded and warm, depending on the size of the group.

For each of the eight activities, students line up on the full court (78-foot) baseline, perform the activity from baseline to net, then circle around outside the court lines and get back in line. If you have a large group, have them form two lines. As soon as one player gets to the net, the next player in line goes, so they need to pay attention. If you have a small group and no lines are needed, they just perform the activity up to the net and do a medium jog back to the baseline.

I sometimes use a different warm-up just to mix things up, but for now this is my go-to warm-up routine 90% of the time.

It Only Hurts For A Minute

At last, a practical use for all those
Beanie Babies!

Thanks Mark Dalli for this great idea! During a recent tennis instruction discussion on LinkedIn, the Los Angeles area teaching pro had this solution for young players who are afraid of the ball. You will need a supply of soft, small-ish stuffed animals.

Have the player stand at the net, no racquet needed. Coach then lightly tosses the stuffed animals at the player. The intention is for the stuffed animals to make contact (hit) the player, so take it easy. Ideally this will help them relax and realize if they do get hit by a foam ball, it likely will not hurt.

I have done this by gently tossing foam balls at players, even other types of balls, and it is very effective if done right. But I love the stuffed animals idea for very  young players. Mark claims they love it and guarantees a case of the giggles.