Goal Setting For Young Players

It's that time of year - everyone is scrambling to come up with some New Year's Resolutions that won't bore the socks of themselves. Studies show that more than 90% of resolutions fail. But we can always be part of the 10%! Let's take the basic principle and apply it to your young player's tennis future.

For beginners:

• Understand the scoring structure for your age group. Red Ball players use 1st to 7; Orange Ball and older typically use the traditional 15-30-40-game scoring.
• Be able to keep track of the score during the game, regardless of who is serving.
• Understand what the serve is (starts the point), how to do it (bounce, underhand or overhand) and where it's supposed to land (cross court service box).
• Remember to call the score if you are serving. Always say your own score first.
• Know all the parts of the court like you know your name: baseline, service line, service boxes, deuce and ad sides, alleys, the T, the back court, No Man's Land.
• Look for opportunities to play an actual match. Clinics are great for learning skills, but as the saying goes, practicing tennis without ever playing a match is like studying for a test you never take. Look for free or inexpensive Play Days in your area. Too easy? Try Jr. Team Tennis or a Rising Stars one day tournament.

Beyond Beginners:

• Serve with continental grip.
• Serve consistently at least 7 out of 10 in.
• Commit to advancing your skills to the next level of the tennis skill pyramid.
• Commit to advancing to the next level ball. For example, if you are an orange ball player now, focus on getting to green ball level.
• Learn how to use Tennislink to find tournaments or other events in your area.
• Learn how to use TennisLink to track your state ranking and that of your opponents.
• Learn the local rules for playing for your local high school team. In my area, 7th graders and older are eligible to try out, and many of our teams are No-Cut.

Everyone:

• Attend more matches as a fan, such as
• local high school team's matches. You might see some familiar faces, and they will be delighted to have the fan support.
• an entry level pro tournament such as an ITF or a USTA Pro Circuit event. They happen all over the country just about all year long. They are free or inexpensive to attend.
• a local college team match. There is some amazing tennis being played at that level, and often the matches are free or very inexpensive to attend.
• If you are lucky enough to live near a larger event such as the US Open, Family Circle Cup, Indian Wells, Davis Cup, Fed Cup, etc., try to attend. Go early in the event before elimination whittles down the playing field.

Hope this got your tennis wheels spinning. What are some of your tennis resolutions?

Progression Infinity

There's a fairly new website called CoachYouthTennis. It has lots of great info for coaches of all

I use the heck outta my spots

levels. Great for parents, too, who are new to tennis and want some perspective on what they may be seeing during their player's lessons.

As per my usual, I will be mining the info there and testing it on court. Today's post is a complete lesson plan as opposed to a single standalone activity. It has been battle tested recently and I am very pleased with the results. My students enjoyed it thoroughly. I used it in a private lesson as well as in a group lesson with 9 red ballers and also 6 orange ballers (two different clinics, natch). Worked great all times. You will need some spots or some way to mark the court.

Kittens and Mittens

Another mash-up today. Title contributed from one of my students - thanks, Zeb! Super flexible, fun for any age and ability. You will need some extra equipment: cones, spots, and some random way of generating low numbers such as dice or playing cards.

Players will hit from yellow cones.
Coach will feed from near/target side.

Set up two cones anywhere you want the players to hit from (yellow cones in photo). At net for working on volleys, at service line for approach shots, baseline for groundies, etc. Cones should be 4-6 feet apart forming a 'goal'.

Shrinking Racquet

I came up with this one at random during a clinic with my older students. As always, I told them if they were going to miss, miss long. In other words, avoid hitting into the net.

As further encouragement to avoid the net, I established a new rule: anyone hitting into the net must exchange their full size racquet for my 21" Sponge Bob racquet for the next point.

This elicited exactly the responses I was hoping for: anticipation by some; dread by some; wariness of the net by all. If you are going to try this, make sure your small racquet is the craziest, most colorful or, dare I say it - most baby-ish racquet you can find.

Cone Guard

Like so many activity ideas, Cone Guard came about out of thin air during a lesson when I was looking for a way to jazz things up. It worked beautifully.

Rather than just boring feeding, place an object behind your students for them to 'guard' or protect by hitting the ball away from it. I explain to them that I will be trying to hit the object with the ball I am tossing. If my ball hits their object, I get a point. I toss 5 balls to each player in very quick succession. It is amazing to see students who may be struggling to make contact suddenly hitting 5 out of 5. This activity also alleviates crazy messy backswings, since the hopper or cone is right behind the player and they don't want to hit it.

My students love the idea of working together to keep me from getting a point. They cheer each other on with each successful turn at defending. Suggest setting a number such as 5 points for coach's goal so that even if you happen to hit the object once or twice, the kids still feel a sense of accomplishment even if I do happen to get lucky a time or two.

Many variations on this game - use your imagination.

• Move the object around on the court. 
• Ask for all forehands or all backhands. 
• Award points to the players instead, for every successful defending shot.

4 Stroke Challenge

4 Stroke Challenge is great for any level. I use it both as a warm-up as well as a point competition activity.

Warm-up version
Players begin at service line. You can have one line or two depending on your feeding prowess and the size of the group. Each player is fed four balls from coach in this order: forehand, backhand, volley, overhead. Then they rotate out and next player is in for their four.

It gives me a chance to do two important things. 1)They get used to the idea of following a ball in
(the backhand, in this case) for a volley. 2) We get to tweak the overhead, and they get used to hitting a high ball out of the air.

Keep the feeds at a lively pace, keep them on their toes and paying attention to keep the line moving.

Point Competition
Once you feel they are warmed up, change the rotation so that after a player completes their four shots, they come over to other side of court. The four shots are still fed, but now they play out the point each time. You may have to move your feeding location if you have been feeding from on court.

One point awarded to winning player each time, so every rotation, a total of four points will be earned by someone. I don't give second chances on the feed. If they miss the feed, point goes to opponent. Player with most points when hopper is empty, wins.

This could be played as singles or as doubles. If you play it as doubles, you have a couple of scoring options.

• Switch to a golf score format. Points awarded to player making error; player with lowest score when hopper is empty, wins.
• Award all players 10 points when you begin. Subtract points for errors. Player with most remaining points when hopper is empty, wins.

My Picks

My Favorite Tennis Games

View more lists from Lissa Johnston

Ball Pickup - In Disguise

Ball pickup doesn't always have to be about, well, picking up balls. Here's how I have worked in some additional ball striking opportunities into our ball pickup.

Send your players to whichever side of the court has the most balls on the ground. Coach is on the opposite end of court picking up. Have the players send the balls to you with one or more of the following challenges.

Serving - Have them serve into the cross court service box from the baseline.
Topspin forehand - bounce feed and send across the net with as much topspin as they can muster.
Backhand - bounce feed, then work on backhand style of their choice - one hand, two hands, slice.
Lob - bounce feed and aim for behind service line, middle of court. Add some topspin if you are able.

Sometimes my students aren't crazy about ball pickup, but they will wear themselves out with these simple challenges, even scrounging for additional balls to hit once they have exhausted the supply on their side.

Luck of the Draw

I hit the tennis drill jackpot recently and am mining it for all it is worth. Another great game inspired by Mike Barrell, evolve9: Luck of the Draw.

Create some cards with a variety of positive and negative tweaks to the usual rules:

Bonus (positive)
Unlimited serves
Replay point
Opponent gets only one serve
Alleys allowed (singles)


Challenge (negative)
Only one serve
No bounce
Use a different racquet
No backhands/volleys/lobs
Use opposite hand

Wild Card - choose a second card; player decides who it should apply to

Use these cards to present challenges or opportunities to your players as they play out points. For example, have two players or teams play a tiebreaker. Before each point, have one of the teams draw a card. Alternate which team draws, or allow each to draw, or allow team that won last point to draw. Stay flexible and let your imagination guide you on the best use of the cards. Great way to train them to deal with positive and negative momentum changes that may occur during a match.

Update: suggested by my students - bring blank cards and a sharpie - they wanted in on the fun and wanted to create their own cards. Love it!

Mission Possible

Mission Possible is a drill from Mike Barrell at evolve9.com. Mike is an industry leader in the field of coaching young tennis players.

Have players play a tiebreak. They are tasked with a challenge, such as keeping the ball deep or hitting to their opponent's backhand. Keep pad and pen handy courtside, and have the players keep track of how they are doing meeting the challenge, or 'mission', in between points. The tiebreaker is played/scored as usual, but the challenge of the mission should be of primary concern to players, second only to winning the point.

Spot Shot

Here's another great versatile drill from a recent summer camp coaches training session led by my

boss, Jorge Andrew. It didn't have a name, so . . .

Spot Shot builds on the progression method of teaching new students the basics of stroke production.  They should be able to bounce feed.

Two players face each other across the net inside the service lines. Two spots are on one side of the net; one short, one a little deeper. Player on side with spots is receiving bounce feed. Player bounce feeding announces prior to feed which spot they are aiming for. Then they feed, and receiving player traps ball on racquet after one bounce. Trap should be to forehand.

After three successful traps, players high 5 each other at net and wait for others to finish. Then switch roles so that everyone gets a turn at each position.

Variation
Move spots so that they are at left and right within service box rather than short and deep.
Have player trapping to backhand side.

Progression
Easier - have players tossing and catching before they move on to using their racquets.
Harder - players rally 3 in a row (or more!) before trapping ball on racquet.

Loop to Sneak

If you haven't visited the TennisResources site, run don't walk. Lots of great content there and you

'Loop' aka moonball. Don't hate! This
can be a very effective shot!

better believe you will be seeing it here. Rip Off and Duplicate!

Loop and Sneak is a drill to encourage hitting a nice deep shot, then taking advantage of the defensive position you have put your opponent in. Players play singles starting with a bounce feed, working on hitting a high, deep topspin ground stroke that pins their opponent back. They then follow this shot into the net and attempt to end the point. First to 11 by 2 wins. If you have a large group, play as a team activity, rotating in different players after each point.

For an additional challenge, require a set number of rallies before point play begins a la 3 Monkeys.

Note: I found the site a little difficult to navigate, so just go to the main page and search the word 'loop' to find the Loop to Sneak video.

Drop and Hit

One of my biggest challenges with young players is to get them to set up the correct proximity to the ball. I have blogged about some solutions to this such as the aptly named Proximity Drill. Ken DeHart in the Top Tennis Tips From Around the World DVD has another that I am excited to try.

Ken suggests having the player use their non-dominant hand to track the ball. That's not news. Many of you have probably already suggested this to your students. Ken takes it one step further by having them practice not only tracking the ball with their extended arm, but then actually catching it. After a successful catch, they drop and hit it back over the net. Arm must be fully extended and angled out in front (1 o'clock for righties, 11 o'clock for lefties) for this to work. You can do this as a dead ball feed first, then have players working in pairs with each other.

Photo from instructables.com

Penny Tennis

Aaaaaannnnd . . . the hits just keep on coming from teaching pro John Carrizosa (did you see what I did there???)

anyway -

In this video, John suggests using a simple penny to build a good swing habit (or break a bad one) in your beginner students. Balance a penny on the top of the frame of the racquet. Racquet strings should be perpindicular to the court, or facing the net if that is easier for your students to understand. Have them practice swinging slowly and carefully so that the penny stays balanced on the frame. Works on both forehand and backhand sides.

I have some students who have trouble keeping the racquet face neutral as they swing. The ball either goes flying (racquet too open) or dives into the bottom of the net (racquet too closed). I think this comes from them being too wristy, possibly from playing Wii Tennis. Now before you start sending me emails, remember that I love Wii Tennis.  This is just about the only knock I have on it.  In some cases, I think using the Wii remote in place of a tennis racquet teaches players success with wristiness, which definitely does not transfer to the real game. Racquetball, maybe. Tennis, no.

Now I realize these pennies are not going to stay on anyone's frame very long. But the visualization is worth many times the penny's value. When you see your students starting to open or close that racquet face at the wrong time, after using this activity, you can just say 'penny' and they should be able to auto-correct.

p.s. as in the video, be prepared to cough up the penny - your students will def ask if they can keep it!

UPDATE: I guess it was inevitable. Last time I used this, there was almost a Penny Riot on court. Someone lost their penny and accused others of 'stealing' it. So consider retrieving the pennies after the activity and re-distributing them at the end of class. :(

Pinwheels

If you have the time, you can even
make these yourself - here's how

Thanks John Carrizosa for suggesting yet another inexpensive teaching tool. In this video John demonstrates how to use a pinwheel to encourage your young beginners to slow down their swings.

Attach a pinwheel to the player's tennis racquet with a rubber band. Have them swing slowly enough that the pinwheel operates properly. Once they are able to do this well, remove the pinwheel and have them  hit some balls with the same speed they used to operate the pinwheel.

Touch Tag

This activity is from John Carrizosa. Great for building good technique in young beginners. John has

Envisioning catching or touching the ball rather than
hitting it is a method endorsed by teaching
professional Oscar Wegner

created a progression beginning with asking his students to first just touch a ball that has been tossed to them (after it bounces). Touch should be with dominant hand only. Next step is using the racquet to touch (not hit!) the ball. Final step is hitting the ball with a good quality swing and follow through. The idea is to get away from the wild, home run-type swings, substituting a swing with more 'touch' or 'feel'. I agree and would add the following steps to John's activity:

From a stationary position (coach tosses ball so that player does not have to move much to get to it):

• touch tossed ball with dominant hand 
• touch ball with racquet
• swing/hit and follow through with racquet

From a dynamic position (meaning coach tosses ball so that player must move to get to it):

• touch tossed ball with dominant hand
• touch ball with racquet
• swing/hit and follow through with racquet

Cone Blast

I recently saw Cone Blast on a video but for the life of me I cannot find it again so apologies to whomever I am stealing this from! When I find it I will update this post. I tried it yesterday in my Red Ball classes with some alterations and it was a big hit <g> You will need some cones and throw down spots or stripes.

Place cones 6-10 feet from the back fence of the court. They should be a safe distance away from each other. Balance one ball on each cone. Players must hit the ball off the cone and into the fence. If it hits the fence before it bounces, they earn one point.

My alterations were:

• I added two spots/markers: one at the cone and one 5-6 feet behind the cone. The one near the cone was to remind the players where they should be standing when they hit the ball. They had no problem with understanding where to stand on the forehands, but when we switched to backhands, they kept forgetting. The second spot was a Waiting Spot for safety reasons. Without it, they were so excited for their turn to hit and earn a pin (see below), they were crowding the cone and in danger of getting hit on the hitting player's backswing. A good problem to have!
• Second big alteration was the addition of clothespins to help them keep score. This added much enjoyment to the game, as usually happens with the introduction of competition. Whoever had the most pins at the end of the activity was the winner. We had three different rounds, each ending when the hopper was emptied.

  

  Check out those pins!

This simple activity offers many opportunities for teaching moments. For example:

• We started 6-8 feet from the back fence. As they warmed up and were performing this task easily, I moved them farther back. Much whining and complaining about making it harder, but of course they actually relished the challenge. We did three different rounds: Round 1 was forehands with a progression farther back from the fence; Round 2 was backhands; and Round 3 we moved to the 36-foot court. Points only awarded if ball went over net. You could add a challenge here also by insisting the ball be hit within play (rather than just anywhere over the net). 
• Insist on correct point of contact and finish. Remind them it is okay to hit the cone with the racquet as they swing, otherwise you will see some very weird wrist contortions as they try to cup the ball without touching the cone!

Passport

Tennis.com recently offered the Passport drill video on their website. I like it and plan to modify it for Red and Orange ball players to get them comfortable with coming to the net.

It is a simple activity, as you will discover if you watch the video. Coach is at baseline. Player is across the net at service line. Coach feeds a ball that bounces in front of player. Player hits it after it bounces, comes in, taps net with racquet, and returns to service line. This reinforces the idea of following a short ball in.

Variation
Player takes ball out of air (volley) rather than letting it bounce before they hit it.

Fixit

With these two handy, I can fix just about anything
that does not involve a tennis racquet

Ever notice how analyzing sports is so easy when you are on the sidelines, but not so easy when you are out there playing? Fixit is an activity to bridge the two experiences. The goal is for players to observe and learn from the mistakes of others and translate that knowledge to their own games. Great for odd numbers of players. At its simplest it can be managed by all but the youngest beginners.

Players on court playing out singles or doubles points. Leftover players in line at net post. Players at net post replace player making error. When point is over, first player in line at net post gives their opinion on what just transpired to end the point - error, winner, etc. Extra credit for depth of observation. For example if point ended on an error, ball hit wide, what caused the ball to be hit wide and what is the solution? Footwork? Point of contact? Positioning? Once they have rendered their opinion, they are free to rotate in and next point is played out.

Variation
Give the player making the error a chance to express what he/she thinks caused the error. It is often illuminating to hear the different viewpoints between players and observers.

Tween Rally

This activity is for young players to help them control both racquet and contact with ball. You will need at least three players. Two players face each other a few feet apart. A third player stands between them with feet apart. The two players pass a ball to each other along the ground. The ball must pass through the legs of the third player. If the ball touches the  middle player or does not go between their legs, the player who missed is now in the middle.

I find my young players delighted when I add the option to make a ridiculous and obnoxious sound effect when the ball misses. :)