Are you a high school tennis coach?
If you are one let me ask you this follow up question.
How well do you coach in practice every day?
Because.
The best tennis coaches at the high school level are great at coaching in practice.
That being the case.
Here are 4 areas that you should focus on in practice, also keep testing out new ideas and drills to help you maximize your players time on the court.
The goal is creativity, innovation, and efficiency.
1) Footwork-
Tennis is all about movement.
The better they get at their movement, the better they’re on court play will be.
They need to focus on short, explosive, and powerful first steps.
I like using dynamic warm-up drills at the start of practice instead of static stretching.
2) Repetitions-
Leverage the reps in practice.
Your players need to get enough reps in daily until they master all their strokes.
At the high school level.
Most players never develop the basic strokes because they don’t get enough in during practice.
Post up a daily goal for reps for each player and make sure that they do them!
3) Creative Drills-
Study and test out new drills and then build on and off those drills.
This will keep you on top of your coaching game and the players will stay engaged out there as well.
YouTube is a great place to go find drills and they are all FREE.
Most great drills are just other coaches drills that someone took and adopted and adapted it in a creative way.
My PTR tester told me.
Try to learn a new drill or a new way of coaching every day!
4) Point/Matches-
In the afternoon.
Have your players play points and set up situational training for them.
After doing that.
Have them play practice matches.
They should be working on new shots and focusing on discovering their authentic style of play.
They shouldn’t be trying to win those matches.
The key point for practice matches is to test out new shots and focus on discovery your match play game.
After every practice match, they need to write down their results in their tennis journal.
NOTE.
When they are writing in their tennis journal.
They should be honest and keep this information to themselves.
This journal is for their eyes only!
I say that because you want them to start using the feedback that they are getting to make the needed adjustments in the future.
In coaching experience.
Players who use their journal the right way are able to make progress faster than players that don’t.
So, there is your proof.
Okay.
Zone in on those 4 aspects in practice for the next 3 months and you should see some amazing results from your players.
Just study any great tennis team and you will find a coach who created a great practice system for that team.