Coaching High School Boys Team – Q&A
Hi Tomaz,
I recently purchased the Strategy Encyclopedia and really enjoyed reading it.
I haven’t had much of an opportunity to put it into practice, yet. As well as playing tennis recreationally (3.5-4.0 level) I also coach the high school boys team where I teach.
You said that you’d answer some questions regarding tennis. My questions are more in line with coaching the boys high school team.
These boys are 15-18 years old and most have very little experience playing tennis (about a year).
I was wondering what kind of tennis conditioning drills we could do during practice to help them to be in better shape to move around the court.
This depends on what you want to work on. If it’s speed, then you need to do short sprints like they happen in tennis. Most are 2 to 5 meters and some are more than 5 meters.
So you can do various sprints with changing directions on these distances. If you have a team, then you can do some competitions which will be even better (regarding their effort).
What you can also do is to feed balls in such a way, that players run these distances.
The classical Spanish drill is : short to the F, long to the B, short to the B and long to the F. (and start again)
If you want to improve their stamina, then the best is to play soccer on a fairly big court. (like a handball size)
If that’s not possible, then just simple running for at least 20 minutes at least twice a week.
“However, helping my players to succeed at the net and serving are where I need some help. Could you suggest some things or drills that I could use to hasten their development.”
My approach is this: I teach everyone in the way I have presented in my beginner videos. This gives everyone solid foundation and understanding of the stroke.
From then on, it’s more emphasis on drills and developing their athletic skills rather than perfecting technique. The drills improve the technique automatically depending on the talent of the player.
Of course there are various tips you can give here and there but it’s hard to generalize for all players. Each player needs a different tip…
Some serve and volley ideas are also here:
“So, would you suggest teaching these boys more of a western to semi western grip to impart more topspin while allowing them to swing out a little more?”
I would suggest that you start with an eastern forehand grip if you teach beginners.
Later, when you progress to more spin with the ball, you will find that 90% of the player automatically (and probably unconsciously) shift their grip to a semi-western grip.
To the rest you can suggest to try the more closed grip if they cannot find it themselves.
It depends on their style of play, talent, personality and other things. I don’t encourage fully western grip since it’s too limiting in certain situations.
Almost every pro uses semi-western grip these days so this is the way to follow.
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