6 Tennis Ball Machine Drills That Work For All Levels
Tennis ball machine drills are a great way to improve your game when you don’t have a partner to play against. Ball machines are also very useful for perfecting specific swings.
If you’ve just bought a tennis ball machine, or your thinking of renting time with one from your local club you probably could use some advice on how to get started.
Before we get into that you need to remember that there are a lot of different tennis ball machines, some are very complicated with many settings, others are simpler and give you less options.
It is well to your advantage when a machine has many settings so don’t be afraid to try it!
Here are some practice tennis ball machine drills that you can use to get started. These drills will work with most machines.
Note: If you want to perfect a specific swing make sure you’re reinforcing good technique, not bad! To help with this you may want to ask a skilled player to give you some pointers before you begin or as you practice.
Ball Machine Drill 1
Focus all shots to one position on the court. Say goodbye to your dodgy backhand! Use this drill for just about any shot: ground-strokes, half-volleys, volleys, overheads, return of serve, etc.
Ball Machine Drill 2
Fire balls up the middle of the court and start alternating forehands and backhands by running around the ball – Not only does this improve your swings its also a great way to improve your endurance and footwork.
Ball Machine Drill 3
Use a two line setting and alternate forehands and backhands. As you improve you can space the shots out more, and crank up the speed. If you really want a great workout practice hitting your shots on the run.
Ball Machine Drill 4
Put your machine on a random oscillation setting so you get a mix of balls coming at you, and aim your returns at specific areas of the court. For example, play all shots deep and cross-court, or alternate between cross-court and down the line. If possible, set the machine to deliver a mix of topspin, flat and backspin balls.
Ball Machine Drill 5
Again with your machine on random oscillation, practice specific patterns of play or shot combination. For example, hit a couple of ground strokes, followed by an approach shot, half-volley, then a couple of volleys, to practice working your way into the net.
Ball Machine Drill 6
If you have one of those super-duper programmable machines, punch in a specific sequence of balls so you can practice specific plays over and over. This could be a tactic of your own devising, or perhaps you want to recreate a point from a pro match you saw…
Depending on the machine there is basically and infinite number of settings, serves, and plays you can arrange with a tennis ball machine. Hopefully these practice drills will get your gears turning and you’ll come up with some drills to help the parts of your game that need improvement the most!
These are obviously just the tip of the iceberg, and with most tennis ball machines the major limitation is your imagination – so make sure you’re getting the most out of yours!
-Author Bio-
Joshua G is the mind behind tennis ball machine reviews, a website dedicated to providing unbiased customer reviews on tennis ball machines.
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