Playing tennis requires very good hand, eye, feet coordination along with agility and reaction skills. For many, the tennis development process starts well before those foundational skills are present. Most all kids can learn how to strike a ball from a static position the very first day of tennis lessons. What most don’t realize is that the striking skills are arguably the easy parts of learning tennis. The more challenging parts are involve the receiving skills: reading, reacting, positioning and contact footwork. Unfortunately the majority of coaches teach tennis like it is a golf lesson. Golf is a closed skill sport, and tennis is an open skill sport. Tennis requires dynamic movements for receiving and sending. These dynamic movements put a premium on coordination. In my experience, many kids enroll in tennis lessons before they are ready to learn these dynamic movements and tennis becomes limited to a “golf lesson”. These static skill developments are fine and certainly required, however paying a professional instructor to hand feed is not the best approach. I have many drills on my website that parents or peers can facilitate on their own. I recommend all new players start with this page.
My normal warm up drill is also a very good benchmark test for kids. If they struggle with this coordination drill, maybe they aren’t ready for tennis:
Notice in this drill there is a ball in her hand and I’m tossing a ball. The player must catch the ball with the hand that the ball comes to. ie. left side, left hand; right side, right hand. If the player is holding the ball in the right hand, and the ball is tossed to the right side, the player must transfer the ball to the left hand and catch the other ball with the right hand. The player must stay low and wide and push off the ground to move and track the ball all the way to their hands to catch it. The player should avoid lunging and reaching. The goal is to position the feet correctly and stay balanced while tracking the ball. These are important skills for tennis.
We are looking for kids that have enough hand, eye, foot coordination to perform a non-technical rally. Essentially send and receive the ball with just basic technique like below:
We will work on more appropriate footwork and swing mechanics to develop better sending skills.
My team excels at providing a balanced approach, with an ultimate goal to get everyone actually playing the sport. We incorporate a balance of technical skill development with goal oriented training. We also provide online content to accelerate development and self learning.
Our methodology includes a balance of private, semi-private, group and self training with online content. I encourage parents to support this approach and have an active role in the development. Practice needs to be prioritized along with self learning. We find that kids that are around 10 years old are mature enough to follow this approach. Prior to this age, we recommend other activities that build Hand, eye, foot coordination like playing catch or soccer or dance or gymnastics. Once a good foundation of throwing and catching skills are developed, tennis may be a good transition. Until then, continue to work on coordination skills at home or through other sports and activities.
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