Advanced Tennis Drills in Developing a World Class Tennis Game

Advanced tennis drills are the necessary exercises a player can do on court to refine their current tennis strokes. These advanced tennis drills are designed for players to maximize their tennis technique and ability to execute shots based on live ball situations.

An advanced tennis player may not need to add new strokes to his or her repertoire, but learning situational awareness is an important part of becoming a better tennis player.

These advanced tennis drills focus on the finer points of the game of tennis, helping every player develop his or her specialty shots needed to be a well rounded player.

Advanced Tennis Drills #1: Drop Volley

One of the most advanced tennis net skills is the drop volley. This skill is a very challenging one to master; thus consistent advanced tennis drills and practice are necessary to make use of this shot an effective tool to win tennis matches. This shot requires a perfect soft touch and a very delicate ball spin. The player’s objective in this drill is to maximize the number of ball bounces before it reaches the service line.

For a drop volley shot to be considered as a good one, the ball should bounce at a minimum of three. The best drop volley shots are when the ball stays on the service box, bounces many times (three or more) before it reaches the service line or even bounces back towards the net.

To achieve the above objective, the player needs to perform a series of advanced tennis drills for drop volley shots. To start with, each player must be fed six balls (one at a time). The feed should be done in such as way that the player has to meet the ball below the top of the net. The student’s goal is to hit the ball in such a way that it bounces on the ground as many times as possible before it reaches the service line. As mentioned above, a drop volley shot can roll back towards the net or towards the hitter, thus a maximum number of bounces of seven is given.

The student won’t score any points if the drop volley is very high that its height reaches six feet above the ground. A high drop volley should be avoided during matches as the opponent can easily anticipate the ball and hit a very good return. When all the students are finished with their six hits, the highest scorer is the winner.

Hitting a Perfect Drop Volley

For best results, the student should hit the six consecutive drop volley shots on one side. Thus, if the player starts with a forehand drop volley, the rest of the shots should be done in the same manner. Another set of advanced tennis drills can be done using the other strokes (e.g. backhand drop volley). It is also advisable to do more than one round for each stroke.

The coach has to see to it that the ball is fed low enough for a drop volley shot to be appropriate. To make the shot easier, especially for a less experienced player, the coach should stand on the service box rather than on the baseline. Feeding the ball from the baseline line gives the ball more pace and more difficult to drop volley. As the drill progresses and the student becomes more confident in his/her volley drops shots, the coach can start feeding the ball from the baseline.

Advanced Tennis Drills #2: Side Pocket

A side pocket shot is a type of shot where a cross court shot is hit sharply. As a result, the ball bounces in the service box and then crosses the plane of the sideline of the singles court before it crosses the plane of the service line. If this shot is executed perfectly, it can result to an open court on your opponent’s side and allows you to hit a winner.

This is one of the simplest advanced tennis drills to execute. To start the drill, the players line up behind the center part of the baseline. The instructor or the coach stands on the other side of the court, preferably on the center of the baseline. The coach feeds the ball in such a way that the ball bounces between the baseline and the service line. The feed has to be done alternately to either side (left and right side).

The first player in the line runs towards the ball and hit a side pocket shot and runs back towards the end of the line. The drill continues until all the players are able to execute a couple of side pockets shots (for each direction) correctly.

Advanced Tennis Drills #3: Drop Shot

A drop shot drill is another example of the advanced tennis drills that should be done regularly for players who are aiming for the top level of performance. It’s because the drop shot needs precision and accuracy for it to be effective. To start this series of advanced tennis drills, players line up across the service line.

The coach, who is positioned on the other side of the court, feeds the ball to the first player in the line. The goal of each player is to hit a drop shot that bounces three times before it reaches the service line. For every three successful shots, each player moves one step back and waits for his/her next turn. This drill can be made into a competitive one and the player who reaches the baseline first is the winner. Any player who hits a shot with a height of six feet or more from the ground is disqualified.

Advanced Tennis Drills #4: Serve Return and Identify

This tennis drill is different from the advanced tennis drills above as this drill develops the students return serve skills and familiarize them with the different types of serve. This drill starts with the introduction of the different types of serves. It would be very interesting if someone or a certain coach is able to demonstrate all the types of serves which include flat serve, topspin serve, slice serve, topspin-slice serve, kick serve and many others.

To start this advanced tennis drill, the coach should be postioned on the serving area. The receiver or the student must stand where the receiver normally stands to receive the serve. The coach serves the different types of serve, then the student returns and shouts the type of serve. If the student misses the return or wrongly identifies the serve, the coach hits the same serve until the student returns the ball and identifies the serve correctly.

Advanced Tennis Drills for the Volley

The objective of this advanced tennis drill is to help each player develop their confidence to come to the net and to play volleys. To start these advanced tennis drills, the player has to stand at around two meters from the net while the coach stands near the baseline on the other side of the court. The coach feeds different types of balls such as low, waist height and overheads to the forehand and backhand side of the player. The player has to concentrate on timing, technique and movements and try to recover to the original position after every shot.

Advanced Tennis Drills for the Serve

Most advanced tennis drills on serve put more emphasis on the importance of hitting deep serves. This advanced tennis drill specifically allows the players to practice hitting the different specific points. To start this drill, five markers are put on each of the service box. Any type of improvised markers will do as long as they won’t damage the court when the ball hits them. When the player starts to serve, he or she should target the markers successively. The players should not hit the next marker unless he/she successfully hits the previous marker.

The coach should take note on the number of serves the student needed to hit all the five markers. Next, the player switches to the other service box and does the drill in the same manner as the previous one. This series of advanced tennis drills can be made more challenging by doing the drills using different types of serve spins. However, one type of serve spin should be accomplished first, and then the other types follow.

Advanced Tennis Drills for the Forehand

This set of advanced tennis drills helps the player to develop his or her forehand topspin accuracy and consistency. In the end, the players should be able to exploit the importance of having topspin on their forehand shot.

To start the drill, the player and the coach should do begin hitting a running forehand. This means that both the coach and the player must exchange forehand shots while they are in the service box of their respective court. The most important thing to remember here is to hit topspin in every return.

The coach should see to it that his shots bounce up sharply so that the player can brush up the ball to produce topspin. On the player’s point of view, he or she should concentrate hitting the ball over the net using a higher margin but still making sure to keep the ball in the service box.

Learn to Hit a Forehand Like Roger Federer

If you want to jumpstart your forehand and play like the PROS, check out my 70+ page Tennis Ebook that will immediately show you how you can take your forehand to the next level.

The Modern Forehand Domination Ebook is guaranteed to improve your tennis technique, and increase power, topspin and accuracy of your tennis forehand!