Tennis groundstroke drills are an essential part of any respectable tennis player’s repertoire. Inside full time junior tennis academies across the world, the likes of high level students will spend 30 minutes plus working out in the service box.
Tennis Groundstroke Drills to Improve your Game
Tennis groundstroke drills are based around the concept of rallying well from behind the baseline and playing consistently in the short box means you can rally well from the full court.
The service box simulates the baseline, the only difference is that the service box is a smaller version of it, hence the name “mini tennis.” With tennis groundstroke drills, you can work the angles, hit the early balls and work on half volleys.
Below are ten great tennis drills to get your game up and running to success!
Service box rallying
This is a good tennis warm up drill that consists of rallying down the line in one service box only, key points here are to maintain a consistent rally, with great focus and move your feet! Utilize both forehands and backhands and mix up slice and drives. One final rule no volleys allowed! Service box rallying is done to warm up the forehand and backhand, so and is done prior to the tennis groundstroke drills.
Each side of the court is lined with two white marks to indicate the width of the court for singles play and the larger width for doubles play. The short white line extending from the net to halfway down the court is the service court. As a tennis beginner, you can’t learn to play tennis without understanding these rules of the court.
Crosscourt Tennis Groundstroke Drill
Crosscourt rallying is an important preparation to a tennis groundstroke drill where the player must move onto cross court rallying after you have completed the above warm up, but now with a little more bite! Hit the ball with increased spin and try for angles. Widen your athletic stance to more than shoulder width apart and prepare to work out a little more.
Alternate Tennis Groundstrokes Drill
Alternate groundstroke is a good tennis groundstroke drill that simulates live point play. Use both corners of the court and here we are going to focus on footwork, inside in and inside out groundstrokes. Your job is to hit forehands and backhands alternately. This will work three fold…
Tennis groundstroke drill one – One player controls strokes to their partners alternate sides
Tennis drill two – Alternate of the above
Tennis drill three – play a game out first to 11 whereby a player gains points by having their opponent hit two shots on the same side
Volley to forehand only
In this tennis groundstroke drill, one player hits to their partners forehand groundstroke side only. The other player must volley from the service line and concentrate on good form and footwork throughout the volley. This should be quick fire stuff with recovery back to the service line between volleys.
Volley to backhand only
This tennis groundstroke drill is the opposite of above and one that many lower level players shy away from due to weaknesses on the backhand side. Practice this drill often in order to improve!
Tennis techniques has adapted for every new generation of tennis players. Tennis forehand technique has evolved, from old school closed stances, to rotational angular momentum hitting styles.
Contact point game
This is a perfect practice for endurance and works well at all levels of the game. The art is starting from the point of contact and playing out points from here in both service boxes. Not easy to win a point, but creates a great work out for the return of serve, short balls and fast low or deep shots that require less take back. For the lower level players this is perfect to gain control of the contact point.
2 touch volley to volley alternate sides
This drill is done with both players at net. While this is not a tennis groundstroke drill, it is an important to gain offensive skills to supplement your groundstrokes. To gain touch and feel on your volleys this workout is a great practice. Here you can enable the ability to create drop and stop volleys along with angled volleys. Once the ball has been hit to you hit the ball up on the forehand volley from your side move around and hit back with a backhand volley to your partner. Again footwork is key to gain the ability to control this practice consistently.
Doubles contact point game
Create a team game by playing doubles in the same format as above. Work on communication as a team here. As an added bonus when the coach calls change players must swap sides.
Service box – alternate singles
Continuing from the practice above, play one on one singles versus your opponents. Take it in turns to send in under arm feeds and play out to 11.
World class singles
World class singles is a tennis groundstroke drill that focuses on the singles aspect of tennis. As a final practice, play singles. Starting from the service T for both players, one player serves for the whole game. Send the first ball out wide and play out the point, after a while you will find this exercise improves your quickness and defensive abilities.
Enjoy the above tennis groundstroke drills and practices. They will take your game to a new level and new heights!
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