Inner Game drills for a tennis beginner
How to approach and solve the biggest problem for a beginner

When a tennis beginner starts to play this game he or she usually doesn't know any technique or tactics, and has his or her own individual motor abilities. Most of the tennis instruction, especially the one for beginners, focuses on technique which in most cases is not the biggest challenge a tennis beginner faces.

His biggest problem is judging the ball flight and trying to find some clarity inside the chaos of his thinking. A beginner usually feels overwhelmed by the amount of instruction, judging the ball flight and moving around the court, trying to coordinate his legs and arms since all these elements put the brain's processing power in overdrive.

One of the best ways to teach a tennis beginner how to play tennis is to split the learning of the technique and judging the ball in two separate parts of the lesson. The drills mentioned here are only for the inner game abilites to improve and to give the brain enough information so that it starts to make adjustments as soon as possible.

One of the first drills that helps the player with timing, seeing the ball, balance and judging the balls flight is simply passing the ball and catching it with both hands. If there are two beginners one can play with »hands« - which means he catches the ball after the bounce and the other plays with the racquet and tries to hit the ball back over the net. After a couple of minutes they switch roles.

Inner Game Drills

The drills
1. Just observing the ball flight – a coach passes a ball and the tennis beginner only watches the ball, where it lands for the first time and where for the seconds time. This way he realizes how far the ball flies and that he can wait for it.

2. Hitting the ball on the second bounce – this drill uses the same principle, only that the player hits the ball over the net after the second bounce. You'll be amazed how many times tennis beginners come too close to the ball after the first bounce and then pedal back to hit it after the second bounce.

3. Hitting the ball in the power zone – although the tennis beginner is not yet looking for power (hopefully), the power zone makes him move and judge the ball better. The power zone is the area between your knees and your shoulders. If you can hit the ball somewhere in this height, you have good biomechanical leverages to produce a lot of power. Lower and higher balls are more difficult to hit with full power.

So the coach feeds the balls or plays gently with a player who gives feedback after every shot on where he hit the ball. YES – in the power zone, or NO – not in the power zone.

The drills
1. Coach stands 3 metres in front of the player and throws balls left and right. The player moves to the ball and tries to position himself at the right distance from the ball. His main task is to be aware of the distance, so he has to rate his positioning from 1-3, 3 being best. This will help him to become aware of how correct positioning allows him to be more consistent with his strokes.

2. The same drill but the coach feeds balls from the basket. The player still has to call out how well he set up. Although a player rates his movement or judgement to the ball, he should do this in a non-judgemental way. Not criticize or scold himslef but only notice how correctly he set up for the shot.

3. The same drill only this time the coach plays back live ball and the player still has to be aware of how well he set up for the shot.

NEXT TIME – Inner game drills to develop feel

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