Tennis drills for beginners: your first months

You needA racquet and one ball

1. Bounce the ball up off your strings, keeping it about head height.
2. Then bounce it down onto the ground with the strings, like dribbling.
3. Try the other face of the racquet too.

Feel for the strings and where the racquet face points.

You needA few balls

1. Your partner stands at the net and tosses a ball to bounce on your forehand side.
2. Turn sideways, let it bounce once, and catch it with your hitting hand at waist height, in front of your front foot.
3. Then the same on the backhand side.

Judging the bounce and meeting the ball in front, before a racquet is involved.

You needA basket of balls

1. Stand at the service line, turned sideways. Drop the ball a little in front and to the side of you.
2. Let it bounce, then swing low to high and hit it gently over the net into the service box opposite.
3. When 7 of 10 land in, take two steps back and start again.

Contact in front and a low-to-high swing that gives the ball clearance.

You needA few balls

1. Both stand at your service lines and rally gently, keeping the ball inside the service boxes.
2. Use short swings and let every ball bounce. Count the rally out loud together.
3. When you can keep it going, move one step back each.

Control and contact before power. Short swings, clean contact.

You needA few balls

1. Rally from your baselines, cross-court, with the goal of keeping it going, not winning the point.
2. Aim well over the net and away from the lines. Count every rally out loud.
3. Keep your best count and try to beat it next session.

Margin: most club points end in errors, so keeping the ball in is the first skill.

You needA basket of balls

1. Start at the service line and serve into the diagonal box with a slow, full motion.
2. When 5 of 10 go in, move back about two metres and repeat.
3. Keep moving back until you're serving from the baseline.

A full motion with a short enough distance that it goes in, then the same motion further back.

1. Have a partner clap at random gaps of one to three seconds. Hop so you land on the clap. Do 20 reps.
2. Have your partner feed from the service line. Hop on their forward swing, land on contact, then go. Do 20 balls.
3. Film 20 rally balls from the side on a phone at 60 fps. Count the frames between the contact sound and your landing.

1. Hit ten drop-fed forehands and finish each stroke normally. Pause the side-view recording near contact to inspect the ball relative to the hip.
2. Take twenty fed balls to alternating depths. Adjust with small steps; review every fifth stroke on video.
3. Film ten comparable rally forehands from the same side view. Mark the contact frame and count contacts in front of the hip; count ambiguous frames separately.

1. Your partner feeds. Catch the ball on your strings with no swing, ten times on each wing.
2. Volley to volley with your partner at service-line distance. Count consecutive makes.
3. Your partner feeds low. Step across, open the face and lift it deep. Hit ten on each wing, and count only balls that land past the service line.

1. Choose a broad service-box target, comfortable effort and camera view. For both usual-motion blocks, score the same two observations: serve lands legally, and finish stays controlled as you recover ready for the next ball. Do not require a particular landing foot. Film ten single-delivery attempts and count both, plus the attempts meeting both.
2. Try ten comfortable standing serves with an abbreviated motion to the same target. Keep this block separate: the toss and rhythm can change with the task. Observe the same outcomes; a higher score here does not establish improvement in your usual serve.
3. Return to your usual motion for ten single-delivery attempts at similar effort. Keep faults and out-of-target attempts in the ten. Your score is the number that land legally and finish under control in this final block. Compare it with the same combined count from the first block, and notice any change in target, effort or observation conditions.

1. Lay a towel at the ideal contact spot, slightly in front and into the court. Toss with a straight arm, release at eye level and let the ball fall. Twenty tosses. Count the ones that land on the towel.
2. Toss and reach to catch the ball at full extension without moving your feet. Twenty tosses.
3. With a partner, toss and serve. Your partner calls T, body or wide after the ball is up. Nine serves.