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. Freeze at contact for a count of one and check, with a partner or a phone, that the racquet is in front of your lead hip.
2. Take twenty fed balls to alternating depths. Adjust with small steps and freeze on every fifth ball.
3. Film ten rally forehands from the side. Mark the contact frame on each and count how many are in front of your hip.

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. Kneel on your back knee at the baseline with a continental grip. Serve ten balls into the box using only the upper-body throw, with the racquet edge-on into the drop.
2. Stand with your feet still and no leg drive. Hit ten balls with the same throw.
3. Use your full motion for ten balls. Land on your front foot inside the baseline.

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.