Solo tennis drills: how to practise alone

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.

1. Put a marker on the back fence at your shoulder height and take a basket of balls.
2. Hit ten flat serves to the deuce T, brushing from 6 to 12.
3. Hit ten slice serves to the deuce wide corner, brushing around the outside of the ball.
4. Hit ten kick serves to the ad backhand corner, brushing from 7 to 1. Count the bounces that pass the marker.

1. Hit a first serve at full first-serve intent. Score two points if it's in.
2. If you miss, hit a second serve with full brush and high net clearance. Score one point if it's in, zero for a double fault.
3. Race to 21. Log your double faults and where your second serves landed.

1. Put a cone a racquet-length in front of your front foot.
2. Drop-feed 20 forehands and make contact above the cone every time.
3. Count the clean ones. Beat that number next session.

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. Hit ten drop feeds. Start the racquet head below the knee, finish over the opposite shoulder, and clear a rope 1 m above the net.
2. Hit ten fed balls with the same path, now landing past the service line.
3. Hit ten rally balls. Keep the finish. Count the balls that clear the rope and land past the service line.

1. Tie two ropes above the net, at 1 m and 2 m. Hit ten forehands through the slot between them, any depth.
2. Hit ten more through the slot that also land past the service line.
3. Rally ten balls with a partner, through the slot and past the service line. Count them.

1. Hold the racquet with your thumb and two fingers. Make twenty shadow forehands and feel the head fall behind your hand as your hips turn.
2. Take a full grip, held loose. Hit twenty drop-feed forehands. Listen for the sound at contact, not before it.
3. Film from behind. Count the swings where the racquet head is visibly behind your hand as your chest starts to face the net.

1. Tie a band to the fence at hip height. Do twenty reps: open the hips against the band while the shoulders hold, then release.
2. Shadow twenty forehands with your off-hand on the throat of the racquet through the turn. Count "hips, shoulders" out loud.
3. Drop-feed twenty forehands with a phone filming from behind you. Count the swings where your belt buckle turns before your chest.

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. Raise for 3 minutes: light jog, skips, side shuffles, then mini-tennis.
2. Activate and mobilize for 6 minutes: band external rotations, scapular Ws and Ts, glute bridges and dead bugs, then leg swings, lunges with rotation, open books and ankle rockers.
3. Potentiate for 3 minutes: accelerations, split steps into sprints, and a handful of progressive serves and groundstrokes.
4. Log every session and every prehab dose.

1. Throw a medicine ball side-on into a wall or to a partner, hips first, on both sides. Feel the order: legs, hips, trunk, arms.
2. Do shotput throws, then overhead throws, in the same order, with full intent and full rest between.
3. Finish with ten first serves measured on a radar or ball tracker. Log the median speed.
4. Repeat the serve test on the same device six weeks later.

1. After a warm-up, sprint sideline to sideline for 10 seconds, touching each line, then walk back for 20 seconds. Do ten reps. Count your touches on the first rep.
2. Rest exactly 90 seconds, like a changeover. Do two more sets. Count your touches on the last rep of each set.
3. Log both counts and retest every four weeks.

1. When the point ends, turn away, release with one exhale and walk to the towel or the back fence.
2. Take two slow breaths. Decide your serve or return plan and say it once in target words.
3. Run your ritual: the same bounce count, the same look at the target, then the toss. Keep the same order every point.
4. Play ten points like this. A partner or a side camera counts the points where all four phases ran before the toss.

You needYour phone · Two cones

1. Record a voice memo of yourself calling 'left' or 'right' at random gaps of two to five seconds, twenty calls in all.
2. Stand at the centre mark. Play the memo. Split on each call and take three fast steps toward the called side, then return.
3. Film from behind and count the starts that began with a step away from the ball, a false step.

The first step toward the ball, cued by a signal instead of a partner.

You needThree cones

1. Put a cone on the centre mark and one about a metre either side of it.
2. Shadow a cross-court forehand from near your deuce-side sideline, then recover to the cone on the side you hit from and split. Do the same from the other side.
3. Time yourself with a count of three: hit, recover, split.

Recovering to the middle of the opponent's options, not the centre mark.

You needA basket of balls

1. Drop-feed balls a step to your forehand side and hit with a step-in, neutral stance. Ten balls.
2. Now drop-feed two big steps wide and hit from an open stance, pushing back off the outside leg. Ten balls.
3. Mix them: call 'step' or 'open' before each feed, and hold your finish for a count of one.

Choosing the stance from where the ball is, and staying balanced.

You needYour phone as a stopwatch · 5 balls or cones

1. Place a ball on each baseline corner, each service-line sideline point and the T.
2. From the centre mark, fetch each ball and bring it back to the centre, one at a time, as fast as you can. Time it.
3. Rest fully between runs. Do three timed runs and log the best.

Court speed, measured the same way every time so you can see progress.

You needA practice wall · Masking tape or chalk · 2–3 balls

1. Mark a line on the wall at net height, 0.9 m, and a second line about a metre above it.
2. Stand 8–10 m back. Rally forehands off one bounce, aiming every ball between the two lines.
3. Count balls in a row that land between the lines. A ball below the lower line is a net, so the count restarts.

Net clearance: aiming a metre over the net is the margin that keeps balls in.

You needA practice wall · 2–3 balls

1. Stand about 6 m from the wall and rally at half pace.
2. For the first ten balls, freeze at contact and check the ball was in front of your front hip.
3. Then rally continuously, keeping that contact point. If you have to back up to hit, the count restarts.

An early contact point in front of the body, which a close wall forces.

You needA practice wall · 2 balls

1. Stand 3–4 m from the wall with a continental grip.
2. Volley without letting the ball bounce: a short punch, racquet face set early, no swing.
3. When you can keep it going, alternate forehand and backhand volleys.

A compact, firm volley that uses the ball's pace instead of a swing.

You needA practice wall · Tape · A basket of balls

1. Tape a box on the wall above your net-height line, about a metre wide.
2. Stand as far back as the space allows and serve with your full motion, aiming into the box.
3. Serve in sets of ten, then switch to second serves with more spin and the same swing speed.

A repeatable motion and a spin second serve you can hit at full speed.