Improve your Tennis Coaching, with great drills, techniques & training plans

Coach the Cross-Court Forehand - The baseline blaster!

This week's Sportplan session looks at one of the most exciting and fun shots in tennis - the Cross-court Forehand.

This exhilaratingly fast stroke is key for players who are hoping to win their baseline battles. Not only does it enable them to keep their opponent deep on their side of the court but it's also a relatively safe shot to play, with a high completion percentage.

This smashing session, perfect for groups large and small, will work on your players forehand stroke, inside-out forehand and their all round footwork on the court.

Players will really enjoy this hard hitting session, with more experienced players experimenting with top spin for even deeper shot play. However, you'll have to remind your players that as much as the cross court forehand is a powerful stroke it is only effective as long as it isn't predictable.

Initially players will start by throwing the ball over their shoulder, running onto the ball and striking it over the net into the coned area. As players become more au fait with this technique you can steer them through the increasingly live drills, culminating in a one versus one game where both players are striking the ball into the target areas, trying to find the winning shot.

By the end of this session your players should all be baseline blasters, using the cross-court forehand to give their opponent the run-around.

You cannot be serious! - Try this session today - full members can login and download it now, or you can upgrade today.

The two most common Tennis shots

This week's Sportplan session focuses on the two most common shots types that all players will make in a match, their service and the returning stroke.

Statistically these shots are the two most common in terms of rallys, every point begins in the same way with these two strokes. Sometimes this is all that is needed to win the point with an racy ace or a lightning fast cross-court return.

Nearly a month ago John Isner, against the incredibly resilient Nicolas Mahut, won the longest ever tennis match at Wimbledon. This game came to a close in the 138th game but only continued so long because both players had such high levels of determination and above all superb serving throughout the entire match. This match went on for 11 hours and 5 minutes, during which Isner hit a total of 112 aces. This demonstrates just how effective a strong service and solid return can be when trying to grind out a gruellingly long match.

Working in pairs this target practice serving session can easily be adapted to suit larger groups, with its clearly structured progression. Initially players will practice serving to strike targets before replacing targets with actual players, this will increase the pressure on the server and give the other player a chance to work on their return stroke. As the session progresses you'll be able to put greater demands on your players, ensuring they hit the ball into the areas you tell them to because these are the highest percentage return areas.

Come the end of this training you should expect to see players thinking more clearly about the spots they are going to hit on the court, improving their accuracy as they do so.

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Speed and Reactions for ready to pounce players

This week's Sportplan session is a feature length warm-up session, focussing on speed and reaction times, making your players nippy as Nadal and speedy as Serena.

After having focussed on the inside-out forehand and backhand strokes in the previous two weeks, we at Sportplan thought that it would be nice to give your players' arms a rest and work on fast footwork, reaction times and speed. Without these speed elements your players won't be able to get around the ball to play the inside-out forehand or reach shots played deep into the right angles of the court.

Using the split step players will create a strong starting position from which they can explode, either towards the forehand or the backhand side. Using the predatory split step position your players will work in pairs to retrieve the ball as quickly as possible, as it dropped in front of them and then later thrown over one of their shoulders to chase down and retrieve. After this running will become more game specific, looking at shot relevant footwork and racket technique - with no actual ball in use there'll be no excuse for poor posture.

After heightening their reactions players should be prepared to react quicker to visual stimuli, exploding from the split step stance and meet the ball with time to adjust their position and strike a powerful return shot.

You cannot be serious! - Try this session today - full members can login and download it now, or you can upgrade today.