Creative and Fun Beginner Tennis Drills

Creative and Fun Beginner Tennis Drills
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Drills For Beginning Tennis Players

Every year, many children ask their parents if they can learn to play tennis. Of course, a large part of learning to play tennis is practicing boring drills. Here are a few drills for beginning tennis players that are not boring at all.

“Dead Circle”

This drill is can be practiced with either 2 or 4 players.

You will need some sidewalk chalk to draw an eight foot wide circle in the middle of the court. The middle of the circle will be at the half way point at the net, ensuring that each side of the court will have an equal area of “dead” space on their side.

The object of this drill is to keep the tennis ball AWAY from this circle. If the ball lands inside the circle on the other person’s court, the ball becomes “dead” and the other person wins a point and starts with a new serve. As beginners become better at ball placement, the large eight foot circle can be exchanged for two smaller circles drawn in chalk on both sides of the net. These circles may be drawn anywhere on the court for players to practice their serve placement and accuracy.

This drill is good for players learning to keep the ball away from the center of the court.

“Dribbling”

This drill should be played with pairs of players; 2, 4, 6, etc.

You will need two cones or some kind of marker that will act as a turning point for the children to circle and return to a starting position.

Children line up at the end line in two teams, two cones set up six feet in towards the net. The children, when prompted, will “dribble” (like basketball) their tennis ball with their racquets to the cone ahead of them, circle it, and return to their starting position without losing control of their ball. Upon their return, they must hand off the tennis ball to the next person in line on their team who will now start to dribble the ball to the cone, circle it, and return to the starting point. Play will continue with as many players as are on each team. The team who maintains control of the ball and continues through all of their players first wins.

This drill is excellent for teaching kids how to control the ball with their racquet.

“Chair Stretching”

This drill is best played with two players opposite an instructor.

You will need two chairs set up on each side of one court. The two players will sit down while the instructor is on the other side of the court.

The instructor will send serves to each player and they must return the serve to get a point. The instructor should send serves that are easy to return at the start of the drill and progressively make the serves harder to return with the players sitting in chairs. The child with the most points wins that drill.

This drill is excellent for stretching the upper body and judging ball speed.

Make Drills Creative To Keep Kids Practicing The Sport

While practicing tennis drills is considered a downside to learning tennis by many kids, practicing fun and creative drills for beginning tennis players encourages them to keep on playing the sport, not quitting because the going gets tough or boring.