How important is consistency in tennis? If you ask Jean-Yves Aubone, a former ATP player and current coach, consistency is one of the most important factors on a tennis court and here’s how tennis players can develop consistency in their game.
The majority of tennis matches are determined by who can keep the ball in play the longest, not who can hit the most winners. Therefore, you have to train your consistency skills. And consistency is a matter of focus. So to train consistency, we need drills that force us to focus for extended periods of time.
These are some of the best drills to improve your ball control skills. For 1-4 you’ll need a hitting partner.
In the meantime you can also sign up with TopCourt.com here for 14 days of free coaching online with them.
1. 10-100 in a Row Down the Center
Too often our warm up consists of simply warming up our body. We start moving and swinging away and VOILA we’re warm! Ehhhhh not so fast.
We need to warm up our focus as well. When you’re warming up down the center, try to hit 10 balls in a row to your partner. As you get better, increase the amount of balls you want to make. Your goal is to one day get to 100 balls in a row at about 65% of your max acceleration.
The best part about this drill is you can do it during the match play warm up with your opponent. You don’t have to tell them what you’re doing. You can simply count in your head how many balls in a row you’re getting in. If you miss, start counting again.
Warming up like this will put our mind in the right place while giving ourselves repetitions that are not just loosening up our body, but improving our skillset too.
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2. 2 cross/1 Down the Line
If you’re a singles player, this drill is for you!
You can start on either the forehand or backhand side. You’re going to hit 2 balls crosscourt and 1 down the line. Your partner is always going to hit crosscourt.
Your first two balls will go crosscourt, and your third ball will go down the line. After you hit your down the line shot, your partner is going to obviously take the next ball crosscourt.
Now you get to hit 2 shots crosscourt and 1 down the line from the other side of the court. Once you hit down the line again, your partner will continue going crosscourt and the pattern starts again on the other side. Your goal is to go for a few minutes in a row.
The pros do it for 5-7 minutes straight until they take a break and switch patterns.
To test your consistency, stop any ball that doesn’t bounce in the appropriate side of the court and start the drill all over.
To improve your fitness, play every single ball no matter if it’s in or out. Just make sure you stick to the pattern.
This drill is great because it encompasses everything you need to succeed in singles. Change of direction. Ball control both on the down the line and cross courts. And being able to move to a ball and control it to the appropriate side of the court.
It can also be done in various ways by changing up how many times the player changing directions has to hit crosscourt before going down the line. The ultimate test is the player only going 1 crosscourt before going down the line. This variation helps build fitness while building ball control.
Sign up with TopCourt.com here for 14 days of free coaching online with them.
3. Alley Drill
Line up with your hitting partner in either of the alley’s so you’re positioned to hit straight at each other. Your goal is to get 15 balls each in the alley in front of you. Time yourself to see how long it takes, so you have a goal to beat every time you do this exercise.
This drill is useful because if you can’t hit the ball straight, you can’t hit the ball consistently around the court. Also, this drill forces us to work on our follow through.
The longer we can follow through in the direction of our target, the better chance we have of getting it there. And the lines of the alley give us a clear visual on the appropriate direction to follow through.
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4. Overhead/Lob Drill
One of you is hitting an overhead while the other is lobbing it back. Each of you wants to control their respective shot back to their opponent. The goal is to get 8-10 total balls in a row. That might sound like very little but this drill is a lot harder than it seems!
If you’ve conquered this drill hitting down the middle, position the lobber on the deuce side and complete there. Then position them on the ad side.
If you and your partner can get through all three sections (center/deuce/ad) then you’ve got great control over your lobs and overheads!
5. Serve Zone Target Practice
Get a basket of balls ready and divide each service box into 3 zones: wide/middle/tee. Choose either a 1st serve or 2nd, then one of the zones on the deuce or ad side.
If you’re hitting a 1st serve, your goal is to get 6 out of 10 serves in that zone.
If you’re hitting a 2nd serve, your goal is to get 9 out of 10.
Get through as many zones as you can in 15-20 minutes. I wouldn’t serve more than that because that might be too many serves in a short amount of time on the shoulder.
Have fun and get focused!
Author Info: J.Y. Aubone is a former professional tennis player, and coach of Reilly Opelka. He started the most personalized online tennis platform available AuboneTennis.com.