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By: Alex Dorato, Yale University
Cary Leeds Coach of Men’s Tennis; and Christian Appleman,
Yale University Assistant Coach of Men’s Tennis
Running an effective practice is critical
to enabling your players to reach their potential each day and in
the long run. As college coaches, we have a limited amount of time
for our practices, usually about two hours a day, and making the
best use of that time is essential to our team’s success.
Below, we have outlined the structure and the principles that we
have incorporated into the organization of our team’s practices.
Structure Of Practice In General.
We structure a practice session to go from
high volume (hitting a lot of balls), to high intensity (match play).
The high volume of balls hit at the beginning of practice allows
our players to get grooved so that when they play points at the
end of practice they are at their best
.
Pre-hitting Warm-up (10 min) Our warm-up can be something as simple
as jogging around the court to break a sweat followed by 5 minutes
of stretching.
Warm-up (20 min) Once we are loosened-up we take 20 minutes to warm-up
our strokes; 10 minutes of hitting ground-strokes followed by each
player taking 4 minutes of volleys and 1 minute of overheads.
Drills (40 min) We break our drills down into 2 groups; pattern
drills and point play drills.
Pattern drills (20 min) Any drill in which the players know where
the ball is coming, and where they will hit the ball is a pattern
drill. There are 2 types of pattern drills; pattern drills without
movement and pattern drills with movement.
Without movement This includes drills such as hitting crosscourt
forehands, or keeping a rally down-the-line in the alley.
With movement Pattern drills with movement include drills such as
Figure Eights (one player hits crosscourt while the other hits down-the-line),
and 4-Corners (one player hits all shots to the deuce court while
the other player hits to alternating corners).
Point play drills (20 min) These are drills in which players can
chose their shots. For instance, a ground-stroke game to 11 points
would be a point play drill. There is any number of variations to
a ground-stroke game – we could have them each hit an inside-out
forehand to start the point, or we could have them hit 6 crosscourt
backhands to start the point.
Serve & Return (20 min) During this part of practice we might
work on 2nd serves one day, 1st serves another, or a combination
of both.
Match play (30 min) This time can be used to play singles sets,
doubles sets, or tie-breakers. We sometimes keep score in different
ways – have the server start each game down love-thirty so
that they learn to battle from behind, or we might limit each player
to one serve to work on our second serves.
Principles of an Effective Practice
The principles listed below help us to maximize
our time on the court:
Set goals for the day and goals for each drill: At the beginning
of practice we go over what we will be working on that day. Examples
of our daily goals include: hitting with more depth, eliminating
unforced errors, developing a weapon, hitting high percentage shots,
attacking short balls, finishing points at the net, etc.
We also set a specific goal for each drill. For any drill (for example,
simply hitting crosscourt back and forth), we modify the parameters
in any number of ways to help us achieve our specific goal for the
drill. If we want our players to improve their net clearance then
we might have them do 5 push-ups for a net error. If we are working
on depth then we might have them aim at targets placed deep in the
court. If we are working on consistency then we might have them
keep track of their longest rally. There are endless ways of altering
the parameters of a drill to achieve the goal of the drill.
Have fun while working hard:
Having fun makes our players look forward to being on the court
and enables them to maximize their potential to learn. Working hard
instills in them a sense of confidence and accomplishment.
Keep everyone busy: We design all of our drills to keep our players
busy. This in turn makes practice fun and keeps them focused from
the first ball they hit to the last.
Structure drills to compete:
The more often our players compete in practice the better they will
compete in matches. To this end, no matter what drill they are doing,
we have them competing. The winners might get a reward; they can
get a drink of water while the losers pick up balls, or we give
them praise in front of the whole team for a job well done. At other
times the losers might be punished; they might do push-ups for an
unforced error, or they can bring the winners a cup of water. Other
times we there will be neither a reward nor punishment (other than
the intrinsic reward or punishment of winning or losing).
Keep focus high:
Usually we change drills every ten to fifteen minutes. In this way
the players never get bored and they can maintain maximum concentration.
Competing and goal setting for each drill also keeps focus at a
maximum. We even set a specific goal for the warm-up (such as fewest
unforced net errors wins) so that our players are focused from the
first ball that they hit.
Our players perform best with structure and
discipline. Keep your explanations and goals specific and simple!
Make every shot count; make every drill matter; make your players
work hard and extend their concentration and fitness in every practice.
If you mentally and physically prepare a great practice every day,
your players will reap tremendous dividends.
A good practice helps your players get better;
an organized, intense, and competitive practice best prepares your
players for competition. Through careful planning and encouragement,
your players will be confident and ready to perform at their highest
level when “match time” rolls around.
I met Alex at a High Performance conference at the US Open in 2004.
Since then Alex has been a huge help in promoting Procompare. We
thank him for all his help over the years and wish him and his team
all the very best for the future.
Best Wishes,
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