training for varsity this summer

[spinning09]

Hey guys,

With school just finished, I thought I better get started for next years tennis season now that I have some free time. This summer I was thinking of doing a combination of camps, tournaments, working out, and just playing as much tennis as i can. Is there any specific things you guys do during the summer?

[Sakumo]

Hey guys,

With school just finished, I thought I better get started for next years tennis season now that I have some free time. This summer I was thinking of doing a combination of camps, tournaments, working out, and just playing as much tennis as i can. Is there any specific things you guys do during the summer?

Work on your kick serve. The ball grabs more out doors, and is a fun weapon to have. That is for starters.

[LarougeNY]

Hey guys,

With school just finished, I thought I better get started for next years tennis season now that I have some free time. This summer I was thinking of doing a combination of camps, tournaments, working out, and just playing as much tennis as i can. Is there any specific things you guys do during the summer?

What grade are you in?

Otherwise, same here. Im gonna be a junior but (more concerned with studies than tennis) so the camps I am going to are for physics and SATs. I'm gonna try hard to play upto five or six hours a day for about 7 or 8 days total over the summer, but gonna work out too.

Definitley develop your kick serve, sakumo is right, I played 1st singles and 1st doubles, and I have a pretty spinny serve (more accurate than spinny) and it worked wonders. Don't go blasting serves as hard as you can, focus on aim and consistency.

Also work on consistency of your groundstrokes, you never know if its gonna be really windy at tryouts and you play a really good guy. You'd have a good chance if your consistent rather than depend on winners to win you every point.

[bb1013]

What grade are you in?

Otherwise, same here. Im gonna be a junior but (more concerned with studies than tennis) so the camps I am going to are for physics and SATs. I'm gonna try hard to play upto five or six hours a day for about 7 or 8 days total over the summer, but gonna work out too.

Definitley develop your kick serve, sakumo is right, I played 1st singles and 1st doubles, and I have a pretty spinny serve (more accurate than spinny) and it worked wonders. Don't go blasting serves as hard as you can, focus on aim and consistency.

Also work on consistency of your groundstrokes, you never know if its gonna be really windy at tryouts and you play a really good guy. You'd have a good chance if your consistent rather than depend on winners to win you every point.


This is America. We don't train for consistency. We always go for winners.
:grin::grin: :grin:

[LarougeNY]

This is America. We don't train for consistency. We always go for winners.
:grin::grin: :grin:

Yeah I know. :)

[StealthGnome]

This is going to be my first summer taking tennis seriously.
I really want to develop a reliable serve.

I am going to have to play singles on my HS team. (Our team isn't that good.)
Any good rounded set of drills?

[FEDEX1]

This is going to be my first summer taking tennis seriously.
I really want to develop a reliable serve.

I am going to have to play singles on my HS team. (Our team isn't that good.)
Any good rounded set of drills?

I'm in like the same situation as you.

[NoSkillzAndy]

This is going to be my first summer taking tennis seriously.
I really want to develop a reliable serve.

I am going to have to play singles on my HS team. (Our team isn't that good.)
Any good rounded set of drills?

Assuming you have already learned reasonably sound technique on your serve, the next step is to practice it--ALOT. At least twice a week you should go out and serve by yourself for 30 mins to 1 hour. At least once a week you should practice your serve against a partner and you should also try to play a match at least once a week.

If you don't feel comfortable with your service technique you might consider taking a series of private lessons that focus on serves. The most important thing though is that you use a Continental grip. "Frying pan" grips will severely limit the amount of spin and control you can have over the ball.

I would recommend the following service workout to try on your own:

* First of all, you should have a basket of balls or at least a few handfuls of balls, otherwise you will be walking to pick up balls too often and won't get a good workout. They don't have to be in prestine condition, but definately don't serve with any flat balls and do try to have most of the balls be in about the same condition so you get a consistent response on your serves.

* Start by warming up your second serves to both sides of the court. Begin by hitting them with little speed but ample spin and aim for the middle of the boxes. As you start to get a feel for the serve, increase the power a little bit (still hitting second serves though) and start directing most of them down the T on the deuce side and out wide on the ad side. Throw in the occaisonal slice serve to the forehand or into the body (preferably aiming for the imaginary left hip of your opponent) for good measure so that in a match you can keep your opponent off balance.

* Take a water break. This will give your shoulder a chance to rest a little. Don't want your arm falling off ;)

* Begin warming up your first serve. Before each serve think carefully about which type of serve you are trying to hit and the exact location you want it to land. If you miss the serve (which will happen to most of us) try to make minor adjustments to your toss, aiming, etc. until you get it right or at least closer to what you were intending. If you can't seem to hit a certain serve, don't fret too much over it, just move on with the workout.

* Take another break. I know this sounds silly, but your arm and shoulder will thank you for it.

* Now play a set against yourself. Again this might sound stupid but it is a great way to get yourself to focus on serving like you would in a real match. Too often people serve much better in practice than they do in matches. I say there is no reason why you can't serve just as well in matches, and the way to do it is to practice like you want to play. The rules are pretty simple and require some honest judgement calls on your part:

- You start serving to the deuce court, then the ad court, then the deuce, and so on, until you win or lose the game, using regular tennis scoring. Then you keep serving games until you either win or lose the set. You can play a full match but a set is probably good enough.

- You can make up your own rules for the "effectiveness" of your serves if you want, but I prefer to make it tough on myself. If your first serve has either really good placement or really good spin/power (or both!) then you automatically win the point. If the placement and the spin/power are somewhat lacking but you still make the serve in, then you win the point 50% of the time. If your first serve goes in but doesn't make your opponent stretch out and doesn't have enough spin or pop to rush them, there is a good chance that serve will come back and come back hard at you. You shouldn't be rewarded for that ;)

- On second serves I'm a little more forgiving. It is more important IMO to get your second serve in than to try to get a service winner off of it or to worry about your opponent blasting a return winner. So if you get your second serve in you win the point 50% of the time, even if it is the worst serve ever. The exception is that if you hit a really nice second serve with good placement and good spin then you automatically win the point. A nice kick serve to the backhand comes to mind here :)

* After you finish the set (hopefully you won right?) take another break then run two or more "suicides" for good measure. People might look at you strangely but trust me they will pay off.

[NoSkillzAndy]

Hey guys,

With school just finished, I thought I better get started for next years tennis season now that I have some free time. This summer I was thinking of doing a combination of camps, tournaments, working out, and just playing as much tennis as i can. Is there any specific things you guys do during the summer?

I wasn't able to make varsity my freshman year so I worked extra hard over the next summer because I wanted to do really well at tryouts in order to make the team. JV sucks :p

Camps & tournaments are great ideas. These will definately help you out if you have the right attitude going into them. Never be discouraged by small setbacks or defeats, always keep the big picture in mind: making varsity. Every little thing you can do to prepare will help you out at tryouts.

As for workouts, consitency drills are really a great tool. I liked to do lots of crosscourts, baseline forehand-to-forehand and then backhands. Then we'd move into crosscourt volley-to-baseline, forehand side and then backhand side for each person. Then overhead practice. Touch the net in between each overhead and keep going until you're tired, then hit 5 more!

After that play out some groundie games. Either drop feed or start it with second serves. Play to 11 or 15. If unforced errors are a problem then be creative and make penalties like hitting into the net takes away a point. Or you can play plus/minus games. A winner or forced error is +1 point and an unforced error is -1 point. Both players start at zero and the game ends when one person gets +5 or -5.

Then move on to practice serving and returning for a while. Once both players are comfortable with their serving and returning, play out some tiebreakers, or if you have more time, play a set.

After you're done with all that, run two or more "suicides". You'll thank me later ;)

[J.W. North Tennis91]

im in the same situation as u, i didnt make varsity my freshman year and i really want to make it my sophomore year. unfortunately i cant play tennis everyday during summer because of ride problems. is twice a week, 3-4 hours a day enough of practice during summer?

[Mastermind]

I'd say that if you have pretty intense practice sessions every time you practice, you should be fine. Work on consistency drills, changing directions at will, etc. Those are the basics of high school Varsity tennis. Power is also a factor as well, but make sure you are fairly consistent before you try to crush the ball every shot. :)

[Cfballer5]

um ive been playin varsity since 7th grade and one of the main things is not to let the older guys get 2 u. alot of them may hit the ball hard but just work on really consistent ground strokes and you'll be fine. this yr i started playin 1 double and 2 singles and during actual matches (if u make it) some of the older kids will challenge u alot just say confident with ur calls. but yea i agree consistent ground strokes and a decent serve and ur fine.

[xtremerunnerars]

I'm in like the same situation as you.

Me too! Except my summer has to be fall because of my wrist.

[FEDEX1]

^^^^so you can't play tennis all summer? if you cant that stinks. good luck in the fall tho

[Functionc]

i agree with those of u who said about practicing kick serve, last school year i was the only one on the team who knows how to serve one and it really helped.... playing in tournaments also gives my opponent the surprise of seeing the ball bounce right up towards his body.... it's a joy to watch them try to dodge and swing at the same time lol anyways what i am planning to do is to join a couple of more tournaments and hopefully train more with my coach to improve myself a lot on the one handed backhand and lift weights ALOT!

[xtremerunnerars]

@Noskillzandy: That's a hell of a post! Good advice and better-than-most-people spacing.

High school tennis is certainly a strange beast, and I think that it's probably much more of a crapshoot in terms of competition than the USTA is. It varies so greatly, and the motivation of everyone's always in question...at least here.

I would say the biggest piece of advice after two years is to stay motivated, and to not give in. Guys won't always be as serious as you might be (as indicated by your posting around here) and you have to accept that. There's a difference between accepting them and staying driven versus trying to fit in too much and compromising your own game.

Do what's best for you because I hate to say it, but you'll probably be playing tennis a lot longer than you'll know some of the guys on the team. Enjoy the time, but be as strong as possible.

[The_Dark_Knight]

I really don't like my highschool coach at all.

He's not really that great.

[Functionc]

I really don't like my highschool coach at all.

He's not really that great.

lol my high school is my freshman year math teacher and she doesn't know how to teach at all.... but everyone manage to teach each other to get better. serious, all she knows is to put the good players to play single and bad players to play doubles, doesn't even cares if they like each other. having a good coach in high school tennis is pretty important too :p

[srvnvoley]

Jump rope....jump rope...and then jump rope. Andwhen you cant do it anymore swim some laps. Very good exersices for tennis, and can get you in really good shape for tennis.