Please critique this 7-years old

carnaval09 said:

Good day here!
I am asking for a little help here to take a look at my 7 year son who is obsessed with tennis. Please critique his if you see any flows.
We live in Columbia, SC where it is very hard to find a good tennis coach.
There are plenty of them but unfortunately for the most part they are somewhat recreational coaches and thus are limited to teaching good technique which is so crucial for the beginners.
He started playing at age of 6 and seriously practicing for about 6 months.
As his game picking up he started dreaming about playing tournaments.
In this video he is playing a mini-tennis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_20dcHK2As&feature=context-cha
I’m a 3.5-4.0 tennis player myself who unfortunately picked up a tennis racquet only 3-years ago as an adult and trying to help my son based on the info I’m gathering from several tennis coaching websites. He is working with a tennis coach from time to time.
At this point we just started working on the modern footwork patterns (cross steps and shuffle) and I’m trying to change his racquet take back on the forehand as I think he takes it a little behind his right shoulder. Don’t know what else may need to be changed to build a solid base.

Thanks in advance for watching and leaving a feedback.
I would love to hear any advice.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Evan77 said:

welcome to the board Carnaval09. cute kid, looks a little bit like a young Djokovic . It's hard to give you any advice ... he seems to be hitting the ball cleanly, plus I can see his passion when he mishit that FH.

he will develop if he keeps training ... the only thing I could suggest is to get him to join some swimming classes. It would help develop his body and his stamina. His technique looks pretty good for a young boy, but it's hard to judge from the video you posted. Good luck.

Click to expand...

Russeljones said:

I like how he keeps his eyes on the ball and makes those small steps. Add to that the fact he is playing with a Wilson and things are looking good for him

Click to expand...

TopFH said:

When he is older, tell him to quit "AHH" on every ball.

Just kidding.

He's got nice strokes.

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

He's pretty decent! Is the net lowered there I take it if as you say he is playing mini tennis However it does not look like it has been? If not I would do so or try using a mini red net? Using appropraite equpiment will aid his developement. Obviously you are using a red ball as you can see it slow up off the court which is perfect for his size and ability. What we all hate seeing is our standard tennis dad uploading a video of their 7 year old girl hitting over a 3ft net with a solid yellow ball, that kinda stuff leads to bad technique.

At this stage in terms of how much he should be playing competition wise is debateable, some say only doubles, some say as much competiton as you can find him which I personally disagree with. Just play as many tournamnets as he enjoys and you can afford both singles and doubles as at 7 the skills he'll learn in doubles will not only aid his tennis but his social skills, his team work and many other transferable skills which he will need later in life.

Interms of how much he should play, again as much as he enjoys at this stage, although I would encourage you to try get him down and play outside of the times he has coaching squads or individual lessons. This can either be with you or with his friends of a similar standard to him, again if you're playing with him, always play red untill he's moving into orange. Of the players I coach in sqauds its the ones who go away and hit even just once a week, implementing what I've told them in our class that improve, its obvious the following week whos played and who hasnt. Make sure your kid is always the one that has.

This is all very general as there is little I can tell you from a 2min 30second video however his footwork often lacks intensity on the forehand side, the camera angles makes it hard to see anything on the backhand. And again unless you're wanting to practice your hieght over the net lower it, mini red and orange nets should be 80 cm in the middle, The UKs lta site has all you need to know about this

http://www.lta.org.uk/LTA-Mini-Tennis/Red/Mini-Tennis-Red/

and thats what a mini red net should look like although if you're club doesnt have one of these available use the full net lowered to 80cm.

Any more questions please feel free to ask.

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

Orange tennis will probably be okay for your kid to be honest, you know that the baseline on an orange court is half way between the normal baseline and service line though? If he was playing with the full orange court then he's obviously miles out of position but I'm going to guess you were intentionally just using the service boxes?

How much per week a lot of people say an hour for ever year so 7 hours a week for a 7 year old, but at that age the chance of any injury is pretty minimal. Any pains take a day or two off but I'm not a doctor nor a physio so I can't really help much there.

If he wants to play 7 days a week then thats great but you probably want a rest day so cut it to 6. With our red classes the kids struggle to stay focused for long periods so the classes are 45mins each, which is perfect for the kids who have been dropped by their mums while they get their work out. However once the kids progress and the join our high preformance group sessions last 90mins, which is a lot for a 7 year old, if you were playing that daily he would be playing 9 hours a week, which would probably be fine.

I dont train on hard courts myself when I'm training myself so I only experiance hard courts when I'm preparing for a tournament owhich is on the surface or at tournaments themself. I play on a carpet surface generally which plays very quick so the rallies are short as the ball shoots through like lightning (this surface is aweful for teaching kids by the way!) so there is minimal impact anyway as the surface has a tiny bit of give and the rallies dont go beyond 10 much and most end after the serve. Serves as slow as 95-100mph near a line arent gonna come back

Again any more help needed then just ask, Im sorry if my answers are a bit vauge, giving player specific advice on a couple numbers and 150 seconds of video is pretty tough and a lot of it could turn out to be bad advice.

Click to expand...

anhuynh16 said:

Hope he enjoys it as much as I did when I first started tennis at this age!

carnaval: if he sticks with tennis like me , you'd better enjoy the next 3-4 years! My family used to go on lots of vacations (we had gold elite status for our airline) but now its literally 2-3 vacations a year. Almost no time for vacation, because if you take time off your timing gets bad.

It going to very fun when he beats you, you will be very very proud I remember that day when I beat my dad, at the time it was a big deal to me. Now he doesn't stand a chance against me LOL

Click to expand...

rajah84 said:

He has natural ability and instinct which is uncommon. If I was you -which I'm not - I would groom this kid to be a pro. I'm a pushy sort. He has what it takes as far as ability. Now don't forget to feed him lots so he gets big and and strong. Little guys don't cut in this sport unless they move like Hewitt. Good luck.

Click to expand...

rajah84 said:

One more thing. Get him away from mini tennis ASAP!!!!! I would use that approach just long enough - maybe six months - and then advance him to tennis. So he's ready for real tennis now then.

In the beginning less is more should be the approach. Short swings is important in reducing the tendency to create hitches in his strokes. As he gets older, stronger and understands what he's doing he can then experiment with lengthening his strokes, but my advice is to stay away from anything long and loopy for awhile. Keep it simple.

Personal opinion time. Don't use extreme grips. Semi-western is fine. And don't give into the modern/progressive approach to parenting which preaches quitting and laziness over hard work and discipline. Again good luck.

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

He's pretty decent! Is the net lowered there I take it if as you say he is playing mini tennis However it does not look like it has been? If not I would do so or try using a mini red net? Using appropraite equpiment will aid his developement. Obviously you are using a red ball as you can see it slow up off the court which is perfect for his size and ability. What we all hate seeing is our standard tennis dad uploading a video of their 7 year old girl hitting over a 3ft net with a solid yellow ball, that kinda stuff leads to bad technique.

At this stage in terms of how much he should be playing competition wise is debateable, some say only doubles, some say as much competiton as you can find him which I personally disagree with. Just play as many tournamnets as he enjoys and you can afford both singles and doubles as at 7 the skills he'll learn in doubles will not only aid his tennis but his social skills, his team work and many other transferable skills which he will need later in life.

Interms of how much he should play, again as much as he enjoys at this stage, although I would encourage you to try get him down and play outside of the times he has coaching squads or individual lessons. This can either be with you or with his friends of a similar standard to him, again if you're playing with him, always play red untill he's moving into orange. Of the players I coach in sqauds its the ones who go away and hit even just once a week, implementing what I've told them in our class that improve, its obvious the following week whos played and who hasnt. Make sure your kid is always the one that has.

This is all very general as there is little I can tell you from a 2min 30second video however his footwork often lacks intensity on the forehand side, the camera angles makes it hard to see anything on the backhand. And again unless you're wanting to practice your hieght over the net lower it, mini red and orange nets should be 80 cm in the middle, The UKs lta site has all you need to know about this

http://www.lta.org.uk/LTA-Mini-Tennis/Red/Mini-Tennis-Red/

and thats what a mini red net should look like although if you're club doesnt have one of these available use the full net lowered to 80cm.

Any more questions please feel free to ask.

Click to expand...

gplracer said:

carnaval09, send me an email. I live about 60 miles from you. I know some good coaches in the area. My son just turned 10. He loves playing tennis as well. Keep it fun. If he wants to play some tournaments then put him in the rising start tournaments in SC. They are one day round robins for players who have 200 points or less. It is a great experience for someone new to tennis. I think your son has a good start. His back swing on the forehand is a little big. Better to keep it as simple as possible.

Click to expand...

gplracer said:

click on my name, view public profile, and then send an email.

Click to expand...

gplracer said:

click on my name, view public profile, and then send an email.

Click to expand...

gplracer said:

I tried but you do not have your account set up to receive emails. Mine is set up for that. There is no personal messages on this board. If that does not work you can send me a message through my youtube account.

Click to expand...

gplracer said:

It is the video above that has my son on it. That is my account.

Click to expand...

tommyfr said:

Hi, I think the photo angel is very good for the forehand.
I am impressed about his form generally.
However, his backswing is a bit too early and too long. I think that has to do with too short (25 inch?),ligth racket and/ or too slow balls.

One of the most common, and worst coaching advice is to take the racket back asap. Better, Track the ball, pivot whilestill holding the racket with both hands, let the ball bounce first (at this tempo), and then hit.

I also think you soon should transfer to full length racket and regulation balls. But there are diffrensk schools here.

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

The best female junior I've ever seen I know to have played mini tennis from 5 to 10. Moving kids of any ability onto the full court and yellow ball hinders improvement every single time, I've seen multiple techniqual disasters who although top players in europe have moved on to large rackets and heavy balls too fast and have began to slap at every ball just to get it deep. There is still another 3 years of mini tennis for this kid to play through, although I admit for more developed boys 9 may be appropriate to make the change to the yellow ball

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

Thats just plain dumb.

Youve got the kid using green balls with the parents in a full court with a full net which he can bearly see over

Orange balls and a shorter narrower court with tirfriendsad other kids

And then theyre going to go to a tournament and play over a mini net with spounge balls on a far smaller court?

What is going through your mind while making such a suggestion, its ludarcis

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

This kid isn't done with mini nets, all competition for 7 year olds is over mini nets at least here in europe, and I'm pretty sure it was recently standardised by the ITF, there is justification on playing orange at this age if he is 6 months away from the orange competition stage.

Im pretty sure that spain is the only country not signed up to use mini tennis at all junior competitions for 10 and under, and even in spain a lot of the training revolves around mini tennis and ALL international under 10s 9s and 8s competition will be using the proper formats which have been tried and tested to be the most effective methods for developement.

As for feeding with green balls to a kid, whats the point in sticking a ball right in his 'wheelhouse' as you call it, when most of the time the ball is not going to sit their nicely in perfect postion.

But go preach whatever you want, because barringer is far more likely to produce a top professional adult that the LTA ITF and USTA.

EDIT:
Although not perfect for what I'm trying to explain I feel this may help you see the benefits of mini tennis and why the ITF are pushing it so hard http://en.coaching.itftennis.com/media/114028/114028.pdf

Click to expand...

As for feeding with green balls to a kid, whats the point in sticking a ball right in his 'wheelhouse' as you call it, when most of the time the ball is not going to sit their nicely in perfect postion.

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

however I do look forward to seeing your child pounding every ball at a million miles an hour out the back and sides with no technique because the time provided by the yellow or green ball at such a young age did not give her time to hit the stroke properly. Thats what will happen with the time lost with the yellow balls, shes not going to win titles at any great level like that.

Giving the player time on the ball allows them to hit it smoothly rather than rush it.

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

Look at the forehands around 16 and 25 seconds, and the backhand at 1.26 theyre the first two examples, he takes literally one step between each shot and the ball gets way to close to his body. There are probably more examples through-out the video but I'm sure you can identify it yourself. Its just putting him off balance on many of his shots.

It may just be a case of making him aware of the rror as other times his footwork is good, possibly a concentration issue or even a fitness issue if you've already played for a long period of time before you started to record this. If its a case of actually improving the footwork itself there are a couple drills which require a lot of intense footwork, the two drills I use work well with older high performance kids but I havent tried it with anyone younger than maybe 11?

So the first drill Is just hitting inside out forehands lots in quick succession nothing over complex.

The player starts at the hash on the baseline and the coach stands around 4 feet inisde the baseline facing the player and hand feeds the ball high and close to the baseline around 4 or 5 feet to the left of the player. The player has to run around the ball hit an inside out forhand cross court, recover to the hash in the baseline again then hit another. P-Player F-Feed

-------------¬--P-------F-----

I usually put down a dot on the baseline for the player which they must touch. This is a 30 or 40 ball drill, which is non stop as soon as they get their foot on the dot you send them another feed. The feed should be high enough that they are constantly moving, it can also push them back in the court slightly, although the first time round you might want to feed slightly shorter so the movement is more lateral which should make it easier. If the player isn't moving somethings not working right.

This is more of a cardio drill than one to actually improve on the insideout forehand however it is a drill which is very very footwork intense. For some players when they don't show the intensity I'm looking for I'll stop the drill and tell them every time they dont touch the dot they get a press up every time they miss the shot they get one and every time they cant get round it in time providing I've not made a mistake feeding they get one. Again this is a very very hard drill if the player works properly.

You may wish to tone down the intensity a little bit due to the age of the child put you still want them to work as hard as they can on every single ball, make sure when youre feeding youre encouraging them, it will help them a lot.


The other drill is the spanish X which I can't really explain any better than the high performance series video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8Ubr-scJ8I I'd have the player do 8 or 10 reps of the 4 shots, and 3 baskets of it for a performance 12+ year old, again ajust to your player.

Click to expand...

gmatheis said:

I think columbia is about an hour and 30 minutes from Spartanburg

Cornelius Jordan is the director of tennis at the Country Club of Spartanburg and he works with Spencer Brown who is a nationally ranked junior (23 nationally i believe)

Im not sure if that is too far away but maybe he would even know of a good program closer to you if you talked to him.

His information is easy to look up online.

Click to expand...

barringer97 said:

His kid is done with Mini-Nets and sponge balls. No freaking way should he ever play with a Sponge Ball again. Red with friends might make sense, but with those strokes, he should, at the very minimum, play Orange.

He looks like he is at least 54 inches, a net is 36 inches, 18 inches is no where close to "barely see over."

In regards to Green, all I'm talking about is feeding and hitting balls with an Adult. If you can feed him a ball that is low and right in his wheel house, a green dot is appropriate because of the weight and speed. His back swing will reduce and he will form a stronger base because of the weight in the ball compared to the Red or Sponge.

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

Look at the forehands around 16 and 25 seconds, and the backhand at 1.26 theyre the first two examples, he takes literally one step between each shot and the ball gets way to close to his body. There are probably more examples through-out the video but I'm sure you can identify it yourself. Its just putting him off balance on many of his shots.

It may just be a case of making him aware of the rror as other times his footwork is good, possibly a concentration issue or even a fitness issue if you've already played for a long period of time before you started to record this. If its a case of actually improving the footwork itself there are a couple drills which require a lot of intense footwork, the two drills I use work well with older high performance kids but I havent tried it with anyone younger than maybe 11?

So the first drill Is just hitting inside out forehands lots in quick succession nothing over complex.

The player starts at the hash on the baseline and the coach stands around 4 feet inisde the baseline facing the player and hand feeds the ball high and close to the baseline around 4 or 5 feet to the left of the player. The player has to run around the ball hit an inside out forhand cross court, recover to the hash in the baseline again then hit another. P-Player F-Feed

-------------¬--P-------F-----

I usually put down a dot on the baseline for the player which they must touch. This is a 30 or 40 ball drill, which is non stop as soon as they get their foot on the dot you send them another feed. The feed should be high enough that they are constantly moving, it can also push them back in the court slightly, although the first time round you might want to feed slightly shorter so the movement is more lateral which should make it easier. If the player isn't moving somethings not working right.

This is more of a cardio drill than one to actually improve on the insideout forehand however it is a drill which is very very footwork intense. For some players when they don't show the intensity I'm looking for I'll stop the drill and tell them every time they dont touch the dot they get a press up every time they miss the shot they get one and every time they cant get round it in time providing I've not made a mistake feeding they get one. Again this is a very very hard drill if the player works properly.

You may wish to tone down the intensity a little bit due to the age of the child put you still want them to work as hard as they can on every single ball, make sure when youre feeding youre encouraging them, it will help them a lot.


The other drill is the spanish X which I can't really explain any better than the high performance series video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8Ubr-scJ8I I'd have the player do 8 or 10 reps of the 4 shots, and 3 baskets of it for a performance 12+ year old, again ajust to your player.

Click to expand...

carnaval09 said:

I would love to hear any advice.

Click to expand...

gunnd5000 said:

using the proper formats which have been tried and tested to be the most effective methods for developement.

Click to expand...

TeflonTom said:

say that looks like fun. let me try.

fact 4: the majority of great tennis players grew up with wooden racquets

conclusion: all players should learn to play with dunlop maxplys

Click to expand...