I need your help.... fast!

[Tomek]

Ok, so I am a coach. I've taught for one year- mostly young tournament players and kids (5-16 years old). Always in groups of 2-5.

Today in the evening I would have my first training with a classic mature (about 52 years old) amateur. He didn't play for a year. But before that he played often. He can be at 3.0-3.5 levell I think. Now I would have 3x1,5h sessions in the next few days. After this he has some kind of tournament for friends . So he would like to get some consistency and confidence for sure. So whatshoul I play with such person? This situation is completly new to me.

One more thing? How to play with easy, light pace. I have some spin on my balls when I'm not playing from the basket...

If Someone could post one routine for one session with such person- that would be really nice

[Tomek]

No replies But it doesn't metter now I had this lesson already and it was great- both for me and him

Thanks for all who came here to read this

[BSousa]

Well, better late than ever...

I can't really say as a coach what you should do, but I can say what I would like to have my coach doing.

If he hasn't played for a long time, feed him a few balls to both wings and check his form and try to find ANYTHING that he maybe doing that may cause injury. Doesn't matter if balls go 20 feet over the fence, just make sure his strokes are healthy so to say.

If all that is ok, talk to him asking him what he want to improve (for me at this point would be high balls to my left side for example), and then watch him hit some of those. Afterwards, explain what he is doing right and wrong, and keep practing it with him.

About taking pace and spin from the balls, try continental if you put topspin in most balls and western if underspin I guess, no idea if it helps but since they are slow paced anyway, shouldn't be too hard to adapt as you have to adapt your swings anyway

Another thing I would like coaches in general to do more would be to talk with students about physical fitness needed for tennis and some basic workouts they can do. This also includes stretching, I can't believe my coach only tells us to run 5 minutes then go straight to mini-tennis and then full court without any stretching during the entire time.

Hope it helps for the future.
Bruno

[sanitarium]

If youre a certified coach you should be able to deal with almost any situation, but in that case

I'd give him a good warm up with lots of stretching, then view his form and technique

After we have that down then you can work on what he wants : consistency.

Simple goals, 10 in a row, etc work well.