Tennis drills for 6 people?

[neerghsoj1]

I am volunteering to teach 6 kids on a single court tonight and need some good tips or drills I can do with them. I have some ideas in mind, but I really want them hitting the ball. Groundstrokes. They are at the varsity high school level. Anything is appreciated!

 

[Hi I'm Ray]

Here's a very basic warm up drill we did in college covering a lot of the fundamentals:

Feeding balls from the center, have the player:

1. Hit a groundstroke from the baseline while moving in (make sure its a smart, well placed shot, not aimless ball bashing)
2. Hit a first volley somewhere near the service line (make sure they are doing a split step and not just running through the shot)
3. Put away volley
4. Tap net cord and hit an overhead while backing up

Rotate out

Do this with all forehands, or one side if you have a lefty, then after a few cycles switch to the backhand side.

 

[Mongolmike]

I am volunteering to teach 6 kids on a single court tonight and need some good tips or drills I can do with them. I have some ideas in mind, but I really want them hitting the ball. Groundstrokes. They are at the varsity high school level. Anything is appreciated!

This came up in another thread, but some of the HS varsity level kids I've seen play.... they need the basics taught to them. Atrocious looking forms FH & BH, push serves, no volley skills.... unless you know these kids have at least some past instruction, I would keep things as simple as possible.

Start out with volleys at the net... no bounces... every volley hit in the air straight back to partner. If they can do that, then have them aim alternating to their partners FH then to the BH. If they can do that, have them do the Bryant brothers drill (Hungarian drill?...edit.. Romanian Davis Cup drill.... Hungarian/Romanian... I'm Irish so they're all the same to me... ;-) ) where they volley back and forth as they move left to right across the court while keeping the volley alive. If they can do that... its a group with solid skills and you can incorporate advance multi-step drills. If they can't do the first simple volleys, then keep the drills very simple and basic.

You should be able to google for specifics which would include illustrations.

 

[goran_ace]

With six kids on one court I'd be hesitant about doing any single-feed drills or long sequences because there'd be too much standing around and it kills the energy of the session. For warm ups I'd have a line of three on each half of the court and alternating feeds give them two FHs/BHs before they go to the other line. Fast paced feeds, keep them moving. Then repeat same drill with a low or deep volley and closing putaway volley. Once you have them breathing hard I'd move into doubles drills/games to 11 pts (e.g. 2-back v 2-back, 2-up v 2-back, all 4 at net, etc.) with three guys on each side, rotating a guy in/out each point. That should get you through an hour and keep everyone working.