April showers bring May flowers. What they DON’T bring is outdoor tennis.
I live in the Atlanta suburbs. It rains here. A lot. Especially during the month of April. And there are several tournaments scheduled this month throughout our Southern section which means getting on the court and working on your game is kind of necessary.
But what happens when it’s raining 2 or 3 days a week, the place you train has no indoor or covered courts, and you have a tournament coming up? How do you prepare to compete?
There aren’t many coaches around here who have Rain Day lesson plans. It’s surprising to me, especially given the cost of drills and private lessons in our area. To those coaches who simply cancel for the day if the courts are wet, I would like to offer some suggestions of things you can do with the players to ensure they’re staying Match Ready.
1. Watch and review and analyze video. Don’t have any video on-hand of your players? YouTube is chock full of tennis videos free for the taking. Sit your players down in front of a tv or laptop or iPad and actively watch what’s happening in each point. Take note of shot selection, spin, what the players do between points and on changeovers. What do the players eat or drink when they go to the bench? What happens on a break point or a set point or a match point? How do the players handle a double-fault? These are just a few things to look for, but you get my point. There is so much to learn from watching yourself and others play this game, and watching on video allows for pauses and rewinds as you get your young players thinking about what’s happening between the lines and between the ears.
2. Throw in some extra fitness training. Coaches, if this isn’t your forte, there are again several videos on YouTube illustrating various footwork and fitness drills that you can do in an enclosed space with little to no equipment. You could also bring in a fitness professional for the afternoon to work with the players, maybe even someone to teach them yoga.
3. Have a strategy session. Throw out various point scenarios and ask the juniors what shot they would choose and why. Get them thinking about the court in terms of angles as opposed to straight lines. Help them understand the geometry of the court so they can make better decisions during match play.
4. Teach them to play chess. This goes along with #3. Thinking 2 or 3 steps ahead is crucial in chess. It is in tennis, too. If you don’t know how to play chess or how to teach it, our old friend YouTube can come to the rescue.
5. Work on shadow swings. If you have read about the Russian training center Spartak, you know the coaches there didn’t even allow the young players to use a tennis ball for several months. All the work was done with shadow swings until the technique of the various strokes was perfected. It never hurts to revisit technique, even with older players. It’s amazing how quickly someone can retrain his/her brain just by slowing down the motion of the stroke and making small corrections along the path of the racquet.
6. Practice Mental skills. Do some visualization. Have the players come up with and write down the steps they’ll take between points, on changeovers, and between sets. Discuss them and hone them and then practice them so more. Bring in a guest speaker to help the juniors understand why the mental side of the game is so crucial.
I would love to hear from y’all about other creative ways to spend rainy days. Of course, sometimes a rain day is the perfect excuse for a day off, a day to let the body rest and recover. But when you’re faced with rain more often than not, especially right before a tournament, it’s important to use that time to prepare, even if it means doing so off the court.
REMINDER: If you would like more junior tennis information than the couple of articles I post each week, be sure to “Like” us on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter (links on the sidebar on the right side of this page). There are some great discussions happening online!
Comments