Footwork is the best way to prepare for a shot. It depends tremendously on the right tracking of the ball. Young kids should learn from the start to track the ball with a high focus to be able to move their body balanced from shot to shot. Here the forefoot plays the main role. The kids must learn from the beginning to stand on their left and right forefoot. Balanced split stepping and pivot stepping is crucial for sound changes of direction with a center of gravity situated between the feet.
The best way to start is with exercises using a tennis ball. Through different tasks and the tempo of the ball feeding the kids are challenged in their ability to move agile and balanced. Here are some basic exercises to start with.
One classic exercise is “tunneling”. Here the young kid has to move as fast as possible from one rolling ball to the other, managing to let it pass between the feet. The kids learn to break, to keep the balance and to change the direction. It is a lot of fun for them and they are forced to move fast.
A great progression is the exercise “tunneling and split step”. Here the young player has to split every time the ball passes between the feet. This challenges the proper use of the ground reaction forces to be able to change fast direction.
A sound footwork requires a good eye-hand and eye-foot coordination. Here are two basic exercises to develop them.The first exercise is called “stop and throw” and is shown in the video above. The young kids has to stop the ball with the forefoot, get it up and finally throw it over the net. It develops the one leg balance. The other exercise is called “catch and throw” and addresses the ball tracking after the bounce of the ball.
The last exercise is about challenging the young player in the different skills in one exercise. Here the tasks are mixed and the coach has to call the action when rolling the ball. The kid must tunnel the ball between the feet on “tunnel”, has to stop the ball and throw it on “stop”, has to split when the ball passes between the feet on “split” and to catch and throw the ball on “catch”.
Do these exercises for 10-15 min before you work on shot improvement.
All the best COACH DIMI