Excerpts from...   Using Targets, Walls, and Ball Machines

By David Smith, U.S.P.T.A. Pro 1, Associate Editor, (as published in www.tennisone.com)

Every player, young or old, when presented with hitting a tennis ball towards a target will usually resort to the most familiar stroke pattern, grip, or swing they feel will help them hit the target. Think about it. If you didn't know any better, would you try to hit a target with an unfamiliar grip or swing pattern? Remember that familiar or comfortable strokes lead to confidence. Unfortunately, if the goal is to develop more refined or sophisticated strokes or grips, players who find these newly learned strokes and grips uncomfortable will seldom feel confident in using them to hit a target.

When working with very young children, I use only a “PracticeHit”, a device that has a foam ball attached to a fiberglass shaft, that oscillates forward and backward, (like a metronome) when hit. (Information about the PracticeHit can be found at www.practicehit.com .) This device provides the challenge of simply hitting the ball as it comes towards the student - developing the necessary aspect of timing when swinging at a ball coming towards you. However, the device provides no concept of where the ball might go. And this is exactly what I want.

Little kids, when pressed into a hitting environment, will lose consciousness of what they are trying to do in terms of strokes and grips, especially when trying to hit a ball towards a specific target. The fact is, you don't even need to have cones or other targets on the court. Simply having a net and the other side of the court is enough ‘target' for players to abandon what they are trying to do in favor of simply hitting the ball the only way they know how!

When my daughter was three, I used predominately the Practice Hit and, only occasionally, did I toss balls to her to swing at. (Not on a tennis court, only on our driveway.) I honestly didn't think she had much coordination since she seldom hit the ball when tossed to her. But, because we focused more on the success of using the PracticeHit, she had no trouble developing the swing pattern I wanted her to have.

We worked at this only about 10 times over the course of two years. When she was five and a half, we went to the courts for the first time. I first dropped balls to her forehand and backhand side. While her first few swings missed the balls completely, her strokes were nearly perfect each time. Without me having to say much at all, she used these same, desired strokes, and simply ‘found' the ball by trial and error. She did not resort back to a different swing pattern because the swing pattern we had worked on, even in such a short period of time, was her most familiar pattern. Within a few minutes, my five-year old, was hitting topspin forehands and backhands over the net with form that is associated with skilled play.

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. All data is protected using the most advanced methods available. We do not store financial information like credit card numbers or personal information like social security numbers on this site.

Your IP address is recorded when you buy a product to protect us all against credit card fraud. It is erased and discarded when payment is received.