Shameless Strategies: Never Pick Up Your Share of Drill Balls Again

A live ball drill is a form of tennis where players compete against each other to score points in a competitive setting. A good live ball drill keeps players active, and it is a very good way to experience a lot of realistic point play and shot execution under pressure. While a tennis professional frequently helps facilitate a live ball drill, it is only to ensure that the players keep moving rather than providing instruction. A good live ball drill is high-energy, intense, and a lot of fun. It is one of my favorite forms of tennis engagement.

All good things eventually come to an end. At a live ball drill, the basket of balls is inevitably exhausted. Everyone is supposed to pitch in to refill the basket to reset for another round. Unfortunately, that is where a particular behavior that drives me nuts sometimes emerges. Some people who are supposed to help pick up the balls… don’t.

I have given up on changing the behavior of other players who shirk this duty. Instead, I have decided to adapt. Over the past few years, I have carefully watched what people do to avoid picking up their fair share of the balls. Today, I am sharing those years of observation with my enumerated list of the strategies that anyone can use to never pick up their share of the balls at a tennis drill again.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I have learned from some of the best in this business.

• Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate. Who can argue with a player who heads straight to the water cooler rather than the ball hopper? If challenged on this, the player will respond with self-righteous indignation that it is very important to stay hydrated when playing tennis. Coincidently, this is also the person ready to step up to be first in line when all the other players head to get water once the balls are back in the basket.
• The Big Wig. This player is so busy that they must conduct business on their mobile phone while the rest of the drill players pick up the balls. Each and every one of those calls is more important than helping out. We are lucky that they have graced us with their presence at all.
• The Straw that Stirs the Drink. This player participates in the process without ever picking up a ball. This strategy is accomplished by helpfully knocking the balls around to the fence corners and into the bottom of the net, where other players are expected to pick them up.
• The Endless Rally. It is common for the tennis professional feeding the drill to announce when the last ball is in play. That is a signal to the players who are standing in line to start picking up the balls. The endless rally approach is a conspiracy between both sides of the net to keep the last ball in play cooperatively until all the other balls are back in the basket. This is… actually a legitimate thing to do as long as play doesn’t devolve into short court.
• Serve ’em Up. This player picks up the balls on one end of the court and delivers them to the basket end by serving a ball to the opposite end. That ball has to get down there somehow, and this is undeniably the fastest method. The fact that the ball scuds wildly through packs of players balancing a pyramid of balls on their racquets is someone else’s problem.
• The Court Jester. This player picks up a few balls, but only to entertain themselves and others. The balls that are picked up are for performing tricks or playing games. Examples of tricks are juggling and taking long-range NBA-style shots in the general direction of the basket. There are a couple of grown-assed adult men in my local area who entertain themselves with a game called “junk ball,” which involves taking turns trying to hit each other in the … junk… with a tennis ball. I wish I were making that up.
• The Instructable. A live ball drill is not a tennis lesson, but this doesn’t stop the player from engaging the pro during the pick-up to garner that benefit. It is OK to ask for feedback here and there, especially if good observations are followed up with booking a lesson to work on the recommendations. It is not OK for that conversation to extend across the entirety of each and every ball pickup span.
• The Social Butterfly. This is a variation of “The Instructable,” except the objective is a dialogue with the other players. The social butterfly shadows everyone else while they pick up the balls, but all they do is talk rather than helping. Worse, while these conversations might be tennis-related, the topics frequently stray into the inane.
• The Bathroom Break. I empathize with this one. As a senior female tennis player, I fully appreciate that when you gotta go, you gotta go. All players will probably occasionally experience this need in the middle of a drill. On the other hand, when this break comes at the first stoppage of play every single session, perhaps there is an opportunity to arrive at the tennis facility earlier and take care of business before the start of the drill.
• The Infirmary. This player is too injured to pick up balls but is always ready to step to the front of the line for the next round of drills. The ball pick-up breaks for this player are consumed with stretching, massaging, and re-taping. Alternatively, the player may “just need to sit down” for a few minutes. That’s fine as long as the resumption of the live ball drill doesn’t have repetitive magical healing qualities.
• Gotta Leave Early. This technique works well, but only at the end of the drill. When the final ball pick-up is announced, this player immediately departs since they have somewhere else to be. The only acceptable way to leave a drill early is if the players’ departure is timed to pick up at least a racquet face of balls on their way out.

As always, if anyone has a strategy or technique that I missed in this list, I would love to hear about it.

One of my goals for 2025 is to get a group of players together to record a video demonstrating these techniques. Does anyone want to volunteer for the “junk ball” segment?