That Hits the Spot

Tennis Technology and Training

Sometimes the best tennis training techniques are also the most simple. I am a big believer that every player should spend some amount of time in their practice sessions hitting shots to targets. That includes serves, groundstrokes, volleys, overheads, drop shots, etc. When I go a week without performing target drills, it shows up in my matches. It’s ugly.

I carry a set of targets in my practice ball hopper at all times. Earlier this year I wrote about “The Tennis Cone Game” which uses a set of orange cones. At the time, I observed that sometimes the cones will blow around in the gale force winds of Texas. I had a practice session a couple of weeks ago in 25-30 mile per hour straight line winds. Keeping the cones in place was an exercise in futility.

For those super windy days, my “go-to” move is to substitute poly spot markers as the targets. Those are large brightly colored dots that are placed directly on the court surface. Since the spots lay flat on the court and have a relatively high coefficient of friction, they generally stay in place. Unfortunately, that practice session was conducted about 120 miles away from my dots. They were languishing in the garage of my house. It was probably too windy for meaningful target practice that day anyway.

The orange cones have an advantage that they are very visible from the far side of the court and it is obvious when one player has successfully hit the target. While the dots are lacking in soul crushing drama when well struck, they do have some advantages.

In addition to wind resistance, the dots are friendlier for footwork as players don’t have to run around the cones on the court when playing short balls. I also find the dots to be more intuitive when doing drills that involve recovering to a spot. There aren’t a lot of point composition patterns in tennis that involve running around a cone.

As a bonus, last night I used one of my dots for cooperative volley work with my good friend Greg. (The video is embedded at the end of this post.) NOT my best angle, but the clip does illustrate how a sustained rally looks with targets.

Target practice is an essential skill in tennis.