Sprints, quick-feet exercises, and the assortment of lateral drills are thought of as training tools reserved for tennis academies and high-performance ranked tennis players. Many programs at regular clubs teaching junior and adult clinics avoid making students do any footwork exercises. But now there are a growing number embracing footwork drills during practices. For those that don’t, I can only speculate it’s likely discouraged because it’s tough (causes leg muscles to burn) and doesn’t involve hitting shots. The reality is that footwork drills are good for every type of player: adult beginners, juniors who prefer swimming but attend tennis training because their parents make them, and competitive players.
Not convinced? Here are three more reasons you need to work on your footwork:
(1) Tennis is a movement sport. Movement gets you in position to hit the ball. So, the better you’re at moving, the easier it gets for you to move to the right place. Footwork drills is the way to practice movement you want to do well during play.
(2) Attentiveness is a big factor behind learning to do something well. If you can immerse yourself into footwork, without worrying about hitting, you will learn to move better faster.
(3) Roger Federer asserted that the top 20 movers are the top 20 players. Rod Laver has told students that movement is the most important part of tennis. There are no top coaches or pros who will tell you otherwise. So, if they prioritize movement, then you should take the cue and do the same.
Like with most things, you want to create an outline that will guide your movement goals. Below are several main areas that will cover most of your key movement needs during a match.
Recovery. For your recovery, you want to train yourself to get back to the middle quickly and efficiently. This means you must practice explosive and long steps after hitting your shot. Recovery is also the phase of the point you need to be most organized with. A bad recovery could mean a poor start for the next shot. The dominos won’t fall in your favor. The reasoning is that your ideal positioning is in the middle, in the space between where your opponent could hit. It minimizes how far you have to move per shot and makes the open space smaller for your opponent. So, think of the center as your home base and the place you recover to under neutral and defensive scenarios.
However, your recovery positioning could change if you’re in control of the point and attacking. In that case, you might not find it useful to recover to the center. When you attack, advance and cover to areas they are most likely to hit. You do this when your opponent is late (not hitting in-front). For example, you’re inside the court and hit a shot on-the-rise to their forehand.
Long Rallies. You might be fast at running a few sprints but can you handle a 30-ball rally at an intense tempo? Perhaps the average point is much shorter because of the serve, but there are plenty of points where the rally is long. These are oftentimes the critical points. Battle points. How do you train for that?
For long rallies, your footwork drills must contain elements of endurance sprints. These are drills that take up to a minute. A popular one among USTA High-Performance coaches was the “17.” You sprint from sideline to sideline 17 times, in under 50-seconds. You can always change the bar depending on where your baseline level is at. But you should aim to reduce the amount of time you need to complete the sprints.
Changing Direction. Tennis movement is not linear. Your opponent is always looking for ways to hit where you’re not and put you off balance. So, your movement needs to be dynamic. A big struggle for many players who don’t work on footwork drills is changing direction quickly while maintaining balance. So, your drills must also include split steps, quick feet, and directional variation in all possible directions.