Surviving the rainy day tennis practice.

One of the headaches of hardcore tennis coaches is losing a precious day of practice due to rain, cold, or bad weather. Every practice becomes critical as the competitive season approaches, an the wise coach will view the rainy day as an opportunity to get back to basics and to work on both fundamentals and footwork drills.

The first thing a tennis coach needs is a gym, preferably one with a rubberized surface. A typical wooden gym floor, that has been waxed numerous times, causes the ball to move too quickly and thus upset the player's timing.

This is also the reason why a tennis player should not use a gym wall as a backboard to work on consistency. If you have no alternative, go ahead with it. Otherwise, avoid the use of the gym in this manner.

The gym is not a tennis court and can never substitute for one, but the coach can work on all the basic shots, namely the serve, forehand, backhand, and volley. I do not recommend working on lobs and overheads as the strokes can damage scoreboards and lights.

One of the easiest drills to use in the gym is the Popcorn Drill (Diag. 1), a drill I originally got from Jamie Bell, a tennis pro at Greenville Country Club. The drill is great for movement, footwork, and shot fundamentals. It is also easily adaptable to a gym.

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First, the coach has to make an area (half a tennis court) from one of the gym walls (about 39 feet). Next, the coach should squat and pitch balls to the player, alternating between the forehand and backhand. If the coach wants to work only on form, he or she should slowly feed the ball to the player. In this case, the drill will be similar to the Pepper Drill in baseball.

The best use of the Popcorn Drill is for both movement and fundamentals. The coach should feed the ball quickly and really move the player side to side, up and back, or try to wrong-foot the player by tossing the ball behind him as the player moves back to the starting position.

The player should focus on proper movement along the baseline, early preparation on the groundstrokes, a good contact point out in front (especially on the backhand), and a good followthrough.

The volley is one of the easiest drills to work on in the gym. The Hot Volley Drill (Diag.2) is a well-known fun (but effective) drill used by many coaches on courts, but adapts well to a gym setting.

The players are divided into even groups, with one set backed up to the gym wall and the other set several feet away.

The players several feet away put the ball into play and the players volley back and forth, alternating forehand and backhand volleys.

After a predetermined period of time, the players switch positions. The drill helps develop control of the volleys, quick volley reflexes, and keeping the racket out in front on the volley.

It also keeps the players from developing too long a swing, as any overly long swing will hit the wall. The coach should make sure that the players are properly moving their feet and making the correct crossover steps.

The serve is the most important shot in tennis and should be practiced every day, including those in the gym. Simply use the area marked off for the Popcorn Drill and lay down a baseline with athletic tape. Have the players serve into a wall at predetermined targets such as X's made from athletic tape.

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Have the serving players serve at a time and use non-serving players to shag balls. If you have several areas in the gym, you can use them as different stations.

The focus should be on the basics such as the location of the toss, making the correct loop behind the back, making contact at the top of the toss, and the follow through.

I have found that the players working in the gym get bored much more quickly than those on a real tennis court. For this reason, it's important to run the indoor practices quickly and to spice them up with movement and footwork drills.

One of the best drills for gym is the time-tested Dot Drill. You may also mix in jumping rope for cardiovascular and footwork development, and the use of videos for player improvement.

At Brandon, we will work in the gym for about an hour on rainy days and then go to a classroom and watch tennis videos so that the players can see textbook tennis strokes in action.

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I would not recommend coaches' video, as they are usually too complicated for high school students. Try to find a video aimed at beginner to intermediate levels players. The United States Tennis Association usually has some excellent videos in this area.

The rainy day does not have to be a wasted day. Anyone with a little imagination can use these ideas to help turn rainy days into productive days.

By Scott Huskey, Tennis Coach,

Brandon High School, Brandon Mississippi