The Tennis Zone

Training Planning

To plan a training session, it is important to set a training aim.

Depending on the training aim, Tennis Zone offers you a lot of drills & games. For clarity, we have divided the training aims into long-term and short-term training aims to plan the training session in a good and structured way.

Upcoming developments
We a working to improve the app in the future. In the upcoming months, we will offer you more drills & games, a planner..... The planner will allow you to set the drills & games for a complete training week.

Long-term training aims

The division of the drills & games into long-term training aims gives you a "roadmap" on how you want to structure your game-based tennis training in the long term. We deliberately use the same long-term training aims for technique and tactics. This will make it easier for you to draw a close connection between the training aims of technique and tactics.

Singles

Technique and tactics

  • Safe baseline game
  • Accurate baseline game
  • Net and passing shot game
  • Offensive and attacking game
  • Defensive game

Doubles

Technique and tactics

  • Accurate baseline game
  • Net and passing shot game
  • Baseline and net game
  • Offensive and attacking game
  • Defensive game

Training units
A long-term training aim is achieved through many training units (weeks/months), depending on the training intensity and performance development. A long-term training aim is achieved through many short-term training aims.

Short-term training aims

We have divided the short-term training aims into technique-oriented and tactics-oriented aims.

Technique-oriented aims

  • All stroke techniques (grips, backswing, contact point and outswing movement, spin types ....), from different game situations.
  • All stroke techniques in connection with tennis-specific footwork (position to the ball, running path to the ball and back to the optimal court position, split step, balance....), from different game situations.
  • All stroke techniques in connection with body-supporting movement sequences (weight shift, upper body rotation, fast underarm...), from different game situations.

A technique-oriented training aim should always have a tactical reference within a training lession!

Tactics-oriented aims

  • Safe play with the aim of keeping the ball in the field longer than the opponent (develop patience, concentration).
  • Placed play with the aim of letting the opponent run and forcing mistakes.
  • Offensive and attacking play with the aim of building up time pressure and placing the ball with pressure in open spaces in order to score direct points or force the opponent to make mistakes (willingness to take risks, develop courage).
  • Defensive play with the aim of gaining time through high and long play, in connection with good coverage of space (fighting spirit, developing will).

A tactics-oriented training aim should always be combined with 1-2 technical training aims within a training lession!

Training units
A short-term training aim should be developed over at least 3 training sessions (depending on performance). In further training lessions, the old short-term training aim should continue to be addressed parallel to the new short-term training aim until you have the feeling that your players have internalised the old short-term training aim.

Systematic training planning and development

The division into long-term and short-term training aims gives you the opportunity to develop your players more systematically. It is crucial that you ask yourself two questions before each training lession.

1st question

What long-term training aim am I currently working on with my group?

2nd question

What short-term training aim do I want to work on with my group today?

Example
5:00 pm group
Long-term training aim: Placed baseline play
Short-term training aim: Improvement of backhand (topspin) from the game situation (cross and longline play)

As soon as you have answered both questions, you can put together the right drills & games for your training lession and always have a very good training structure in your training work.