Tennis Training Theme #10 – Defensive Baseline Style of Play

Objective

Learn how to extend the point and successfully defend from the baseline with the goal to frustrate and wear down your opponent.

1. Develop a high shot tolerance (a willingness to hit as many shots as necessary to break down your opponent and win the point). Do everything possible to make your opponent hit one more shot.
2. Work on your ability to extend the point but raising the height of your ball with a high margin of net clearance. Establish a “must” goal of not making any mistakes in the net. Learn how to utilize lobs and semi-lobs to recover back into position when pressed to retrieve a difficult shot.
3. Work on your footwork and fitness to be able to run down every shot.
4. Develop your “hands” and improvisational skills to be able to manipulate the angle of the racquet face to retrieve difficult shots with control of direction and trajectory. Work to develop “soft” hands and the ability to make subtle and quick adjustments with your grip.
5. Work on your depth and the margin established by depth. Develop the ability to consistently hit past the service line (preferably having the ball bounce midway between the service line and the baseline). Work predominantly to the middle of the court (middle 1/3 of the court).
6. Learn how to control the pace to your preferred tempo and rhythm. Work on maintaining a manageable pace. Learn how to take pace off the ball (with spin) when the tempo of the rally starts getting too fast and unsustainable.
7. Work on your ability to stay in a point by maintaining the direction and angle of each shot. Learn how to maintain direction by hitting over the middle part of the net (using the center strap as reference). Improve consistency by hitting to big targets. Make sure to create margin and not force a mistake out wide of the sideline when redirecting a shot down-the-line. With down-the-line redirection, account for the difference in net height and establish a hitting line that has the ball clearing the opposing baseline at a perpendicular angle.
8. Work on getting your first serve in play. Target to be able to maintain a 1^st serve percentage of 75% or higher. Consistently getting the first serve in play helps to maintain your rhythm for the ensuing rallies and point exchanges and supports a game plan for consistency, depth and your ability to “grind.” Equally important, in singles work on getting your return of serve back in play preferably deep to the middle of the court or cross-court (maintaining the direction of the serve). Target to get 80% or more 1^st serves back in play and 90% or more of 2^nd serves back in play.
9. Learn how to vary spin, depth, net clearance, and trajectory to disrupt the rhythm of your opponent. Learn how to manipulate these control variables to get balls outside the strike zone of your opponent. With an inability to establish rhythm, your opponent will hopefully get unsettled and tentative which in turn, should help in your goal to slow down the pace and extend the average length of each rally.
10. Work on managing the flow and tempo of the match. Be methodical and deliberate in your preparation before the start of each point with an established ritual prior to serving and receiving. Learn how to slow down the pace of play and the general flow to the match. Establish a strategy to make play a match of attrition with long, extended rallies (favoring your style of play) and/or frustrating your opponent into making mistakes by going for too much too soon in the rally. Work also on your mental fortitude, resoluteness, stamina and commitment to stay in the rally and make your opponent work for every point. Work on your ability to stay engaged each point with no mental lapses and no free points given away to your opponent.