Two Easy Backhand Tennis Drills

Yes, you read right, these two backhand tennis drills are easy. There's no running involved, so you'll still have wind for your regular game. If you're not doing some kind of practice, your probably not going to get much better even you play every day. Why do I say that? If you're playing often, it might seem like you are getting better, but you may be developing some bad habits along the way. To avoid developing bad habits, you should step down once in awhile and do some backhand tennis drills. I suggest practicing on the backhand because that's one of the hardest strokes and therefore one in which you most likely to develop some bad habits. The two backhand tennis drills that I'm going to talk about in this article are the "backhand volley" and the "drop and hit drill".

For both of these drills, I will assume that you are using the one-handed backhand.

The first of the backhand tennis drills is called the "backhand volley". This drill is called a "volley" because the tennis ball never touches the ground when it's on your side of the net. The student should use the following steps to practice with the "backhand volley".

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• The first thing to do is make sure you are holding the tennis racket with the Eastern grip.
• Begin the drill by walking up to the center of the net and touching your stomach to the net.
• Back away from the net using three good size steps (shorter people should go ahead and take short steps; taller people should be a little further back than three steps).
• As you're moving to hit the ball take one step forward.
• After you hit the ball, your racket should end up over the spot where you took your first step back from the net.
• If you're right handed, hold the all the way to you're left, ready to use your backhand.
• Keep your wrist straight and you're arm slightly bent when you bring them back. You need to keep the wrist straight to prevent injury to the wrist.
• By the time you contact the ball, your arm should be straight and also, the face of the racket should be perpendicular to the ground during the entire swing.
• You should be able to stop the racket just before the ball makes contact. Since the ball still has a lot of momentum and you are standing close to the net you should be able to just let the ball bounce off your racket face and go over the net. This is the perfect time to concentrate on making the ball contact the center of the strings.

Getting the volley down will be very good for your game. If you can rush towards the net and return the ball before your opponent's expecting it, you have a very good chance of scoring a point.

The second of the backhand tennis drills you can use is called the "drop and hit" drill. I hope your friend is a good friend, because once again you will need his help.

• Once again, you will need to use the Eastern grip.

• Where you stand for this drill will be a little different because you should stand on the baseline.
• You should be facing to the side as you would be when getting ready to hit a backhand. Have a friend stand in front of you and have him gently tennis balls to you so that they bounce once before you hit them with your backhand.
• As you hit these balls, take a small step forwards into the ball and practice rotating your hips and shoulders, that's where your power will come from when you use your backhand. If you need even more power, try the two-handed backhand.
• You may not need this power right now, but when you do need power, it's nice to know how to make it.

You should try to incorporate practicing these two drills each time you play. It doesn't sound like fun when you here the word "practice", but you will start playing better.

I know that a lot of people would rather watch demonstrations of a skill than read about it, so I've made a website where I sell links to tennis videos. It's called, "Tennis Backhand Videos" . I also have a Squidoo site about backhand tennis drills. It's called, Backhand Tennis Drills. My Squidoo lens has a couple of videos that demonstrate both of the drills above. I have more information in myi article over at Ezine articles called, "Backhand Tennis Drills Will Make You Improve".