Browsing Tag: tennis practice

– Hey guys, Nate and Scott
here with PlayYourCourt.com and today we’re going
to show you how to hit the drop shot. (whooshing sounds) – Alright guys, so today
we’re talking about drop shots. This video is for players
with a player court rating of 50 to 70. If you’re not in our
community, or familiar with our rating system that is
the equivalent of about a USTA 3.0 to 4.0. So, Nate talk to me here. Drop shots, we all know what they are, but I think, I know in
a lot of my coaching session I see a lot of
people doing this the wrong way, so talk to me here. What are we going to fix? – Yeah, we see a lot of
drop shots these days, don’t you? Mats Wilander recently
said he thought it was the plague of the tennis
tour, that there’s just too many of them. And the drop shot is this great weapon. The problem is, that a
lot of our players out there are panicking and
using it in the wrong circumstances. So before you tell you
about, really about how you hit the drop shot,
lets talk about when to hit the drop shot. – I like it. – Alright, so one, on a
clay court, it’s going to be 10 times more useful
than it is on a hard court. Simply because the surface,
yeah less bounce right? Alright, number two, you want
to be inside the base line. You need to be at least
three or four, maybe even six feet, the closer you get to the net, it’s going to be easier for you to hit. If you’re behind the
base line, stop trying to hit drop shots, they’re not useful. – A huge misconception,
I think, is you can hit a drop shot from anywhere on the court. The further you are away from the net, don’t forget the longer
your opponent has to see that you’re hitting a drop
shot and run that ball down. So I agree completely. – Yeah, correct. Alright, and so the last
thing we’re going to talk about that we want you to be mindful of is most of you are trying to do too much with the motion on your drop shot. We see a lot of big
motions, we’re getting more of this side winder. Occasionally one lands
and you get excited, but you’re not really
controlling the ball. A drop shot is supposed to be controlled. – Drop shot, not so much
swing, not so much chop, more touch and feel. – Alright, so what we’re going
to talk about is assuming that you know how to
hit your slice, right, because if you don’t
know how to hit a slice it may not be time quite yet
to start hitting the drop shot. – And that’s why we’re starting
at a player court 50 rating. Any players below that
don’t have a reliable slice and don’t really understand this yet. – That’s right. So whether its a forehand or backhand, what we’re really going
to put some focus on is working more under the ball, alright, so before we would really go more on a 45 and we would work down
and let that racket finish all the way on a straight line. Here it’s going to work
a little bit more like the inside of a spoon, so
that when I hit the ball I’m going to leave the racket face open, kind of cupping it a little bit. Yeah, and that’s where
the feel is coming in on this stroke, alright. And so the other thing
that we want to talk about is actually the foot work
that’s involved with this particular shot. So guys what we’re talking
about with the foot work here is really the
same foot work that we find on the volley. When I’m working on the
drop shot, you’re noticing the racket head is nice
and high, and there needs to be a little bit of disuse here right. So I want them thinking maybe I’m going to slice it deep. I’m gonna take my right
foot and I’m gonna offset and load on that knee,
and as I make that motion to make the drop shot,
remember like the inside of a spoon, I’m gonna
work towards my left foot. Alright so for a righty it’s right left. – It’s a weight transfer
with a cup simultaneously. – Yeah, cause we want a
little bit of this weight transfer working towards the ball. – That’s big. I see so few of
my students line up their feet correctly to actually
execute this and they wonder why they can’t hit a drop shot. They’re not in position
to do it correctly. – And we see a lot of people drop shotting where they’re like trying
to get low with the ball and hit it and just
there’s no real leverage behind that. So on the backhand,
exactly the same thing on the other side. I’m going to take my left
foot, I’m going to offset it, I’m gonna get a nice knee
bend and I’m gonna work under the ball on this weight transfer. Alright so, Scott help us. If I cannot get the
feel, I’ve got too much slice and dicing, what
else could I possibly do, maybe with my grips to help? – Especially on the backhand side, so right out of the gates,
take it easy internet trolls, this is a drill. This is not what we want
you to land, but what Nate, I think, and I would both recommend, if you have a hard time getting a feel on the backhand side for
this drop shot with that continental grip, which is what ultimately we do want you using,
shift over to an eastern grip, in other videos
we’ve talked about grips. Shift over to that eastern
grip, it’s going to lock in that position that
we really want the angle of your racket base to
create the type of motion we’re looking for on those drop shots. So on your backhand side,
with that continental grip, if you just feel lost,
or you feel too flimsy and you just feel like the
balls all over the place, shift over to that eastern
grip to really lock in and get the feel for what
the angle we’re trying to create is. Once you get good at it,
of course again switch back that continental grip. – Yeah, it’s good stuff. So, we’re going to show
you a couple games now that actually work on
the field that you need for a drop shot. I don’t know, many of
you out there probably notice. You see these kids
before their clinics and their lessons, and they’re
playing all these games close to the net. There’s a reason kids
develop soft hands and feel a little bit earlier than adults. What do we see adults do? You grab your tennis racket,
a couple tennis balls, you both head back to the base line, you just start wailing away. So you’re swinging through the ball. Kids are starting up here at the net, and they’re developing
soft touch by playing these little orchestrated
games that really work on this. So whether you’re just
trying to figure this out, or you’re an advanced
player, you can look on YouTube or anywhere else
and see Fed, and Adole, and Novak, all these
guys playing these games. Start playing these games
to work on the field, so you can start developing a drop shot. – Yeah, a great warm up
and also an easy way to really focus on the
touch pieces that I think so many coaches maybe neglect, right? – Yeah. – Cool, alright, you wanna hit a couple? – Let’s do it. – Let’s go. – Alright guys, so you can
see we’re right up here on the net, and this game
we call it the touch game. So the rules are pretty simple. We can’t hit outside of the service boxes, and at no point can we volley
and take the ball in the air. The point is going to start
with the ball on the net. You want to serve? – Yeah, I’ll start us off. (laughs) Oh I remember my first time playing. – That’s a fault, you
hit two, that’s a fault. It’s what I get for trying to be so nice. Okay this is just being rude,
I thought we were being nice. – This is me being nice, buddy. – Yeah, that’s me being nice. Alright not a bad shot, Scotty. Might have called that
out if the camera was not focused. – Can’t lie in front of the camera. – No, I can’t. So, we’re going to show you second game and this is called mini
tennis, and it’s not your traditional mini tennis. This version of this game
was actually voted by USPTA over several hundred
teaching pros that looked at all the drills and lessons you can do, and this is what was voted number one. The most important drill
that they felt like every tennis player–
– For a time or totally? – Just totally. – Wow. – Numero one. – I’m excited. – Yep, so the way this is played. Scott and I are both going
to go back to the service line, and it’s going to
be played like normal mini tennis. We can’t play in the alley. – We can’t volley, right? – Can’t volley. But this is where it
gets a little bit tricky. So we’re typically playing
with a continental grip, playing with some backspin. But the ball, in order
for it to be a winner, would have to have the
ability to bounce twice, in the service box. If the second bounce was to go up– – Hold on, I’m so confused. So the ball bounces, in the service box, but then the second
bounce is in the alley, that’s out. – I’ve lost the point. – Ohh. – Because I haven’t produced enough spin, and therefore enough
touch on this ball, right? So therefore the drop
shot wouldn’t be all that effective, right? So we want the ability
to play up high a little bit and get that ball to
just kinda come to a stop once it hits the ground. And this isn’t necessarily done with just, I know I said spin, but
it’s not excessive spin. You can kinda block
with a continental grip and its gonna create the spin because the continental grip is the magic trick. So what are we working on? Court awareness, where are
you at in the court, right? If a second bounce is
going to be out, let it go. Guys lost the point. Alright, the other thing
we’re working on is feel and touch. So we’ll show you on a couple points playing this mini tennis
game, what it looks like. We’ll do that now. – Lets battle. – Lets get it. Oh this could take some time. – I’m uncomfortable. – I should have let it go. You were losing the point. That’s mine. – Alright Nate, I guess
you got your revenge there. Go ahead and bring us home here. What’s the takeaway from this, other than I guess
you’re reasonable decent at ultimate touch and mini tennis. – So guys, in summation,
what are we focused on here? With the drop shot, remember,
you want to be in the court, not behind the baseline, okay? Let’s try not to make this shot too good. Less is more here. We want to play with
some height, several feet up above the net, don’t
try to thread the needle, and focus more on the stroke being compact with a little bit of a
spoon shape to the stroke, as opposed to these big
cuts that we see putting sidewinder spin on the ball. And at the very least,
get out, just try some of these games. It’s so hard to start
incorporating drop shots into your games when
you’re initiating play from the baseline like most of us do. Scott and I do this for fitness. This is a really good game. You can see, it can
extend for quite some time but its going to help
you start utilizing that feel, making your drop
shot a whole lot better. – I think the drop shot
too, correct me if I’m wrong here, is one of
the few strokes where we actually can just sort
of throw you in the deep end here in one of these
games, and let you get the feel for it on your own. There’s not a whole lot
of, you don’t want to go take lessons on this
or get in on the ball machine for this, I
guess it could be helpful but its not necessary. Practice a couple of
these games, you’ll figure out the feel for this drop shot. It’s not as hard as you might think. And guys, you know Nate and I here at PlayYourCourt just want to see you improve your game, but the bottom
line is we don’t know a ton about you. The stuff we went over today is definitely for a very specific skill level. We want to learn more
about you and give you more instruction that you
need, so do us a favor, click the button or the link below, answer some questions for us. We can then send you
custom video coaching based on your specific skill
level and the things that you need to work on. So just click the button
or the link below, and Nate and I will do the rest.