How to Teach Tennis to VERY Young Children (3-5 Years Old)

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As a tennis coach, I am often asked how to teach the sport to very young children, specifically those aged 3-5 years old. In this article, I would like to share some tips and techniques that have worked well for me in the past.

Consider the child’s prior experience
First, it is important to consider whether the child has had any prior experience with tennis. If they have, find out whether they have taken private or group lessons. If they are new to the sport, focus on hand-eye coordination exercises and basic techniques.

Introduce games and drills
There are plenty of fun games and drills you can use to keep young children engaged, such as “Throw and Catch,” “Jail Breaker,” “Caterpillar,” and “Potato Race.” Remember, the aim is to keep the lessons fun and active, so try to avoid making them stay in line for too long. Kids of this age group tend to get bored easily, so keep them moving and engaged as much as possible.

Make it fun
In a group setting, when working with children individually, give tasks to the others, such as picking up balls, jumping rope, or bouncing a ball, to keep everybody active. Try to make this fun, too, by turning it into a competition to see who can make the biggest pile of balls on their racket, for example.

Keep the lessons short and intense
For children under 6 years old, I recommend no longer than 45 minutes per lesson, and for 3-4-year-olds, even shorter, around 30 minutes. This ensures they don’t get too tired or exhausted, and they are able to retain what they have learned.

In conclusion, teaching tennis to very young children can be a lot of fun if approached in the right way.

Keep the lessons fun, active, and engaging, and focus on basic techniques and hand-eye coordination exercises. With a little patience and creativity, you will be amazed at how quickly they can pick up the sport!

If you want to learn how to teach tennis to young children consider the following WebTennis24 coaching courses:

Cosmin Miholca

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

How to Teach (Or Learn) the Proper Distance to the Ball

by | Tennis Tips Blog, Uncategorized | 6 comments

The proper ball distance appears to be an ardent subject that tennis coaches want to know when teaching beginning players.

Some young players (beginners) indeed have difficulty achieving optimal contact with the ball – getting either too close or too far from it. Therefore, coaches try to find solutions to help their players hit the ball more naturally and in balance.

Unfortunately, there is no quick or easy solution to this and, if you ask me, I consider this will get fixed naturally through repetition. The only way a beginning player realizes to “feel” the optimal contact point and space to the ball is through lots of practice. Eventually, the player will develop the proper timing, hand-eye coordination, and footwork to position the body and racquet most comfortably and naturally.

But if you really want to speed up the process, I dare to suggest a couple of drills that you and your student can do to get a clear understanding of where the contact with the ball should be and improve the timing to achieve that:

1. Have your student (or partner) position in an open stance (feet parallel to the net) or square stance (feet sideways to the net) and racquet held at a “contact point” position: racquet face towards the net, proper grip, arm slightly bent. By the way, this can be applied when practicing either forehand or backhand groundstrokes.
From the “contact point” position, hand-feed a few balls toward the player’s racquet. After the ball bounce, the player should push the ball and swing from that point on, and follow through.
Practice contact and follow-through without a backswing.
This drill will teach the player where the contact with the ball should be (spacing and body position). Eventually, they will register that. With proper timing and footwork developed through repetition, this will become a habit.

2. Repeat the previous drill with a slight adjustment: instead of tossing balls for your student, you will rally with them this time. Your student will begin every stroke from the contact point position (no backswing) while pushing and following through after each contact.
Again, this will teach the player proper spacing to the ball.
One important tip is to rally with your student from the service line or just behind it in order to avoid a bigger swing and take the racquet back.
You can even use foam or any light junior tennis balls to keep things simple in the beginning.

Try these two drills and let me know if your student develops and gets a better feel for spacing to the ball.

One more tip: do not over-emphasize other technical aspects such as footwork or body position. To get the contact and timing right, allow the student to focus only on the ball; let the other elements happen naturally… for now.

Additional Note:
For players who want to learn the above technique by themselves, I recommend either using a ball machine or asking a tennis partner to feed (by hand) some balls to them.

Related Content: Strokes Progressions Lessons – learn tennis without a partner or coach

Cosmin Miholca

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

Tennis Coaching: 7 Steps to Make a Great Connection with Students

by | Tennis Tips Blog, Uncategorized | 2 comments

tennis coach with kids

The following pieces of advice address mostly to coaches but players can also find some applicable uses:

As a tennis coach at WebTennis24, I often get emails in which players or coaches ask for my opinion on certain subjects. One of them was how to make a good impression as a coach in front of your new students.

In this regard, I made a video that will show you the first 10-15 minutes of what you can do with a new tennis student (beginner or even intermediate). In this video, you’ll find my “magic” formula on how to interact with new students and how to make them feel welcome and excited to learn tennis. It has worked great for me throughout my over 15 years of teaching tennis, and it will guarantee to help you too.

Besides that… in preparation for the upcoming lesson (or a match if you are a tennis player) it is good to develop some “rituals” that prepare you mentally for what comes. 
I used to get quite nervous especially when meeting new students and/or their parents.
So don’t worry: you are not the only one getting nervous; a lot of coaches are too… the students also. If it helps, you can only imagine that your students are more nervous to meet you than you are to meet them. Or, if you are a player before a tennis match, your opponent might be more nervous to play against you than you are.

Here are some of the “rituals” that I do on the way to my lessons in order to ensure that I am properly prepared and my students will find a true professional in me as their coach:

1. In the car, as I drive to the tennis court, I practice some breathing exercises: take a slow deep breath in – hold it for 4 seconds – release slowly; do this about 5 – 7 times.

2. Say positive things to yourself such as: “I can’t wait to meet my students”, “I love what I do”, “This is going to be fun!”, etc.

3. Get on the tennis court at least 10 minutes before your students arrive; prepare all your teaching gear and be ready early.

4. As soon as you see your students coming towards the court, put a smile on your face and walk to them looking happy to see/meet them. Stretch your hand out and introduce yourself first, then ask for their names (memorize it).

5. As you can see in the video I mentioned above, it is important to ask your students questions, and find out about them; that would make them feel welcome and important.

6. If you get nervous, smile; smiling is a great way to help you relax; also, ask your student questions during the lesson: “What do you feel about what I just taught you? Does it make sense? Does it feel natural?” etc.

7. And last… actually this should have been first: make sure you have lesson plans ready (a general plan of drills and things you want to teach before you get on the court). I sometimes carry little pieces of paper with notes that I find important to say or do during the lessons. This helps me to know that I do not leave things out and takes some of the pressure off considering that I don’t have to remember everything.

I hope all these tips are of help to you. Write in the comments box below and let me know your thoughts.

Cosmin Miholca

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

How I Taught a 70-Year-Old Man to Hit With Topspin

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tennis balls in net

A few years ago, the father of one of my students told me he wanted to take a couple of tennis lessons so I can teach him how to hit with topspin. This gentleman was about 70 years old and a reputable doctor in Southern California.

My first approach with him was to check his grip. I explained to him that in order to create more topspin on his groundstrokes, he needed to make a grip adjustment.

He was using a continental grip (on his forehand); I slowly helped him to make the transition to an eastern and then to a close to semi-western grip.

That, followed by a couple of other minor technical improvements (stance and swing), gave him a very good understanding and feel of how to hit with more topspin, and power, and keep a lot more balls in.

It took us a few sessions (about 10 – with a lot of questions and frustrating moments here and there :)) but then he ended up surprising his doubles buddies with his new strokes; as a result, his confidence and enjoyment for the game got to a new high level.

You see, many times the minor adjustments that we make in our tennis technique can be the foundation of our overall capability to play at our full potential.

Cosmin Miholca

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

How to Minimize Waiting in Line When Teaching Large Groups

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tennis coach

I am extremely grateful to see more and more tennis parents and coaches reaching out to me for advice based on my playing and teaching experience.

This time I’d like to bring to your attention a question a tennis coach recently asked: how to run your tennis classes so that the students do not have to wait in line for too long?…

Waiting in line is not only boring but also disruptive to the rest of the players, especially when those who wait begin chatting and the coach’s instructions are not being heard by the other players.

The following are some tips that I have used in my classes to keep all my students happy and get the best of my instruction:

1. A coach should never accept more than 6 players on the court (unless you are conducting a cardio tennis class where the coach feeds more and teaches less).

2. While some players (first in line) hit the balls that the coach feeds, the others in line should shadow the first player or do some tennis-related exercises (ladder, cones, etc.) – make sure your students are aware of proper spacing so that no one gets hurt.

3. A coach should line up the players (if there are more than three) in two lines and learn to double-feed (two balls in the air at the same time) so that two players (one from each line) practice their strokes at the same time.

4. Choose games that involve as many players as possible: 2-3 points before rotating and bringing new players on the court. Those waiting can be put through some drills (cones, ladders, etc.) or have them act as ball boys/girls for the ones who play.

Feel free to send me your suggestions if you have more tips in regard to keeping the class going and getting everyone involved.

Cosmin Miholca

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

Focus On the Finish

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The tennis stroke techniques can be divided into three major elements: preparation, contact with the ball, and finish (follow-through).

The last part (the finish) can give you a lot of clues about somebody’s stroke: the spin imparted on the ball, acceleration (power), the tension in the arm, the direction of the ball, etc.
Coaches tell you to finish in a certain way for deeper ball penetration, cleaner contact, or relaxation of the arm through the stroke. But what is the stroke finish all about?

In my teaching lessons, I have noticed that many consistency-related issues can be solved just by fixing the finish on the stroke.
You see, so often coaches or players look at contact or body movement to solve tennis problems, but according to my observations, tennis can be a lot easier if we fix one very simple area of our strokes: the way we finish.

Here are my arguments for this statement:

1. Since contact with the ball is done in such a short period of time, our mind is not capable of controlling the body and racquet during that time (it is our ingrained muscle memory or subconscious mind that takes over the contact). What we can control is the way we finish the stroke: “holding the finish”.
There is a strong connection between the contact and follow-through – if contact is done right, the proper finish follows or vice versa: if we focus on a long, relaxed follow-through (the part we can control) then we’ll have a clean, smooth contact before it happens.

2. A long follow-through shows a relaxed arm done at contact with the ball. A relaxed arm during the swing translates into power and control of the ball.
We all know that we play our best tennis when we are relaxed.
So focusing on a long follow-through on the strokes will help us loosen up through the stroke.

3. When we play a match and feel tense or have “one of those days” when nothing good comes out of our strokes, there is a very easy fix to those: exhale at contact and finish your strokes.
When we are mentally tense (e.g. fear of losing the match, somebody important to us is watching the match, egos, etc.) our body muscles contract too; that makes our stroke swing shorter which, as a result, slows down the racquet head speed and affects the ball depth.

I have noticed remarkable progress in my students’ strokes only when I adjusted their follow-through:
– a kick serve cannot be done without taking into consideration the racquet path on the same side of the body with the dominant arm after contact, or…
– the slice serve to have the hitting face more or less facing the opposite court after the contact adds to the spin effect even after the impact has been made;
– a forehand ground-stroke finish with the hand knuckles close to the non-dominant side’s ear can make the contact a lot smoother and cleaner when teaching young or beginning players.

Take these tips with you next time you go on the tennis court to practice or use them to relax in a tennis match.

Cosmin Miholca

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.

How To Watch a Tennis Match

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“How to watch a tennis match? What do you mean by that?”
I mean: do you learn anything from watching a tennis match?

Yes, watching a tennis match can be a great lesson if you actively analyze what happens on the court and, above all, ask yourself questions… Do we take something out of this experience or are we simply spectators going through the emotions of winning or losing a tennis match?
Is watching tennis a learning experience for you?
If the answer is NO, then I would like to suggest that you keep the following list next to you while watching the next tennis match…

It is important, for your improvement, to ask yourself questions. Questions will provide you with valuable answers. These answers will help you understand tennis and where you want to get as a player.

So pick your favorite player and follow them while asking yourself these following questions:
– Where are they aiming their first serve: the opponent’s forehand, backhand, or middle?
– Where are they hitting the second serve to? What spin are they using?
– Where are they aiming their returns of serve to?
– Where are most of their groundstrokes aimed at? Are they going mostly to a certain side (opponent’s weakness, cross-court)?
– How early are they preparing for the ball?
– Where are they standing to receive the first serve? What about the second serve?
– Where are they placing/aiming their approach shot?
– During the rally, how is their court coverage (covering cross-court quickly from the baseline)?
– At key points (15-30, 30-15, 40-30, 30-40, AD in, Ad out), where are they serving to? And what kind of spin are they using?
– How do they play key (pressure) points?
– Where are they aiming the defensive shots?
– At change-over – what do they eat and drink? How much?
– How is their body language after a point they just lost? What about after a winner?
– How far back are they taking the racquet when returning the serve (notice the short back-swing)?
The list can go on. Feel free to add your own questions…

If you have not watched a tennis match asking questions, then do it now. You will be amazed at how exciting the experience can be and what valuable information you will get from it.

Cosmin Miholca

Cosmin Miholca

Certified Tennis Coach

Check out my work at WebTennis24 where I share with you my best video tennis lessons, drills and tips for players, coaches and tennis parents.