First tennis lesson for complete beginners

Hi guys, greetings from Fit In Tennis. Today we are going to explain a little bit about how we would introduce tennis to a person who has never played before and teach them a little from the beginning.

One of the things I always say to beginners is to imagine they’re an architect. They have to think a little bit about how they would start constructing a building. The answer is - like a building! From the base. The base in this case is the feet, the legs. The first thing I explain to them is that they have to be moving constantly. Never stop moving the feet. Then, I teach them how to do the split-step. This is a small jump that helps activate the legs in order to move towards the ball, have better reaction times, etc.

So the first exercise we are going to do: I will be here, opposite the student. Then every time I move my hand backwards to throw the ball, the student has to do the split-step. So I throw them the ball and they have to let it fall, in this case, a bit more than usual to get used to it.  Let it drop to knee-height. Then they catch the ball with their dominant hand whilst bending down to this position. They would have to get low and catch it like this. And as they catch it, they prepare to throw it back the same way as a backswing with a racket. They throw whilst stretching the body upwards, turning this foot to allow the body to twist forward better. We then finish at the shoulder, just like a forehand.

This is the first and most basic exercise. We did catching, with her always in the same place. I just throw them to her - that’s great.  For what? So that she doesn’t have to over-think it. It’s always important to add layers. From few to many, always developing gradually.

Now what we’re going to do is make her have to change her position. I’ll do it first by hand, as we have been doing, but start by feeding her a deep ball from which she’ll have to return to the starting point, then another deep ball, and return again. Then we’ll work on the same thing, but with short balls. Later, we’ll have her change position, first to the right, then to the left. After that, we will vary it up. That way she can have a go at trying all the areas.

After all this, I will go to the other side, and feed her the balls using the racket. It will be exactly the same, but the ball is going to be more complicated because it will come with a bit more distance and a bit more power as I’m feeding it with my racket, not my hand.

Here you saw how every time the ball landed on the sides she returned to the middle afterwards with sidesteps - hugely important! The ones going forward and back as well. The key is to return quickly using sidesteps and always when the ball is hit wide open.  At the moment we are teaching the basics of how to reach the side but later on we will talk about other situations and more difficult ways of doing this. But the most basic is this - that they get to the sides, throw, return to the middle with sidesteps, remain in motion, and do the split-step. Now we are going to do the same thing. I will feed the balls from the other side using the racket.

So guys, we’ll finish the video here.  These are the most basic things that we teach beginners. A little just using the hands, from mid-court with them at the baseline and afterwards I put myself on the other end and feed them the balls using the racket.

Thanks for watching, we’ll see you in the next one!