The Truth About Footwork in Tennis

In the most general terms, the way to think about footwork is this…

Good footwork is your movement on the tennis court while maintaining good visual contact with the tennis ball.

Lots of players are fast from point A to point B, but their ability to visually track that moving tennis ball as they go from point A to point B is poor.

And we’re not talking about simply reminding yourself to watch the ball.

“Footwork” is a non descriptive term and doesn’t really describe what it is you’re trying to accomplish.

Whatever term we use, I want you to start thinking that your movement around the court should be centered around you increasing your ability to better visually track a moving tennis ball.

To be consistent with your shot making, you have to be consistently aligned a certain distance away from the path of the incoming ball in such a way that you’re on balance and that your swing will have natural “freedom”.

Poor visual contact with the tennis ball creates inconsistent set up positions, which creates inconsistent stroke production, which creates lots of unforced errors, which creates massive frustration, which creates balh, blah, blah…

If you’re too close or too far away from that path of the incoming ball, your swing will be different each time.

Just like a golfer or a batter in baseball, those players always set up at a specific distance away from either the golf ball or home plate.

They know precisely what that distance is for them to feel comfortable to be able to perform a “repeatable” swing.

Tennis is more of a challenge because we have to move our feet over to the exact spot to be able to feel comfortable with our swing for every shot.

So footwork in tennis is really about being to able to move efficiently from the current shot set up to the shot next set up throughout an entire tennis point while at the same time being able to visually track a moving ball while
we’re also on the move.

There are few keys to efficient movement…

• Visual tracking of the ball,
• the split step to prepare our body to move to align ourselves to the path of our opponent’s shot,
• the recovery with our feet back to the center of the court,
• and our movement through specific shots that helps us achive good court positions to force our opponents to have to hit all out winners

The best way to improve your speed on the court in a way that also improves your ability to viusally track a moving ball is with specific sprints.

What I do is make sure I’m good and warmed up first (and I mean good and warmed up with at least a 5 minute stretching cool-down after my sprint session), and then do a series of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 40, 30 , 20, & 10 yard sprints where I find a stationary object out in the far landscape (like a sign, a post, something that is about eye level) that I try to visually lock on as I sprint.

The goal is to keep that stationary object visually “stationary” as you sprint.

When you first try this, visually lock on your stationary object out in the landscape and then walk (don’t sprint) forward measuring how much that object is moving up and down (if at all) as you walk forward for about 10 yrads.

Go back to your starting point and this time try to viually lock on that object as you do a light jog.  The chances are that object will begin to move up and down a bit as you jog.

Then go back to your starting point and try running (not as fast as a sprint) and you’ll find that stationary object is now really moving up and down much more.

Now try it with a sprint.  When you first do this drill, it’s really tough to keep that stationary object “quiet” as you sprint, however, the more you practice this, the sooner you’ll be able to sprint in a way where you can visually keep that object “still” as you sprint.

And once you master this drill over time, you’ll find that your movement on the tennis court is much more efficient in terms of being able to move around the court AND visually track a moving tennis ball to enable you to more often align yourself properly to the path of the incoming ball and to be able to know precisely when to start your swing (swing timing).

Long distance running, as opposed to sprints, breaks down those muscles that help you keep the tennis ball “still” as you move around the tennis court.

I prefer to use biking (road, mountain, and stationary) as my method for developing a solid base for my legs and sprints as my method for improving my ability to better track the tennis ball.

Sprints will build up those muscles that will allow you to maintain visual contact with the ball as you play the point.

Hope this helps.  Let me know…

Brent

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