Specific Tennis Footwork and Movement Skills By Cinto Casanova

Specific Tennis Footwork and Movement Skills

By Cinto Casanova

Movement is a key performance factor in tennis. As tennis coaches, we are responsible for developing player’s movement skills, as well as their racket swings. The goal in this article is to point out which are the specific movement skills required in tennis and to give a basic guide about suitable activities to develop those skills within the tennis program.

Below are four of these key tennis specific movement skills, with a breakdown of each:

Footwork coordination

Players have to be able to control the rhythm of their steps and to increase or decrease the frequency of them as needed. However it is not only about how fast they can move their feet; its is also about the control and accuracy of the steps; it is about stepping where you want (at an appropriate angle and position). Dissociation is an essential skill related to footwork too. Left and right feet should function independently without interference in different movement/rhythm patterns.

To develop this footwork and coordination skills, our tennis programs have to allocate time to agility ladder programs, stepping exercises, aerobic step platforms or any other type of exercises that focuses on rhythm, control and dissociation of our player’s footwork.

Explosive first step

To be fast and powerful to start the movement is not only a matter of power and strength. Our players need to master the “split step” and its different variations (split step from one or two feet, static or in motion). It is crucial to learn how to recruit

elastic energy from the split step and transform it into movement. Not all players can do this naturally, but the reactiveness is trainable.

Tennis programs need to have basic physical exercises to develop this reactiveness, skipping rope exercises as an example are highly effective for that. Plyometric exercises suitable to the age of the player are also important (small hurdles, cones, jump boxes…).

Change of direction

Our players have to be able to stop and start the movement with balance and efficiency. They must develop a wide base and a low center of gravity. They have to master the different techniques available: change direction from a slide, from a mogul step, from a pivot step…

The change of direction is crucial in tennis after running to a shot, when the player has to then recover to the middle position on the court. Change of direction in recovery is quite often a neglected movement skill in tennis.

Our programs should have basic exercises like cone touches and more specific recovery exercises with shadow swings or racket and ball.

Connection with the ball

Perception, space and trajectory awareness are a key part of an efficient and accurate movement. When we work on all the movement skills, we should not work on them only in isolation; a big part of the exercises have to be connected to tracking an object. Reaction and anticipation components should be mixed in the movement exercises (reacting to signals…).

We could also argue Set Up and Release skills are part of the movement skill set of a player, (stances, striking, balance transfer…). However I prefer to separate them from the pure movement and consider them more within the Striking skills.

In conclusion, the development of movement skills has to have an important role in any serious competitive tennis program. As tennis coaches, we need to learn and understand the key specific movement skills needed in tennis and include suitable activities in our tennis lessons to develop them.

Cinto Casanova is the Head Physical Trainer and Senior Elite Tennis Coach at Sakurada Club in Tokyo. He has held leading positions in Junior Player Development for over two decades in Japan, China and Spaiin. He has helped to develop top junior programs that produced successful national and international junior players. He may be reached at rc.cinto@gmail.com.

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