4 essential tennis drills for pros

If you're a tennis teaching pro or learning to be one, check out four of the most essential drills for tennis pros to know.

King of the court is a drill that is easy to play with big groups, and it allows players to practise point play. Begin by lining all the players up on one side of the court except for one, who is alone on the opposite side of the court, and who is deemed the "king of the court." Feed a ball to the person in line, and let them play a point. If the king wins, he gets a point. If he loses, the person in line does not win a point, but gets to come over and replace the king of the court. The first player to get 11 points, wins.

One extremely important drill for players to develop their service accuracy is hit-the-cones. To do the drill, set up cones in the corners of each service box along one side of the court. Then, have players serve and try to hit over the cones. Every time a player hits a cone, he gets a point, and must run over and set up the cone again (while the other players stop serving for a moment). At the end of the drill — usually the last 10 minutes of the clinic — the person with the most points wins.

A simple but effective drill for teaching players to be aggressive and come into the net is the approach and volley drill. Have players line up in two lines along the baseline. Feed one of them a forehand and one of them a backhand. Feed each of them an approach shot; then, have each of them come in and hit a volley. If the players are more advanced, feed each of them an overhead after the volley, then have them switch lines.

A standard tennis conditioning drill involves running the lines of the court in order to improve stamina and speed. Have all the players line up along the doubles sideline of a side of the court, facing the opposite doubles side line. Have them run to the singles service line and touch it, then back to the doubles side line and touch it. Then have them run to the centre service line and touch it. Then run back to the doubles side line and touch it. Have them repeat each line of the court until they've touched the opposite doubles sideline and come back. Make it more competitive by having the last player to finish run it again.