Tennis drills alone: how to practice tennis by yourself

You can improve a large part of your game with no partner: your serve, your contact point, your footwork and your rally consistency. You cannot train reading a real opponent alone, so solo work adds to playing and does not replace it.

The main risk is hitting for 45 minutes with no way to tell whether anything changed. A review of tennis skill learning by Reid and colleagues warned that repetitive hitting and poorly structured play are both unlikely to give the best learning, and that players may benefit from more variable practice. So the drills below change the target often and keep a score.

What you can and cannot practice alone

Wall drills for tennis

Stand about 5 to 7 m (16 to 23 feet) from the wall and mark a line at 0.914 m (3 feet), the height of the net at the center. Use tape or chalk only where it is allowed. Hit above the line and let the ball bounce once. The goals are suggestions.

• Forehand count: forehands only. Goal: 20 in a row above the line. Write down your best of three tries.
• Backhand count: the same with backhands. Goal: 15 in a row.
• Alternate: forehand, then backhand, then forehand. Goal: 10 in a row.
• Two targets: put two marks about 2 m (6.5 feet) apart and hit them in turn. Score a point when the ball hits within an arm's length of the mark. Goal: 12 of 20.
• Close volleys: stand 3 m (10 feet) from the wall with a continental grip and let no ball bounce. Goal: 30 in a row.

If the rally always breaks after 4 or 5 balls, the wall is too fast for you. Hit softer and step back, which gives you more time. If each ball comes back lower than the last, aim higher on the wall.

Serve basket practice with targets

You can fully train the serve alone. The service box runs 6.40 m (21 feet) from the net to the service line and is 4.11 m (13.5 feet) wide, so towels or cones fit easily inside it as targets.

1. Take 30 to 40 balls to the baseline. Put a towel or cone in the outside corner of each service box and another near the center line.
2. Hit 20 first serves. Score 1 point for landing in the box and 2 points for landing within a racket's length of the target. Change the target and the side every 5 balls.
3. Play 10 two-serve "points": if the first serve misses, hit a second. Count your double faults.
4. Write down your score out of 40 and your double faults.

Catch any bad toss and start again. Under the Rules of Tennis, catching the toss is not a fault, so it is a good habit to practice. For what to look for in the motion itself, see how to improve your serve.

Shadow swings, drop feeds and line work

• Freeze at contact (10 per stroke): swing slowly and stop where you would hit the ball. Check on video, or in a window, that contact is in front of your body.
• Drop feeds (20 balls per stroke): drop the ball, let it bounce and hit it over the net. Score a point for every ball past the service line. Goal: 14 of 20.
• Shadow patterns (2 minutes): move from the center to a corner, shadow a swing, recover and repeat. Our footwork drills give you more patterns.

A 45-minute solo tennis session

This is a suggested session, so change the blocks to fit your goals. If you are short of time, do less: a 1985 study of novices learning the serve found that five 30-minute sessions worked as well as five 45-minute sessions.

With no wall, replace that block with drop feeds to targets. With no court, use the shadow and footwork work in any open space with room to swing safely.

How to use video when you practice alone

Video stands in for a partner watching from the side. Research on whether video feedback speeds up learning in tennis is mixed: two older trials on the serve found no added benefit compared with traditional training. What video plainly does is show you what you actually do, which may differ from what you feel.

1. Fix your phone on a tripod or fence clip before you start, using our filming guide.
2. Film one block and not the whole session. Five minutes is enough for one stroke.
3. Watch after the block and not after every ball, so that you keep your rhythm.
4. Check one thing only, such as where the ball is at contact or how far your toss drifts.
5. Use the same view next time, so that you can compare.

If you want a second view of the clip, TennisAI's AI video analysis scores the forehand, backhand and serve it finds. A stroke that is not in the clip shows as "Not in video" and is not scored, so film the stroke you care about. The feedback is an automated estimate that can be wrong, and results vary with video quality, camera angle and lighting.

How to tell if your solo practice is working

Keep one note on your phone with your wall counts, your serve score and your double faults for each session. Then use these rules:

• Score rises over three sessions: raise the goal or use a smaller target.
• Score stays flat over three sessions: change one thing, such as the target or your pace, or film it and look for a reason.
• Score falls late in the session: shorten the block and keep the quality high.
• Good alone, poor in matches: you need a partner for consistency drills and points.

If any drill causes pain, stop and see a professional.

See this in your own game

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This article is general information about tennis training and does not replace a coach or medical advice. Stop and see a professional if something hurts. TennisAI is made by Pace, the publisher of this blog.