This page offers a checklist of the skills you need to be a good tennis player. This list is a good starting point. I am sure you can come up with other skills that could contribute to your success as a tennis player. Many players spend most of their time playing practice sets. Very little time is spent on practicing specific skills. The road to more efficient improvement is to identify the areas of the game that are challenging to you and devise ways to isolate and practice these skills until you have mastered them.
You might be comfortable standing at the middle of the baseline and rallying, but when moving forward to hit slow balls, your game might crumble.
Systematically work through each skill until you have gained proficiency. If you can successfully execute all the skills on this page, you are on your way to success.
This is a long list. One way to figure out exactly what to focus on is to video yourself playing and study the patterns in the video: where you excel, where you falter, and what positions in the court and which kinds shots from your opponent give you the most trouble.
Are there other skills you think should be on this list? I would love to hear from you and I will add them.
- Hitting Gently (Short Court, Absorbing the Speed of the Ball)
- Hitting Groundstrokes From a Static Position
- Directional Hitting: Alternating Cross Court and Down-the-Line; Deep Shots and Tight Cross-Court Angles
- Changing Direction: Cross to Line; Line to Cross
- Inside-Out Forehand
- Inside-In Forehand
- Moving Forward to Hit a High Ball
- Moving Forward to Hit a Low Ball
- Recovery From Wide Balls, Deep Balls
- 12 Basic Footwork/Recovery Patterns
- Hitting on the Run (Forward, backward, lateral)
- Hitting on the Rise
- Creating Space on Balls Coming Right at You
- Taking pace off the ball
- Deploying Stroke Variety: Spin, Speed, Height, Depth
- Responding to Stroke Variety from your Opponent: Spin, Speed, Height, Depth
- Topspin Passing Shots
- Chip Passing Shots
- Drop Shots
- Approaching with Topspin
- Approaching with Chip or Slice
- Handling Moon Balls Off the Bounce
- Handling Moon Balls in the Air
- Defending from the Corners
- Consistency/”Grinding”
- Hitting from Multiple Positions in the Court
- Return a Drop Shot with a Drop Shot
- Return a Drop Shot with a Deep Shot
- Returning Hard Serves
- Returning (and Attacking) Easy/Second Serves
- Returning Kick Serves
- Returning Wide Serves
- Lob off the Return of Serve
- Hitting Easy Volleys from a Static Position
- Deep Volleys
- Low Volleys
- Drop Volleys
- Swinging Volleys
- Closing Volleys
- Volley on the Move
- Midcourt Volleys
- Half-Volleys
- Serve and Volley
- Serve with Power
- Serve with Slice
- Serve with Kick
- Serve to All Locations (Wide, Tee, Body on Both Ad and Deuce Courts)
- Static Overhead
- Backhand Overhead
- Jumping Overhead
- Retrieving Lobs Over Your Head
- Offensive Lobs
- Defensive Lobs