The Secret to "Moving your Feet"!

Footwork is one of the most strutinized parts of the game but one that is not understood very well. Coaches often tell their players “Move your Feet” but what does this prase really mean? This will be one of many blogs describing various parts of footwork patterns. One statement that we use in ACE is “Contact point determines everything in tennis”. People bring up various points of other technical and tactical skills that they think preceeds contact point but after an explination that might be short or long, most people understand the importance of the Contact Point. Forehands and Backhands have Contact Zones but we want to look at what is the perfect contact point. While hitting a forehand we want to see players make contact at chest level. Backhands on the other hand should have a contact point at belly button height. These contact points allow players to drive but yet apply enough topspin on the ball to keep it in the court. Coaches can simply tell a player to hit the ball at chest or belly button high and players will follow suit. They will not focus on footwork patterns or various other factors that will causes paralyzis by analyzis but rather one simple concept. Try it! Have your players only focus on chest and belly button and notice the difference in their movement. With our younger players and sometimes our older ones we take the rackets out of hands and play tennis throwing the ball and having them move to the oncoming ball catching it at the perfect contact point. So when teaching your players footwork, don’t say “Move your feet”, but rather “Chest”, “Belly Button”!