Summer ‘25 week five

Last week we devoted our sessions to developing elementary backhand skills, and the children did exceptionally well. So, with basic backhand knowledge under the children’s belt, the coaches worked on backhand variance; the coaches focused their sessions around hitting cross-court and down-the-line. 

On Monday, the coaches reminded the children of everything that we worked on, and tested how well they remembered everything with simple backhand drills. The backhand proved to be a little tougher than the forehand for the kids to remember, so we spent the remainder of the session practicing backhand basics. We focused the remainder of the week on varying backhand shots. On Tuesday, we worked on down-the-line backhands. We worked with them to hit these shots with significant net clearance (about 1.5 feet). Moreover, we enticed the kids to hit the ball beyond the service line by setting up various targets for them to hit. We repeated the same process on Wednesday, but focused on cross-court shots, instead of down-the-lines. Additionally, we instructed the kids to aim to contact the outside of the ball in order to hit it cross court. Then, to end the week, we combined the two in a four ball drill, during which kids alternated between cross-court and down-the-line backhands. 

The children gave their best efforts, despite the high-level of the drills relative to their respective skill-levels and playing abilities. And we look forward to helping them retain the shots that they have learned.