Guides · Tennis
Shadow swing drills: the complete guide
The oldest drill in racket sports, done properly. What it is for, how to do it for every stroke, how to link strokes the way points do, and the part nobody tells you: how to know whether a shadow swing was any good.
What a shadow swing is, and why coaches keep prescribing it
A shadow swing is a full stroke with no ball: the same stance, the same turn, the same contact point and the same finish, at the speed you would use in a rally. Coaches have prescribed it for a century because it separates the one thing you control completely, the movement, from the thing you never fully control, the ball. In a rally you get maybe six forehands a minute and half of them arrive somewhere awkward. Shadow swinging, you get twenty a minute and every one arrives exactly where you want it.
That is also the problem with it. Repetition without feedback grooves whatever you happen to be doing, and most people doing shadow swings in a garage are grooving something slightly wrong. Every drill below therefore comes with a cue to watch for, and the last section is about how to know a shadow swing was a good one.
Setting up: space, racket and stance
- Space. One racket length clear all round, plus head height for overheads. A garage, a garden, a corridor with the doors shut, or a living room with the coffee table moved.
- Racket. Use your own whenever the ceiling allows: the weight is part of the timing you are grooving. Where you cannot, hold your phone like the grip and keep the full arm path; a bare hand is close to useless, because there is no mass at the end of the arm for the wrist to release.
- Ready position. Feet wider than the shoulders, knees soft, weight on the balls of the feet, racket in front at chest height. Every rep below starts with a small hop, the split step, because on court every shot does.
- Speed. Match speed. Slow down only for the two or three reps it takes to fix a shape problem, then bring it straight back up. A careful, pretty, slow swing rehearses the wrong timing.
The drills, stroke by stroke
Ten to fifteen reps per drill, one pass through, is about twelve minutes. Each drill has one cue. It is the thing a coach would actually shout across the court, and it is worth more than the paragraph above it.
Forehand
Unit turn first: shoulders and hips rotate together, racket comes back with them rather than being pulled back by the arm. Step in or load the back leg, then swing low to high with contact out in front of the front hip. Finish over the shoulder and hold it for a beat.
Cue: the non-hitting hand points at the ball during the turn and catches the racket at the finish. If it never leaves your side, you are arming the ball, and your shoulder will tell you about it in a year.
Backhand, one- or two-handed
Same turn, deeper: the back should face the net for a moment. Two hands: the top hand drives, the bottom hand guides. One hand: the off arm goes back the other way at contact to balance the swing. Contact further in front than the forehand, finish high.
Cue: chin on the front shoulder at the start of the swing. If you can see your back shoulder, you have not turned.
Serve
Full motion including the toss hand, with an imaginary ball: rock back, tossing arm up and straight, racket drops behind the back, legs drive, contact at full reach in front, land inside the baseline. This is, in my opinion, the best serve drill there is, for the simple reason that the toss cannot go wrong.
Cue: the racket edge leads to the ball; the face turns into it at the last moment. If the strings face the net all the way up, there is no pronation and no pace.
Volley
No backswing. Racket starts in front, moves forward a hand's width, and the step across does the rest. Alternate forehand and backhand volleys with a step each time; then hold the ready position for two seconds between reps, because at the net the waiting is the hard part.
Cue: racket head above the wrist. If it drops, the volley is in the net.
Slice
Racket taken back high, face slightly open, swing high to low and then through, so the finish is out in front and not down at your knees. The slice is a long stroke. Most club slices are chops, and they sit up.
Cue: finish with the racket pointing at the target, not the ground.
Overhead
Turn sideways immediately, non-hitting hand up at the imaginary ball, racket back in the throwing position, and hit up and out. Shuffle back three steps before each rep so you practise moving into it, not just swinging at it.
Cue: point at it before you hit it. No pointing hand means late setup.
Patterns: linking strokes the way points do
Single strokes build shape. Patterns build what happens between the strokes, which is where club points are actually lost. Three to run through, ten reps each:
- Serve + 1. Shadow serve, land, split step, forehand. The first ball after a serve is the most common shot in tennis and the most under-practised.
- Inside-out. Backhand, shuffle round it, forehand from the backhand corner. Trains the run-around footwork.
- Approach, volley, overhead. Forehand moving forward, split, volley, then three steps back into an overhead. The whole net game in one loop.
The sport-specific versions of these, and the strokes padel and pickleball add, are in padel training at home and the tennis guide, how to practise tennis alone at home.
The five mistakes that make shadow swings useless
- No split step. Starting from standing still trains a stroke that only works when the ball comes to you.
- Arm only. The shoulders and hips are not turning; the racket is being waved. Slow down and rotate.
- Contact too close. With no ball there is nothing to reach for, so contact drifts back to the hip. Pick a spot on the wall in front of you as the ball.
- Half speed. Slow, careful reps feel like practice and train the wrong timing.
- No finish. The follow-through is where the wrist releases. Cut it short and you groove a pushed, stiff stroke.
How to know a shadow swing was a good one
Every good groundstroke, serve and overhead shares one moment: the wrist releases the racket head through contact, so the head accelerates past the hand in the last few centimetres. A pushed, stiff swing never does that. It separates a stroke that looks right in the mirror from one that would actually hit the ball well, and you cannot feel the difference while you are doing it. That is the honest limit of shadow swinging, and it is why the drill has a reputation for being boring: without feedback, it is.
Three ways to check, in order of usefulness:
- A mirror or your phone's camera. Good for the big shape errors: turn, contact point, finish.
- A wall and a ball. The ball comes back or it does not. Slower, noisier, but honest.
- A sound at the release. A phone held like the grip can feel the release with its motion sensors and give a hit sound only when it actually happened. A swing without a release stays silent. Fifty swings become fifty answers instead of fifty guesses.
Questions
How many shadow swings should I do a day?
Fifty to a hundred, split across strokes, four or five days a week. Quality falls off after about fifteen minutes; stop before the pattern gets sloppy, because you are grooving whatever you do last.
Do shadow swings actually improve your tennis?
Yes, for the part of the stroke that is yours: turn, contact point, finish and the timing of the wrist release. They do not train reading the ball, so pair them with court time rather than replacing it.
Should I shadow swing with a racket or without?
With, whenever the ceiling allows. The racket's weight is what the wrist release is timed against; a bare hand teaches almost nothing. Where you cannot swing a racket, hold your phone like the grip and keep the full arm path.
How fast should a shadow swing be?
Match speed. Slow swings rehearse slow timing. Drop the speed only for the few reps it takes to fix a shape problem, then bring it back.