Tennis practice at home: how to practise alone

What transfers from home to the court, and what does not

Tennis has two halves. One is the ball: reading it, moving to it, timing it. That half needs a court, a partner or a ball machine. The other half is the stroke itself: the turn, the contact point, the finish, the split step before it and the recovery after. That half is entirely yours. It is also what most club players get wrong, and it can be trained on any patch of floor big enough to swing in.

Practising tennis alone at home is for the second half. The aim is to arrive at your next session with the movement automatic, so the court time goes on the ball instead of the swing.

Shadow swings: the core of practising alone

A shadow swing is a full stroke without a ball, at match speed, from a split step. Every coach prescribes it. Most players do it badly, usually by doing it slowly. The full stroke-by-stroke breakdown, with the cue to watch for on each, is in the complete guide to shadow swing drills; the short version for a home session:

• Forehand and backhand, 15 each. Unit turn, contact in front of the front hip, finish over the shoulder and hold it.
• Serve, 15. The whole motion including the toss arm. With an imaginary ball the toss is never wrong, so every rep grooves the right shape.
• Volleys, 20 alternating. No backswing, step across, racket head above the wrist.
• Serve + 1, 10. Serve, land, split, forehand. The most common two-shot sequence in the game.

Cue for all of them: a small hop before every rep. A stroke that starts from standing still only works when the ball comes to you.

Wall hitting

A garage door, a brick wall or a rebounder is the closest thing to a partner you can own, and unlike a partner it never wants to play points. Stand about four metres away and rally with yourself: forehands only, then backhands only, then alternate. Aim for a line at net height; a strip of tape works. The wall returns faster than a person, so it also trains preparation.

Indoors, a foam ball or a "stage one" red ball against a bare wall is quiet and slow enough to keep going. Nobody is pretending a foam ball off plasterboard is tennis. It keeps the eye and the timing awake between sessions, which is the whole job.

Two wall drills worth the time: volley wall, one metre from the wall, no bounce, as many as you can without missing; and hand catch, throw against the wall and catch with the racket face, which trains soft hands better than anything else.

Footwork drills for a corridor

• Split step and go. Hop, land, move to one of four corners called by a timer or a partner, recover to the middle. Thirty seconds on, thirty off, four rounds.
• Side shuffles. Two markers four metres apart, shuffle between them without crossing the feet. Twenty touches.
• Crossover recovery. Lunge wide to a forehand, crossover step back to the centre. Ten each side. Club players skip this step. It is why they get passed on the next ball.
• Ladder or tape ladder. Two feet in each box, then one, then lateral. Three minutes.

Serve practice without a court

The serve is the only shot you fully control, and the only one you can practise alone in its entirety. Three parts, each trainable indoors:

• Toss. Stand under a light or a mark on the ceiling and toss so the ball would peak just in front of it; catch it without moving your feet. Fifty tosses a day fixes more serves than any other drill.
• Trophy position. Hold the position with the tossing arm up and the racket back for five seconds, ten times. For most people the serve problem is balance, and this finds it.
• Full shadow serve. With the racket if the ceiling allows, otherwise your phone held like the grip. Edge leads, face turns into the ball at the last moment, land inside the baseline.

Tennis fitness in fifteen minutes

Legs for the first step, core for the turn, shoulder for the serve. Three rounds, a minute's rest:

• 12 squats, 10 lateral lunges each side, 20 calf raises
• 30-second plank, 15 Russian twists each side (the unit turn)
• 15 shoulder external rotations each arm with a band, elbow pinned to the ribs, the cheapest injury insurance in the sport
• 10 wrist curls and 10 reverse wrist curls with a light weight, for the forearm that takes the shock

A 20-minute plan for practising alone

Keeping yourself honest

The risk of practising alone is that nobody tells you the swing was bad, and after a week of that you have a very confident bad swing. A mirror catches the shape. A wall catches the timing. Neither catches the wrist release, the moment the racket head overtakes the hand through contact, which is the difference between a stroke that looks right and one that would actually hit the ball well. A phone held like the grip can feel that release with its motion sensors and sound the hit only when it happened; a stiff, pushed swing stays silent.