Crosscourt Rallies

by AJ Chabria

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Most good players incorporate crosscourt rallies into their drill repertoire. Just grab a practice partner and see how many shots in a row you can keep in play from deuce court to deuce court, and ad court to ad court. At a slow speed can you get to 20 in a row consistently? How about 30? Once you're in a groove, hit a little harder and see if you can keep a rally going to 30 shots.

It's great practice but even the most diligent
drill-seekers can get bored after a mere 10 minutes per side. You can step it up a notch or two and make crosscourt rallies more interesting, using the current world champion as an example. 

Kuerten is a truly gifted athlete, but a lot of his success is directly attributable to many long hours of practicing crosscourt groundies. This month's drill will get you a step closer to Guga-land.

The Set-up

Obviously, hitting deep - down the middle is a safe play, but for this drill, practice your angles. Rally crosscourt with a practice partner with three target zones in mind: (a) the deep corner, (b) the part of the sideline on either side of the side T and (c) the short area of the service box closest to the sideline. You should use chalk, tape or towels to mark off the three areas. Don't make it a habit to go for the sideline itself. 6 inches to 2 feet inside the line is as close as anyone should cut it, even the pros. Even 3 or 4 feet inside the line will pull your opponents off the court. Incidentally, a working knowledge of topspin forehands and backhands as well as slice backhands will help you with the control/accuracy aspects of this drill.

The Drill

Start by going for area (a), establishing some rhythm. After a couple of shots go for area (b). You will notice it will be nearly impossible to go for area 9c) off of your practice partner's
shots that land deep in area (a). Likewise, you should hit penetrating shots to area (a) to keep your opponent from running you off the court with an area (c) shot. Once your partner hits a ball in area (b), then you can go for a shot to area (c). If you're doing it right, this could turn into a battle of (b) and (c) shots until someone makes an error.

This drill will help you develop your control and consistency, while teaching where and when to go for damaging angles. The principle we are going on here is that an angle begets a greater angle. If you can get your opponent out of his/her comfort zone (while maintaining your position on the baseline), you will receive more mediocre shots in return and you can use these weak balls to to inflict real punishment. This is where Kuerten asserted his superiority over Agassi in Lisbon.

Play the points out, beginning with a moderate feed. Score by awarding three points for every point that ends with a clean winner. Also three points for an error forced by a shot in area (c), two points for an error in area (b) and of course, one point for any other error. Play to 21, then switch sides of the court (deuce/ad).

Add Variety and Approach the Net

The next logical progression to the drill is to add a more aggressive component - approaching the net when you force a weak ball that is not deep or sufficiently angled. If your practice partner's shot lands in the service box and you choose to approach off of it, the court becomes a full court and both players must cover it, like in singles. This variation will obviously discourage short central shots. It will demand that both players recover quickly between shots while forcing both players to work on down the line (or short-angled) approach shots. If the baseliner gets stuck out of position, the approach is often a clean winner. If he/she is ready and moves well to the ball, the attacker must be ready to make a volley into the open court for a winner. Use normal scoring.

Keep at this drill, and when you take these kinds of angles to the singles court, it'll open up all kinds of options down the line to the opposite corner. You'll be able to make the court feel absolutely huge to your opponents and smaller for yourself.

Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you thank about the Offense/Defense drill by emailing us here at TennisONE. 

Special Thanks to Dr. Paul Falvey for his help with this video.

Last Updated 2/15/01. To contact us, please email to: webmaster@tennisone.com

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