Teaching younger, talented children.

[kenknight]

I wasn't sure where to put this thread, please move it if necessary. But...

I'm only a high school junior varsity player, rated a low 4.0 by several experienced pros. However, I was asked by my family to help my younger brother learn how to play tennis. He's 7 years old. He's extremely athletic, and...as much as I hate to say it, probably will end up far better than me. He's picked up a racket a couple times, and in terms of natural finesse is already excellent.

Actually, I'm overjoyed that I'm able to teach somebody. But...how? What should I start him with? What should I focus on?

I'm planning to just see how he picks up the racket, and I'll just have him use his natural grip. Which...actually, I'm limiting to Eastern or Semi-Western. Western and he'll limit his game (if he hopefully pursues an allcourt game, the western grip will limit his versatility), and Continental and he won't be able to handle the extreme topspin and pace.

If he picks it up otherwise, I'll try to adjust accordingly. i.e. Western to SW, Continental to Eastern.

And...do I start him off with a one handed BH or two handed? He's got an athletic build, and probably wouldn't have any problems with stability on one handed. I'm not really sure though. Do I explain both to him and have him choose?

This is a long post, but I'm just desperate for information. For the first few weeks or so, at the local tennis club, I'm just going to teach him basic strokes and feed balls to him from the baseline and net, starting with a straight backswing on groundstrokes. I hope I can work out any basic flaws in form on the court.

But after that (and I'm not sure if that's what I should do during that time), I have no idea how to teach him. While we have a tennis club close to our home, there really aren't many experienced teachers. To find an experienced one that isn't fresh out of high school, we'd have to drive far away. Our clubs merely offer small, junior beginner programs which mostly train hand-eye coordination and basic skills. I don't want to limit my brother, who already has these and would be put in with four year olds starting the game.

So most of the teaching pretty much falls on me. Thanks for any feedback.

[johnyandell]

Ken,

Sorry to be slow in responding--yeah in the future it's best to put your questions for me in that section. But also I was thinking about everything you asked. What you are really asking for is a complete blueprint for developing a player and I think that goes a little beyond the scope of the Forum--it probably includes most of the stuff on the site though...

At age 7 you've got a lot of time and I wouldn't get too stressed about it although I agree with you on the range of grips. I'd also just take it slow, have fun and try both backhands. Remember Sampras had a two-hander til he was 14.

The main thing is the fun part--you can't program a 7 year old to be a champion. He'll be as good as he is, pretty much no matter what you do. Concentrate of doing things that you both like, and ENJOY the time on the court. I've seen kids go thru amazing total transformations in their strokes from age 7 to 10, or 10-12, or 12-14, well you get the point. Overstressing the technique now is not going to make him love tennis.

And I wouldn't just feed him balls. Rally and play rally games and take your cues from the kid. At the point that he can hit all the strokes, you might want to video him and start to (gently) correct gross technique errors.

Finally--you will want to get him a coach if he moves further along and starts to play competitively. But that's in the future. Sounds like you are feeling too much pressure--I'd try to let go of some of that. Hope this helps and feel free to write again.

[kenknight]

Thanks for the reply, don't worry about slow responses.

I DO need to try to keep it fun, my brother won't ever be good if he doesn't even want to play or improve. I've already started trying to find other kids or friends he has his age to play tennis with him, I'm sure he won't concentrate on actually improving and "beating the competition" if he doesn't have friends there with him.

I had the opportunity today to introduce him to basic groundstrokes, for about three hours. He liked it, so he didn't mind the time.

He's started with a mild SW grip or extreme Eastern on his forehand, whatever you want to call it. I think that's great, it'll give him a lot of options without any weaknesses. I personally started with a Western, and was advised to change to SW later on. I'm glad I switched.

On backhands, I explained both types briefly (I didn't want to bore a 7 year old), and showed him the basic strokes of each. The results were surprising. The moment he tried a two hander, he immediately said it felt awkward, and after trying to hit a couple balls with it, I think gave up immediately.

On the other hand, when given a one handed backhand, he absolutely loved it. I'm not even sure how, it normally takes most people a lot of time to develop backhands, let alone love it right after gripping it. He just said it felt more natural which is good. When fed a couple balls to see how it'd work out, EVERYTHING clicked for him. I gave him a couple pointers on rotation and bending his knees, and it's looking BEAUTIFUL.

When trying and testing them out over the next couple hours (I was still completely amazed), the seven year old was hitting clean, crisp shots with a bit of natural topspin. I'm definitely not going to say it looked like a pro's stroke, but right from the getgo, it's pretty amazing.

He's stepping into the ball, taking it as early as possible (he thinks it's more fun this way, and I couldn't be happier), and simply using his entire body in the shot.

We're going to try to develop this, he's just happy to blast balls back right now. His forehand definitely isn't close to his backhand right now, but it's better than mine was when I started. However, he started trying to use his wrist to generate more power, I'm going to work on that later. Still great for just starting.

I haven't incorporated any spin or volleys yet, and I don't plan on spin for a while. I'm going to try to keep it as basic as possible, and hope this stops him from developing a huge infatuation with topspin. However, I will test him at the net next week.

Thanks for the response!

[johnyandell]

Sounds like fun to me. Taking the ball early on the one-handed backhand at age 7--that's pretty interesting...

[kenknight]

It's great to watch. Granted, he isn't hitting every single ball successfully right on the rise, but even extremely advanced players have problems with that. He's also getting a pretty good percentage in, and it'll only improve. It's a game for him, the challenge of hitting close to the bounce, so it's kinda fun. That's the best way, I figure.

I collected numbers for a brief time yesterday in an effort to figure out what to work on for the next couple weeks. I had him take 20 strokes down the line, and 20 crosscourt from different places on the court. I played on the other end, so it'd be a sort of competition. On the few balls that weren't as great as normal, I played them back until the "point" was over. I'm not planning to put them away yet, I'd rather not ruin his enthusiasm.

Backhand:
% in DTL: 90% % "good" shots (my opinion):75%
% in xcourt: 80% % "good" shots:65%

Forehand:
% in DTL: 75% % "good" shots: 10%

Some didn't look bad, but were way too wristy. I didn't count those.

% in xcourt: 85% % "good" shots: 10%


Ah sorry, I just wanted some numbers. We don't really have any video cameras, but I'll be trying to find one. I'll post a video if I ever can.

Thanks for reading this by the way, it's kind of turning into more of a log of the guy's progress. I'll limit my posting more. x.X

[johnyandell]

Post away! That's fine. I'd just be careful about letting the kid know at this point you are keeping counts--maybe he'd like it a little later on...it just seems like a bit much at age 7...

Someone around tennis in your area will have a camera!

[kenknight]

I've been hitting with him and finding beginning opponents during the first two weeks he's been playing.

So far, instead of most people, he's running around his forehand to hit his backhand. Which is a little awkward compared to everything else, but it's fine. We spent an hour working on that, and getting him to turn the the side and backpedal for the stroke.

He likes playing at the net, and is moderately tall for his age. His backhand volleys tend to be better than his forehand volleys. I'm beginning to work on a backhand slice with him, as in drills and "matches" against me, he approaches the net frequently. I usually hit to his backhand to give him confidence, and he usually moves forward to the net after the linear momentum gained from the 1HB.

He looks like an allcourt player so far. His forehand balls tend to be short, landing around the T constantly. I'm trying to get him to push out through the ball as much as he can, but if he gets slightly frustrated I stop immediately. Should I push this? Or is it too much to expect from a seven year old? His forehand is inconsistent as well.

And...when do I introduce serves? It's only been two weeks, and I don't want to rush things more than anything else. I'm already pushing it as is. Even if he's tall for his age, seven year olds aren't very tall. He might get frustrated from his lack of reach.

However, trying serves now might be good to force him to use full extension. Or eventually, in the months to come, would a jump serve be efficient? I don't know if he'd take to it, but would you know anything about jump serves?

Thanks for listening.

[johnyandell]

Sounds like you are on track. Just keep doing more of everything and I would agree about the not pushing. Forget about the jump serve--that's crazy. Try to get a good racket drop and extension like you said--and if he can do the motion at all try getting him to a continental grip as quickly as possible.

[CraigC]

Ken-

Teach your little brother a crossover step instead of a backpedal, to get to the inside out position. It's much more efficient, and much more professional. Training proper movement in the youngsters is going to help with their balance and stroke production later on. Best of luck with the little guy.

[kenknight]

Craig, thanks very much! I'll be sure to pass it on.

I'll try to give an update on his progress while I'm posting.

It's been about three months since he started. Not too much new, but he's developing. In his backhand, he's using a normal eastern backhand grip comfortably without anybody asking him to. He still hits wonderful backhands, but hits every single one of them flat. They look great, and are going in for the most part. But I'm afraid that when he gets older and more powerful, all those same great deep balls will turn into long balls. There's the small bit of slight topspin (of course, it's impossible to be completely flat, but his is still pretty low), but as he has fun with it it's getting flatter and flatter.

Would it be good to work on adding a bit of topspin on it? It's only been three months, he's having fun, I'm not sure I should change anything. But working on "dipping" the racquet head with a little more low to high shouldn't hurt much. Or are the flat shots fine?


As for the forehand, it's been good. He likes to whack the ball, but its strange how he naturally doesn't flail at it. He still pulls up really early, but I'm not complaining for how long he's doing. He's more comfortable on the backhand.

Everything else is pretty normal for his age. Volleys are fine, he likes the "punching" analogy. Guaranteed it's not great (haven't heard of many great 8 year old volleyers), but it should come along and he has fun there.

I guess my major new question is whether I should let him stick with completely flat backhands.

Thanks again.

[acik24]

Flat or Topspin backhands

Hi Ken

Two rules I have when I coach is to nag the pupil to turn sideways as soon as they know where the ball is heading and second if your shots go consistently long or short, then experiment with grip changes.

Start with small ones first.

Also two books I use which provide excellent drills are Tennis Tatics by the USTA and Tennis Practice Games by Joe Dinoffer. They help me a lot.

Keep up your good work

Louis Gunn