How to practice consistent cross-court rallying
At the amateur level you can win a lot of points just by consistently hitting accurate cross-court shots without making unforced errors. Here’s a simple game to play with a partner to help make your cross-court shots more reliable…
At club level, winning points is largely a matter of being more consistent than your opponent, making fewer unforced errors.
Hitting cross-court is the highest percentage shot in the game. You’re going over the lowest part of the net and have a larger area to aim at.
This is all explained in the post Smart tennis: why you should hit a lot more balls cross court.
So what’s the best way to practice cross-court accuracy? This is a fun game for two that forces you to consistently hit quality cross-court angles. The better you get at it, the harder the challenge - i.e. the target shrinks!
How to play:
You and your partner have a target each (a water bottle is good).
To begin with, both place your targets on the centre-line in between the service line and the baseline T at your respective ends (Figure A below)
Choose your cross-court to practice (i.e. the right or left side) and between the bottle and the inside tramline of that side is your target area.
Now play rallies cross-court, using only your outside shot (i.e. for right-handers, forehand on the Deuce court; backhand on the Deuce court for lefties). Your goal is to hit 10 consecutive shots between you within one rally in the target area. If one of you misses, you start over again from zero.
Once the 10 have been hit, stop the rally and move the target one racket-length from the centre-line towards the relevant tramline, so the target area is now smaller (Figure B).
Repeat - and keep making the target area smaller, one racket-length at a time, until you’re down to the final one (Figure C). Then change sides.
Variations:
Use the tramlines if you’re practising for doubles
Adjust the number of consecutive shots you need to make, to make it challenging but achievable for your ability.
To make it easier, the shots don’t need to be consecutive. So if you miss the target area but the ball is in, you can carry on counting from where you left off, rather than starting from zero.
What you’ll get:
Practice at hitting angles consistently
Build up your ability to hit the ball exactly where you want
Mental resilience - you’ll have to overcome your annoyance and frustration at having to start over again (which is a great trait to have for match players)
A good measure of how your cross-court accuracy is improving
Teamwork - and dealing with frustrations with your partner
This version is for two players, but you can easily do a one-player version where only one of you has a target area - for example, with a coach.
See also:
How to cut down on double faults
How to practice your second serve consistency
Mastering the contact point: How to read the ball and get in the perfect position to hit it
Lizzie Flint is a writer and a practicing level 3 LTA professional tennis coach.