A guide to Walking Tennis - including the rules and tips for playing
Walking tennis is a fun variation on tennis that anyone can enjoy – including older players and people with limited mobility. Now an official LTA product, it is sweeping tennis clubs across the UK. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you get playing today…
What is walking tennis?
Walking tennis is a version of tennis that’s designed to be accessible for all. It’s still tennis – but with a few simple modifications: you can’t run or jump; you use slightly different balls, and you can let the ball bounce twice for extra time.
Like other increasingly popular walking sports, such as walking football and walking rugby, it can be purely social. Or it can be pretty competitive, and a great way for people to keep playing the sport they love for longer.
For older people, walking tennis is a perfect game to take up to keep their bodies and minds active – while also enjoying the social side of being part of a tennis community.
Modified forms of tennis have been played for years, but the officially recognised Walking Tennis, registered as an LTA product, was created by Helen Abbott and Peter Coniglio in Bristol, England in 2019.
Who can play walking tennis?
Walking Tennis is for anyone who wants to play tennis, but at their own pace. It’s ideal for:
People who used to play tennis but have had to stop, perhaps due to injury or age-related mobility issues
Absolute beginners. For those who have never played tennis before, the easier pace can help to build racket skills. Many players even find their fitness and skills improve so much they move into playing full tennis.
Regular tennis players who are recovering from an injury - walking tennis is a great way to build up strength gradually after an injury or operation, or when recovering from a condition such as tennis elbow.
People who are looking to get more active - it’s a fun and relatively gentle way in to exercise.
Anyone who wants to play an interesting, challenging sport at their own pace.
If you are thinking of organising a walking tennis session at your club, see the article Setting up a Walking Tennis group at your club - 9 practical tips.
Walking tennis rules
The great thing about walking tennis is that most of the rules are exactly the same as normal tennis. So it has the same scoring system with games, sets and so on, with just two key differences:
1) No running or jumping
Sometimes it can be very tempting to run, but if you do then you lose the point.
Now, often there’s a fine line between running and fast walking. But you can follow the definition used in walking races: one foot must be in contact with the floor at all times.
A good word that walking tennis players use is ‘stride’ - a swift, positive stride across the court can cover a surprising amount of ground!
2) Two bounces
The ball can bounce twice, but the second bounce must be within the court, otherwise the shot is out.
So think of the second bounce in walking tennis as you do the first bounce in normal tennis. (This makes it different to wheelchair tennis, where the second bounce can be outside the court.)
The tramlines are in for doubles but out for singles, just as in normal tennis.
For serves, the first bounce must be inside the service box, but the second bounce just needs to be in the court (the doubles court for doubles, or the singles court for singles). (NB - most players do underarm serves – there’s no stigma attached to it in walking tennis!)
…And that’s it!
Walking tennis equipment
Walking tennis uses orange tennis balls - the same kind used for Stage 2 juniors. The gentler bounce is just right for walking tennis, giving players time to get to the ball and preventing too many shots sailing out on the second bounce. Orange balls are also lighter, so good for anyone with wrist problems or recovering from tennis elbow, for example.
Normal rackets are fine, but some players who suffer from issues with their wrists may prefer to use a light junior racket.
Wear shoes appropriate for the surface.
Playing walking tennis
Like all forms of tennis, walking tennis can be played very competitively (playing a match), very cooperatively (keeping a rally going), or somewhere in between (‘having a hit’).
A few practical tips:
Play doubles – Although walking tennis can be played happily as a singles game, it’s most enjoyable as a doubles game. If you have odd numbers, ‘American doubles’ (two versus one) works surprisingly well.
Have more balls in use than you might for normal tennis – retrieving and picking up balls tends to be more effortful and slow for walking tennis players, so having plenty of orange balls in use will speed things along.
Play sudden death deuce – rallies tend to be pretty long, so if you want to get a full set or match into your booked court time it’s a good idea to play a sudden death point at 40-40 rather than deuce (the receiving team chooses which side the server goes from).
Be sensible about calling out ‘running’ – accusing your opponent of running can be a little contentious, so as in all forms of club tennis with no umpires, it’s incumbent on everyone to be fair, honest and sensible. There’s a fine line between a fast stride and a run. It’s probably best left to the runner to confess rather than the opponent to call it (a bit like double-bounces and faint racquet-touches in normal tennis).
Playing tips - Adapting your game to walking tennis
Absolute beginners who’ve never played normal tennis do have one advantage over experienced players: they don’t have any tennis habits to unlearn.
For those adapting to walking tennis, there are a few things you’ll soon realise…
Slice is more useful than topspin. The big challenge for experienced tennis players when adapting to walking tennis is that the second bounce must be within the court. That means that all their best flat or topspin shots become liabilities as the second bounce will sail long and be called out. So subtlety, slice, clever placement and delicate drop shots tend to be rewarded more than power shots.
No man’s land is actually a good place to be. Another thing you’ll soon discover, playing with lighter balls and less power-hitting, is that the usual starting position just behind the baseline isn’t right for walking tennis. Since you can’t run to get drop shots, you’ll be in big trouble if you’re too far back.
Generally the best place to be - and this applies to both players in a doubles pair - is in ‘no man’s land’, halfway between the service line and baseline. And because the ball is out if the second bounce is long, powerful players can’t easily blast the ball past you and win the point.
There’s no shame in underarm serving. It’s pretty hard to hit aces in walking tennis so there’s no great advantage to overarm serving, except perhaps a really wicked slice serve. In most games you’ll play, the serve is really just a way of getting the rally started, so underarm serving is absolutely fine – and of course is great for beginners as it reduces the chance of double faults.
So what’s stopping you? Give it a go and you may be suprised at just how much fun walking tennis is!
See also:
Setting up a Walking Tennis group at your club - 9 practical tips.
Talking Tennis with… Helen Abbott, inclusive tennis champion and co-founder of Walking Tennis
