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Description

Warm up while perfecting your tennis technique and learning the rules of the game.

Resources

Something to mark lines (for example, chalk, masking tape, or rope)
Cones (optional)
Tennis balls
Small boxes

Instructions

Setting up the areas
-In one area of the space mark out one half of a tennis court, as drawn above, using chalk, masking tape, or rope. Make sure it isn’t a trip hazard. This is for the ‘Line time’ drill.
-In another area of the space, create a winding path using cones or chalk. These should be spaced quite closely together so that people have to use good footwork skills to navigate through them. This is for the ‘Weave your way’ drill.
-Split your remaining space in half by marking out a line in the middle using chalk, masking tape, or rope. This is for the ‘Box the bounce’ drill.
-This activity works best when the three bases are run at the same time.

Get ready to play
-Everyone should split into three groups.
-Each group should go to a different base and complete the activity.
-After 5–10 minutes, the person leading the activity should tell everyone when to move on and complete their second and third base.

Line time
-Everyone should start the game outside of the half court marked on the ground.
-The person leading the game should explain what each part of the court is called and when it’s used.
-There’s plenty of information to help you explain below.
-Check that everyone understands the court by standing on different lines or in different spaces and asking everyone to call out the name of the place they’re standing.
-When everyone is confident with how the court is labelled, call out a line or space name. Everyone should stand on or in it.
-The person leading the game should continuing calling out different lines or spaces until it’s time to move on.

Weave your way
-Everyone should line up behind the first cone or marker.
-The person leading the game should call out a way of moving, such as ‘jogging’, ‘hopping’, ‘walking backwards’ or ‘side shuffling’.
-The first person in line should begin weaving through the path of cones or markers using that movement.
-After the first player has moved at least several metres, the second player start weaving through the path. Remind everyone to stay a safe distance apart as they do this, so no-one bangs into each other or trips up.
-The person leading the game should change the way of moving regularly.
-Everyone should continue playing until they’ve weaved through the path two or three times.

Box the bounce
-Everyone should get into pairs.
-One half of each pair should stand on one side of line, and the other person in the pair should stand opposite them, on the other side of the line.
-Each player should get their own box, such as a shoebox, empty square food packaging, or a plastic container.
-Each pair should get one ball. You could use tennis balls, soft balls, ping pong balls, or whatever you have access to. Think about whether they’ll be easy to clean.
-The person leading the activity game should call out different ways for pairs to throw and catch their ball, such as ‘right-handed’, ‘left-handed’, ‘both hands’ or ‘overhead’.
-One member of the pair should throw the ball over the line and the other half of the pair should try to catch it within one bounce.
-In tennis, players have a maximum of one bounce of the ball on their side of the net to return it to their opponent’s side.
-The catcher should throw the ball back over the net so their partner can have a turn at catching it in their box.
-Everyone should continue repeating steps five to seven until it’s time to move on.

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