Beginner training plan
Your first lessonwe will first fix racket positioning, form and stance when playing, and other fundamental components that affect every other part of your technique. then we will practice dinking and getting comfortable with racket-to-ball coordination. dinking is perfect for that because it’s close up and easy to get used to. i find that students get way better quicker with aim and accuracy with dinking. (note, this is all practiced on one side of the court for now).
Lesson 2-3once you get a hang of dinking, we will work our way farther out from the kitchen. normally i will keep my students at the kitchen while i move to the baseline and they will practice sending the ball farther into my side of the court to keep me back or block my drives. and then vice versa—have them work on drives and drops while i keep them back and block their drives. (again, keeping all on one side of the court for now)
Lesson 4-10once you get a hang of that, now you will try to approach the kitchen line from the baseline as i try to keep you back. this will help students get a sense of how to gain advantage on the court by taking control of the kitchen. once that’s complete, now both sides will start from the baseline and try to approach the kitchen. we can then play this as a game to 11, similar to a singles game but only on one side of the court.
Lesson 11+now we will incorporate the other side of the court. we will first practice how to properly shuffle horizontally on the court. then we will practice dinking cross court and work on playing the ball diagonally. then we will play a singles game as i introduce other strategies for game sense like the triangle theory, keeping feet planted (as the ball approaches) for control, aggressive/offensive playing like smashes, and other techniques that apply pressure to the opponent. then we will eventually start playing singles games and talk about how to incorporate your skills as a singles player into a doubles game to finish off lessons.
