Increase Your Tennis Fitness Level With 3 Easy Drills

• By Krsto Arsenijevic

Tennis tournaments usually require that players have a decent amount of fitness to endure long matches, or play multiple matches a few days in a row. Players should always keep up their overall fitness level if they want to endure the long rallies and excessive running in modern tennis. 

Preparation is very important in those marathon matches, especially in the late stages of a tournament. Here is a brief list of exercises to help you keep up your endurance on the court.

Drill #1: Sprintsints

Sprints – Regular, Backward, Shuffle

These 3 sprinting drills can be performed one by one, or you can do a set of each and repeat them until you get tired. The idea is to increase your speed in various situations. Sure, you can probably jog for miles, but these drills will help develop explosive moves and the ability to swap directions in a fraction of a second.

If you are on the tennis court you can use lines as a border for this exercise, or you can use two cones to mark the distance for your sprints.

Regular Sprint: Once you set up the distance with the cones, or choose your sprint distance otherwise, do a sprint from the starting point to the finish, and jog on your way back. Repeat this until you feel exhausted. Rest for a couple of minutes and proceed with the backward sprint.

Backward Sprint: Repeat the last drill in reverse this time to improve your backwards agility. This drill especially comes in handy for those lob situations. You will probably be able to do a lot more of backward sprints than the regular ones, so try to keep them at the same count. Repeat this exercise a few times, have some rest and proceed to the shuffle sprint.

Shuffle Sprint: This exercise will help in the long rallies from the baseline. For this drill you will need perform a set of three sideway shuffles from one cone to another, followed by a sprint to your starting position. After every set, change the direction of your shuffle and repeat the same number of times as your first two sprints.

Drill #2: Squat Jumpsumps

The squat jump exercise is very important if you wish to have strong legs, as well as maintain your overall fitness at an amazing level. You will be very grateful for this piece of advice when you notice how confident you became with groundstrokes and your serve. To perform this exercise, stand still with your legs at body width. You can experiment with a bit wider width of your legs, but only after you are comfortable with the exercise. Go slowly into the squat position, and try to stay in that position for a couple of seconds before jumping as high as you can. Keep your legs straight and focus your entire body on the landing, because this is where some injuries may occur. After you are back to the starting position, repeat the process until you feel exhausted, and make sure to rest between sets.

Drill #3: Jump RopeRope

Jumping over a rope might seem like a very basic exercise, but you will be amazed at how jumping rope will help you with other important elements of your game, such as footwork, speed, cardio and agility. You should be very careful with the duration of this exercise, and try to increase it gradually.  Try to develop different patterns of jumping, so that you would test out your reflexes.

Fitness is a very important aspect of tennis, and if you wish to improve it, you need to dedicate time apart from your game. If you want to win matches, you need to stay long enough on the court to show your best game. By performing multiple sprints, squat jumps and rope jumps on the training, you are likely to develop a better physical condition to complement your strokes and your strategy.