Marginal Gains: Enhancing Training and Practice

There is little developmental benefit in simply hitting balls back and forth. Unless you have the luxury of training full time, finding time to practice with all the other things that are going on in your life isn't always easy. Practice time is often precious and restricted, so making the very most of that time is important. Your practice should be purposeful, and tailored specifically to your individual game—the characteristics of which we have been helping you discover in the previous articles. There is little point spending 30 minutes hitting balls back and forth. You'll get some exercise and some enjoyment, but you won't be any better prepared for your next match. Instead set up scenarios that tick all the boxes of quality practice. This starts by doing work based on your top shot. Here is a simple game. Start a rally from the back and play out the point. But if you end the point by hitting a quality top shot you are awarded 3 points instead of 1. You don't get the 3 points if you hit your top shot defensively and the other player happens to make an unforced error. But if you hit your top shot...