For anyone starting out, or a parent trying to help your youngster with this game, here are 3 basic principals that you can work on in your tennis practices.

The first one is margin for error.

So when rallying or practicing on your own, make sure that your, or your students, groundstrokes cross the net at a higher point.You can use a string and put it about 2 metres above the net, and make your shots go over the string.To practice that your shots are not too near the lines, try rallying, or just practice the stroke, and place a target down about 2 metres away from the lines.

Then you can work on the ability to hit the ball deep.

Practice either again on your own (by drop and hit practice) or with a friend, and try to rally so the ball keeps your partner outside the court- not using power but using the height that you practiced in the first drills.Rally and keep a score of how many you can play to each other with the ball not allowed to bounce insdie the service boxes - buddy drills.

Now work on consistancy....not risk

Using the previous practices, you can now work on your consistancy, which of course is the basic tactic in tennis - make your opponent make the error, or become so consistant, that your opponent has to take risks to beat you.

Let me know if you want any drills for this - just go to the link to my e-mail at the top of the frontpage.