Hey everyone, Simon here with Top Tennis Training, and in this video
I'm going to show you a few of the main footwork patterns that everyone should master for tennis.
Now some of these are very basic and some of them are more advanced but it's important that you know
all of them and you work on them so that you can start getting to wider balls so you can
start feeling more imbalanced and so that you can start moving like your favorite tennis players
so the first step and the most important step in tennis
when it comes to footwork and movement is the split step
now you may be thinking well I already know about a split-step but how often do
you actually go out and work on your split step how often do you focus on making sure
that you're timing your split step correctly and you're using the split step in the correct way
so what exactly is a split step so whenever my opponent makes contact with the ball
i want to be doing a little split step like this now there are different variations
it will depend on where you are in the court the situation where your opponent is so you'll
have different variations of the split step but the foundation is simply having your feet around
one and a half to two shoulder widths apart and being on the balls of your feet so instead of
being on your heels i'm now lifting the heels off the ground and i'm on my balls off the feet
now the split step will allow you to push off in any direction so whenever my opponent makes
contact i have no idea where they're going i might assume that they might go down the line i might
be thinking that they might go cross court but i really don't know until they actually make contact
so in order for me to be balanced and be able to push off to my forehand side
to my backhand side to a short ball or going back for a deep ball i need to be balanced
and centered and the split step is that base so i'm in that ready position here
and as my opponent makes contact i'm doing a little jump
now before we go any deeper into the lesson if you're serious about improving your game
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now later on in the video i'll show you a simple drill to help you improve your split step
but let's move on to the next step so the next step is the side shuffle so side shuffle
is simply when i'm facing the net or when i'm moving to a ball i use this side shuffle step
i can go in any direction i can go forward and backward using this side shuffle so if i'm going
back for a deep forehand i can do this if i'm coming forward for a short forehand i can do this
from recovering from a forehand i can do this step if i'm hitting a backhand
i can do this step now the side shuffle step is mainly used in two situations the first one
when you don't have very much distance to move back or forward to a forehand or back end you
can use that side shuffle step so if i'm in the middle if my opponent hits it to my forehand side
but i have to move back but i don't have too much distance to cover i can do my split step get back
on this right leg so pivot and then use a couple of side shuffles to get in position
the other situation is when you hit a ball that's not too wide so i've hit my forehand
and i only have a couple of feet to cover i'll use that side shuffle step so i've hit
my forehand now i just have to get two steps back and then i'll do that second one as a split step
another time you use it is on the smash if the smash is quite close to you so you'll land off
the split step you'll pivot around you just have a few feet to cover i'll use that side shuffle step
and then hit my smash and once again at the end of the video i'll show you a simple drill to help
you improve your side shuffle step now the next step we're going to speak about is the important
crossover step the crossover step is this i'm now pushing off my right leg i'm going to my
left side and i'm now crossing over this left leg with my right leg so i'm doing this step across
the body so it's this so i cross over to my right now with my left leg crossing over crossing over
now the crossover step has many benefits over the side shuffle step so if i want
to get back to the middle of the core now and i use the side shuffle one two
three it takes me about three side shuffle steps to go from the tram line to the center of the
core if i use a crossover step now i can get there probably in one and a half or two so one
one and a half and i'm back in the middle so i can cover much more ground but also it uses
less energy because i'm using the momentum of the body and the legs are just following
along whereas with the side shuffle i have to use the leg muscles to actually propel myself
in any direction but with the crossover step i'm simply using that momentum i'm creating by moving
this way but now i'm just simply allowing my leg to almost drag along using that crossover step
the more space you now have to cover that's when the crossover steps become the key step in that
recovery and later in the video i'll show you a really good drill to help you improve your
crossover steps to get more distance with each one now we move on to the next step
which is the cross behind step so we've done the crossover step where you're crossing over
now we're doing the cross behind
so i'm in this position instead of doing a crossover right leg coming across my left leg so
in front i'm going behind and that's why it's called the cross behind step so if i'm moving
this way i can go cross behind cross behind and if i'm moving to the right cross behind cross behind
once again you can cover quite a large amount of distance with a couple of these cross behind steps
so the cross behind step is a great way for you to move in different directions using those cross
behind steps sometimes you can't use a crossover step so let's say i've hit a wide back end i've
been pushed out wide i'm way off the court side steps won't work but also my legs aren't aligned
to allow me to do a crossover step so i've hit a wide backhand i'm in this kind of position here
now my back leg my left leg is going to cross behind and i'm back in position so we'll often
see federer using this cross behind step when he's being pushed out wide on either the forehand or
the backhand side so i'm pushed out wide i stop the feet aren't aligned cross behind cross behind
and the last step we're going to cover in this video is that first step to the ball so that
initial step in getting you to a ball especially a wider ball or shorter ball you have to be quick
on you have to be explosive on and often we see players struggle with that first step they're not
explosive they don't know how to actually move to the ball so a common error that players will make
is because they've been taught the side step the crossover step or the cross behind step when
recovering they think they also can move to wider forehands or wider backhands with those same steps
so they end up moving like a crap they do their split step and they start moving like this and
then they start to prepare the racket this takes too long it's wasting time you're wasting energy
and it's not going to work in the long run the much easier option is to land off that split step
turn your body so pivot around the outside leg if i'm going to my forehand this is my right leg
if i'm going to my backhand this is my left leg so i'm on the balls of my feet
i land i pivot and now i just do a normal running step to that ball this will cover much more
distance this will save me energy throughout the course of a match and i'll get there much quicker
and have time to then set up so i'm landing pivoting and then sprinting out so land pivot
run and that first step with either leg so if you're going to your forehand it'll be this
right leg if i can make this part more explosive i can cover much more ground with that first step if
it's explosive i land and i push off so once again we're going to show you a drill in a little while
on how to improve that explosive power with that first step so the first drill is for that split
step i'm going to get in that wide base and i'm simply going to hop over the line and come back
always being on the balls of my feet so never going on the heels
when i'm doing this drill so there and back is one and we go for ten of those in a row
that's the first drill very simple very basic and you can do this anywhere even in your own
home going from the doubles tramline to the singles and back always being in that split step
position so wide base and always maintaining my body weight on the balls of my feet so there back
that's two
and you can go for five of those ten of those depending on your fitness level the drill is
for the side shuffle step so we're going to use the tram lines once again you're starting
outside of the tram line you're going to do a couple of side shuffle steps so that you end up
on the other side of the tram lines and then you recover so simply side side side stop come back
that's two a little bit faster three
and you can see i'm not using big side shuffle steps i'm using small ones more
for those adjustment steps now we do the same drill but we try to make the steps as big as
possible so instead of these small steps i'm now just going one two one two and you can see i'm
getting my body weight in the middle of that line so the center of gravity would be above this line
and i'm pushing off one two three four five six the next drill is for the crossover and the cross
behind step so to begin i'm going to be doing the left leg is always in front so from here to
there it will be crossing over and then on the way back my right leg will be crossing behind
so it's going to look like so cross over cross behind cross over cross behind so there and back
would be one you can go for four or five of those in a row and then you swap over so now my left leg
is crossing behind and then my right leg will be crossing over so cross behind stop cross over
cross behind stop cross over and the final drill is now for that first step speed so i'm going to
start on one singles tram line so this line here i'm going to start on one leg at a time
so my right leg to begin i push forward now with the right leg and the left leg then does its
job so from the front it's going to look like so there push off push off same position and push off
balls of feet push off ball to the feet and push off now if you've enjoyed the video
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as soon as we release them signing off simon from ttt all the best and see you soon guys take care