Introduction
About a year ago, I was at a coaching summit with some of the best coaches from all over the world – including Australia, Argentina, the United States – and we were talking a lot about movement. It was a select group of coaches who have worked at the top tennis federations, worked with number #1 players in the world and all had decades of experiences working with the best tennis athletes in the world. However, when we were looking at the same movements on the tennis court, most of us had a different names for the exact same movement. This set a series of steps in place that required extensive research and evaluation. The first step was to evaluate the thousands of possible tennis movements on the court and then simplify and summarize the most common movement patterns used consistently on the tennis court. We connected with some International Tennis Performance Association (iTPA) professionals and started the in-depth process to create a tennis movement and footwork guide with consistent language.
The Steps
After watching thousands of hours of tape, consulting with dozens of the best coaches and players in the world, we were able to simplify tennis movements down to the most often utilized tennis movements at all levels of the game:
- Lateral movements
- Backwards movements
- Forward movements
- Recovery movements
- Volley & overhead movements
- Movements off the return of serve
- Movements off the serve
All movements on the tennis court can be categorized into one of those movement categories. This creates a common language for all tennis players, regardless of location in the world, to understand and learn from. The entire movement list has over 35 specific movements that occur regularly on the tennis court and the entire workbook is provided free by the iTPA if you sign-up for the iTPA email at www.itpa-tennis.org
For example…
Now that we have established a common language for movement, here are some examples of the different types of movements a tennis player uses during a game. The examples shown here are the most common movements, and are often seen in multiple of the above categories. For example, a pivot step is a lateral movement but also a movement used to hit a volley on the tennis court. We detail these movements in our course: Tennis Movement & Footwork Common Language Live Presentation by Dr. Kovacs – https://kovacsinstitute.learnworlds.com/course?courseid=tennismovementkovacs (note this is a separate course and cost than the KI Academy website).
Or if you want our very in-depth movement course which includes over four hours of quality education all performed on the court with specific drills and progressions you should check out the SECRETS OF TENNIS MOVEMENT COURSE which Coach Gabe and myself showcases some of the best tactics, drills and exercises to help you expand your tennis-specific movement and bring your game to the next level. Featuring the best experts in the game and over four hours of instruction to help you become more efficient, faster, explosive & powerful in all aspects of tennis-specific movement https://kovacsinstitute.learnworlds.com/course?courseid=movementseries (note this is a separate course and cost than the KI academy website).
Interested in learning more about movement and footwork in tennis? Check out the courses at https://kovacsinstitute.learnworlds.com/pages/courses for more information on how to improve your game!
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